Strategy in TECH...
Reuters reported that all Google Glass social media pages went dark last week…with no explanation given. It was an ignominious end to one of the most anticipated tech products with one of the greatest buzz building campaigns of all time. Alas, in the end all we got was a costly beta test…
Apple, Inc. is starting to look brown, bruised, and past its prime in wake of the surprising quarterly results that showed growth in sales of their bellwether iPhone product to be the slowest since the company launched the product category in 2007. Not only that, but the company forecast an overall sales decline for the first quarter of 2016 – their first sales decline since 2003. Reaction from Wall Street was swift with the price of Apple stock down more than 6% in mid-afternoon trading.
CES is back and its bigger than ever. According to the CTA (formerly CEA), the show spans 2.3 million sq.ft. of exhibit space, in which more than 3,600 exhibitors of all sizes and types have set up booths to hawk their wares. The show is expected to draw more than 150,000 attendees and 6,000 member of the press. It is impossible to cover the entire event…it has just gotten too large.
Luckily, with the industry stuck in several well-worn trends, we in the media can focus our attention beyond these usual suspects – automotive tech (autonomous vehicles and related technologies), drones, 4K UHD TV, Internet of Things (IoT), wearables – to new areas (such as Virtual Reality), and iterative updates from current companies.
Adam Levy, one of the original founding executives of SnapAV in 2006 who left the organization about a year ago “to try some other things,” has rejoined the organization and been appointed President. Levy will be in charge of store operations with day-to-day operational responsibility focused on serving their dealers.
Several reports have emerged saying that Apple, Inc. has told suppliers that it is committed to upgrading the displays on its popular iPhone from the current LCD-based touchscreen to an OLED display, starting in 2018. This decision has industry-wide ramifications and has suppliers scrambling to increase the capacity of their OLED factories. There are also competitive ramifications from this decision that is bound to rattle competitors.
Control4 Corporation announced today that it will begin offering Denon products to Control4 dealers through a web portal at which products from both brands can be purchased. The move is a first for both brands, as far as we’re aware, and represents a potential expansion of Denon’s distribution channel.
ProSource, a national dealer buying group, announced this week that it has cut a deal with DTS Inc., to partner in marketing and promoting its Play-Fi wireless music system products. DTS, which announced an expanded roster of Play-Fi participating manufacturers at CEDIA Expo, has been a bit behind other wireless makers before now, but is seen as picking up the pace of its expansion.
At last month’s CEDIA Expo, we had the opportunity to meet Wilfried Van Baelen, the rather energetic, almost evangelistic, inventor of Auro-3D immersive surround sound technology. Van Baelen was quick to take credit for the concept of using speakers in the “z-axis” (height) to create a totally immersive surround experience. And he scoffed at the Dolby Atmos and DTS:X versions which miss the mark in several important ways, he tells us.
At last month’s CEDIA Expo, Core Brands announced that it has retained Vision Werks Consulting to help it establish a brand protection program. According to Core Brands release, Vision Werks will primarily be involved in issues revolving around unauthorized online resellers.
Denise Nemchev, the popular former President of AV Tech segment for Nortek, Inc., who was let go in the wake of a major company restructuring, has now been named President & CEO of tvONE, according to a report by AVNetwork. tvONE is a supplier of professional video conversion and signal distribution equipment. Once part of Nortek itself, tvONE recently was split-off from Nortek through a management buyout by the company’s existing managers in July of this year.
