Strategy in TECH...
A report by Rolling Stone magazine says that Tidal, the troubled streaming service owned by rapper Jay Z and a consortium of music industry personalities, has been accused of faking their data, manipulating stream counts to artificially boost figures for certain Beyoncé and Kanye West projects. Although Tidal denies the reports, some of the facts being reported are indeed troubling.
Best Buy has launched a corporate rebranding that is both sweeping in style and represents a shocking reversal of course, undoing much of its original mission that was created when founder Dick Schulze, President Brad Anderson and crew launched an entirely new store concept known as “Concept II.” Concept II was a reinvention of their formerly more traditional superstore design to a new warehouse style discount store designed to deliver the “Best Buy” on all things tech. This new branding change is to such a significant degree that even Advertising Age Magazine (AdAge) devoted significant space to an analysis of it.
Founded in 1894, it is a mark of their long-term brand success that Gibson has become such a large and far-flung international organization. In a cursory review of documents submitted to the court as part of their bankruptcy filing shows, legendary performers such as Muddy Waters, BB King, Elvis Presley, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards, Duane Allman, Elvis Costello, Lenny Kravitz, Slash, Dave Grohl, Joe Bonamassa all used various Gibson products that, in some cases, became a signature of that performer. And yes, the bankruptcy filing promotes these iconic names.
Gibson Brands Inc. announced today that it has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Chapter 11 denotes the company plans a reorganization and the company says it has reached an agreement with certain existing bondholders called a “Restructuring Support Agreement.” This agreement is with holders of more than 69.0% of the debt due in 2018
Amazon has a super secret project that just might change the world…again. I have long said that the brilliance of Amazon’s Alexa-based Echo and Dot devices comes from their realization that voice control belonged in the home. While Apple (Siri) and Google (OK Google) digital voice assistants in the past were viewed predominantly as a hands-free voice assist for when you’re driving – Amazon took a different route…right into the American living room. Brilliant, and now Google and Apple are playing “catch up.”
Now we learn that there’s a new project in Amazon’s secretive Lab126 that could once again change our world.
For the first time, because of a change in Google’s accounting, we get a look at the real financial numbers of Nest and analysts are truly surprised. It turns out, according to a report by Recode, that Nest is both smaller than many thought, and is losing a lot of money on an operating basis – so much so that it appears that any hope of profitability is far off in the future…if at all.
Gibson Brands CEO Henry Juszkiewicz has been very busy lately as he scrambles to arrange a $550 million bailout package in a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy for the storied brand. But he’s about to get a little busier as one of Gibson Guitar’s vendors, Tronical of Hamburg, Germany, sues the company for $50 million it says it is owed.
In an announcement out of Hong Kong and reported on by Bloomberg News and others, TCL Multimedia, the large Chinese manufacturer of mostly inexpensive televisions, has announced it has obtained the rights to the Onkyo brand name which it intends to use to create Smart AV products. The company says it has the rights to the Onkyo brand globally, in all markets except Japan.
It was only a matter of months ago that Strata-gee broke the news that EVA Automation founder Gideon Yu, the new owner of Bowers and Wilkins (B&W), had dismissed Doug Henderson, President of the B&W Group North America. It was a move that was to send shock waves around the industry and presaged a round of additional staff departures (and additions) as Yu worked to restructure the company.
Now we can report that Henderson is the new Senior Vice President of Home Audio at JL Audio, the scrappy upstart that launched first in the 12-volt business, but has since expanded into the marine, powersports, and home audio segments as well.
We learned last week that talks between Gibson Brands and deal making king KKR Credit Advisors fell apart in a dispute over “the appropriate consideration for the various parties involved,” according to a statement from Gibson Brands. As yet another bail-out opportunity slips by them, Gibson Brands sees their options narrowing, with an August deadline on a required financial restructuring of more than $500 million of debt rapidly approaching.
