Strategy in TECH...
Power protection manufacturer SurgeX announced today that Jimmy Paschke, former Core Brands Director of CI, has joined the company as its new Southern Regional Sales Manager. The appointment is effective immediately.
Harman International Industries, Inc. announced today that is has acquired St. Louis-based Yurbuds, LLC., a manufacturer of headphones. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition seems surprising, given the fact that Harman already owns brands such as JBL and AKG that already offer headphones.
Just one day after we reported on layoffs at Velodyne’s audio division, we received word from the company that it is authorizing the Powerhouse Alliance, a national group of distributors, for its line of subwoofers. The agreement will make Velodyne subwoofers available to Powerhouse Alliances’ nationwide network of retailers and installers.
Screen Research, a line of high-performance projection screens owned by the Adeo Group of Italy, announced that it has selected specialty products distributor Grace Motif, Inc. as its exclusive distributor for the U.S. custom installation market, effective this month. Grace Motif has been the Screen Research distributor for the commercial market since the beginning of this year, so this announcement represents a significant expansion of the relationship.
On Wednesday, Lenbrook America, the exclusive distributor of NAD in the U.S., held a press presentation in a suite at the upscale Andaz 5th Avenue Hotel in Manhattan. It was a cool but gray and curiously humid day…still able to create enhanced perspiration for those rushing to the event from assorted train/subway/bus stops. But those members of the press who chose to attend were well rewarded for their efforts, as NAD launched a significant update to their Masters Series line – an update designed to further target a new customer that the company calls “Audiophile 2.0.”
Screen Innovations announced this week that it is launching new, larger sizes in its popular Black Diamond series of projection screens. The new larger screen size – in each of two aspect ratios – will now include: 120-inches (16:9)…and 150-inches (2.35:1).
The Financial Times reported this morning that Apple, Inc. will announce a new software solution for the connected home market at the Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco next week. The move follows a lot of activity in the connected home channel recently including: Control4 going public, Google acquiring Nest, Philips launching Hue (app controlled lighting), Belkin launching WeMo, Harman acquiring AMX…and now Apple seeking to bring it all together in the home.
Foxconn Technology Group, a division of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and a key supplier to major brands like Apple, Inc. and HP (formerly Hewlett Packard), had five former employees indicted by Taiwanese prosecutors on Wednesday in a major kickback scheme involving illicit payments from suppliers. The announcement of the scandal is sure to cause significant embarrassment for the company.
The release came across the wire at 8:00AM this morning and caught the industry totally off-guard – Harman International Industries, Inc. announced that it has signed an agreement with privately-held The Duchossois Group, Inc. to acquire its AMX, LLC subsidiary for $386 million. The move was not an immediately obvious one for Harman, which has been largely focused on building its automotive electronics division into a worldwide powerhouse.
Just days after two major promoters of OLED, Samsung Electronics and Sony Corp., announced a pullback of their support due to serious production difficulties causing low panel yields and low profitability – word comes out of South Korea that LG Electronics has solved the puzzle on how to profitably produce OLED panels. And while their competitors are shifting their efforts back to 4k Ultra HD LCD TVs, LG is ready to ramp up a major commitment to OLED.
