Strategy in TECH...
A hearing before a California federal judge brought an ugly exchange between attorneys for both Sonos and Google – with each side pointing their finger at the other and accusing them of bad faith. That attorneys got ugly against their counterparts is not in itself surprising. However, the speed with which this dispute devolved to that point was a surprise.
CEDIA, the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association, announced earlier this week that it has named Giles Sutton, current Senior Vice President of Member Success and Sales, and Kory Dickerson, current Senior Vice President of Operations, as Interim Co-CEOs, replacing Tabatha O’Connor – the current CEO whose contract is ending in January. The Board of Directors had previously announced that it decided not to extend O’Connor’s contract, but didn’t say why. Ostensibly, the organization is still searching for a more permanent solution, but for now, we get two CEOs instead of one.
High end audio manufacturer Rega Research has appointed The Sound Organisation as its authorized distributor for Canada. Based in Arlington, Texas, The Sound Organisation is a well-known distributor of fine high-end, high-performance specialty audio brands and has been Rega’s U.S. distributor for two decades.
EVA Automation, the now former owner of Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) dodged a bullet when late last month U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, the Honorable Hannah L. Blumenstiel, entered an order dismissing the involuntary petition for Chapter 7 bankruptcy brought against them by Top Victory Investments Limited (whose attorneys use the acronym TPV). With that decision, a forced bankruptcy was avoided. However, as court records clearly demonstrate, the company did feel some pain as a result of this filing, and according to their attorneys were in the process of conducting an orderly shut down of the business.
Not only that, but we learn much more about EVA Automation‘s relationship with Bowers & Wilkins – and their degraded circumstances based largely on the failure of their Formation wireless speaker line marketed under the B&W brand.
Sonos, Inc. [NASDAQ: SONO] released their fourth quarter and full year financial results for fiscal 2020. Their performance pleasantly surprised Wall Street and their stock value exploded well over 20% in Thursday trading as the company exceeded analysts’ estimates for both revenue growth and profits. But is everything as it appears here?
For the most part, when it comes to audio shows, either trade or consumer, 2020 has been a bust. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, with one exception – the Florida Audio Expo in Tampa, FL in February – all other events were cancelled. So what does that mean for 2021? Guest poster Bill Leebens has compiled a list of top audio shows for 2021 showing their current status…
We may have been aware of every agonizing second of Plague Year 2020 as they slowly ticked by, but as far as audio shows go—2020 was literally a no-show. In the US, February’s Florida Audio Expo in Tampa was the first and last audio-only show of the year. Since then, show after show has been delayed or cancelled—in several instances, delayed, and THEN cancelled.
Onkyo Corporation had a really tough fiscal 2020 – the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2020. How tough was it? So tough that the company was forced to announce that a massive drop in revenues and record losses had pushed the company into insolvency – calling into question its ability to continue as a going concern. It doesn’t get much tougher than that. And this announcement triggered a Tokyo Stock Exchange action – invoking a rule that starts a clock on a limited grace period for the company to cure the situation – their insolvency – before a forced delisting from the JASDAQ stock exchange is implemented.
On Tuesday, specialty voice control supplier Josh.ai held an event they called their “keynote” which turned out to be a very professionally produced video presentation of a significant product launch for the company. In this presentation, the company Founder and CEO Alex Capecelatro shared his thoughts on smart home technologies, including the thought that smaller is better when it comes to smart home devices.
And with that, Capecelatro introduced their new Nano and Core products.
Last week, CEDIA announced their CEDIA Propel initiative, said to be a new “Affinity Program” designed to offer members a new kind of benefit. The announcement caught my eye almost immediately because this program is unlike other other affinity program with which I’m familiar. Typically such programs offer members benefits such as special pricing on health insurance or discounts on UPS shipping and the like. In this case, CEDIA is recommending technology brands who offer discount programs to CEDIA members on their products.
To me, this sounded at least a little bit like the kind of service provided by a buying group.
