Strategy in TECH...
In a new and troubling sign that the economy is not yet out of the woods, government data showed that for the month of July, retail sales barely crept up 1.2% overall. But there was one bright spot in the government’s report – retail sales of electronics and appliances jumped an impressive 23%.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against B&H Photo Video alleging that the NY retailer has operated a scheme to avoid paying the State of New York millions of dollars in taxes on money earned from manufacturer reimbursements. The State says B&H violated New York Tax Law, New York Executive Law, and the New York False Claims Act, and for this reason is asking the court for treble damages that are potentially in the tens of millions of dollars.
Onkyo USA announced this week that it will become a retailer of Sonos wireless music systems – selling the company’s wireless music systems on Onkyo USA’s website. The company also says it will distribute the brand nationally as well.
Bravas Group, a cooperative of integrators aggregated by Paul Starkey and Steve Firszt of VITAL MGMT, was first put together as part of VITAL MGMT’s consulting practice helping member companies better organize their operations, improve their financial performance, and drive greater profitability. Ultimately, the group’s fifteen members coalesced into one widely-spread unified organization, with over-arching centralized management and plans for the group to be packaged and sold.
Now, in a deal said to be valued at $75 million, Bravas Group has been sold to Presidio Investors, a private equity investment company with offices in San Francisco, CA and Austin, TX.
Amazon has announced that the end-of-life for its Dash button is rapidly approaching. If you’ve been dying to try it, better move quick – Amazon will completely disable the system just three short weeks from now on August 31st.
Formally announced back in April, Sonos has collaborated with IKEA on a line of products for which it has great expectations. The first products of this collaboration – a table lamp with speaker built-in, and a thin bookshelf speaker that sits on a shelf and LOOKS LIKE a book…are finally now available. Will IKEA fans turn out in droves to buy these new models?
Credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the credit rating of Wirepath LLC (corporate name of SnapAV) from B2 to B3 in the wake of their announced acquisition of Control4. The primary reason for the downgrade is due to the fact that SnapAV will be forced to increase their debt by an additional $390 million to a new high of $683 million in order to close on this acquisition.
According to the most recent data from retail industry market researcher Coresight Research, retail store closings just a little over one quarter into 2019 are nearing the total number of store closings for all of 2018. This data includes both those retail companies falling into bankruptcy…and those trimming locations out of their overall footprint while remaining in business.
At the urging the industry minister of Japan, the country’s Fair Trade Commission will look at a new program announced by Amazon Japan that some suggest may be anti-competitive in nature. Depending on the Commission’s findings, Amazon may be forced to abandon the idea, which is a form of a consumer rebate program.
CES 2019 is over the hump, closing tomorrow. But the top tech stories are pretty big and pretty clearly defined – and will be quite exciting, when they appear…someday. The top tech stories include – LG’s rollable, bendable OLED displays, Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G – the next generation wireless tech, 8K TVs, autonomous vehicles – both car and motorcycle, and Apple & Siri strike back.
