Strategy in TECH...
Nationwide Marketing Group’s Oasys Residential Technology Group division reported this week that its membership has grown “over 100%” in 2023, a remarkable achievement in a relatively short period of time. It also propels the overall organization towards its publicly stated goal of achieving a total of at least 1,000 custom integration members across its three brands as part of its “Drive to 1,000,” first announced in March this year.
Darren Myers doesn’t look like your typical audio electronics engineer. He also doesn’t sound like a typical audio engineer. A young guy with fresh ideas…maybe they make sense, maybe they don’t…I had an unusual, thought-provoking, and even at times surprising conversation with Darren Myers, Parasound’s Vice President of Research and Development.
See what Myers thinks about the revitalization of Parasound and what he believes is an exciting and expanding future for the entire high end audio industry.
Draper, Inc. announced this week that it has added a new 100,000 sq. ft. building to its campus in Spiceland, Indiana. This is its tenth building and this addition brings the company’s total footprint in Spiceland to no less than 500,000 sq. ft.
In a shocking twist to a long-running patent battle, U.S. District Court Judge William H Alsup declared Sonos’ ‘966 and ‘885 patents at trial are unenforceable and invalid effectively countermanding a jury decision on behalf of Sonos and a royalty award of $32.5 million. Furthermore, the judge’s order suggests that Sonos abused the patent system by attempting to use it to “punish an innovator” and to “enrich a[n] [innovation] pretender.”
Barely out of CEDIA Expo 2023, Snap One announced this week that it has launched six new warehouse locations they call local partner stores, further filling out its national distribution footprint. The company also said it will finish 2023 having hosted no fewer than 400 events – a prodigious effort at connecting with its customers, the local integrators.
Momentum Group, a leading manufacturer sales representative firm located in Denver and covering the greater Rocky Mountain region has announced that another sales rep firm, Synapse Sales and Marketing, has joined what they call a Manufacturers Rep Alliance with Momentum Group and Rio Grande Reps. This new partnership greatly expands the group’s area of operation and offers many opportunities for greater efficiency and enhanced dealer support.
Earlier this week, I had a consequential visit with Crestron Electronics Corp. in which company executives talked about the overall business environment, supply chain issues, several new products, and their strategy going forward. It was quite revealing not only in content…but in tone.
It quickly became clear to me that after a period of playing defense, Crestron is going on offense…
There has been a flurry of activity in the Savant ecosphere lately, much of it causing a buzz in the industry. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had several integrators reaching out to let me know about some of these changes. Not all felt they were positive and many questioned the motivations behind the moves. Accordingly, I reached out to Savant to see if I could get some insight into just what is going on. The company responded by making President JC Murphy available to update me on a few of their recent moves.
Nice North America, part of the globally significant Nice S.p.A. of Italy, announced this week that it has implemented what it calls pivotal changes within its North American operations (U.S. and Canada) that it believes will “further boost growth and innovation.” It is the first major structural change here in the U.S. since Italy’s Nice acquired Nortek Security and Control from Melrose PLC back in October 2021.
It was eight years ago – all the way back to January 2015 – when I first reported on what looked to be a pretty ugly legal action beginning between Monster, LLC and Beats Electronics, LLC. While the lawsuit filed by Monster took place in January 2015, the actions that led them to that point actually began much earlier than that, all the way back to 2011. And the relationship between the two significant CE brands actually began even further back to 2009, when the two came together to create Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, the wildly popular consumer headphone brand.
But when the relationship ended…it ended badly…
