Strategy in TECH...
Last Friday, Amazon founder and now former CEO Jeff Bezos woke up the richest man in the world. He has been the richest man in the world for quite some time now. Yet when he went to bed Friday evening, he was no longer. And the reason that’s so should serve as a warning to you and all of us in the tech biz in 2021.
Snap One Holdings Corp (Snap One) – formerly SnapAV – has filed an S-1 registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in preparation for an initial public offering (IPO) of its stock on a public exchange. In this S-1 filing, we learn much about the company’s current position and what its plan is to grow the operation to even loftier heights.
Ever since Crestron launched Crestron Home it became obvious that there had been a sea change in the company’s go-forward strategy. The new Home operating system was easier to program and deploy, more visually attractive for end-users, and more clearly differentiated from their more robust high-end programming solutions. But also, the company’s style of operation changed as well, from doing it all in-house to opening itself up to partnerships.
Now we learn of two more in a long line of technology partnerships as the company continues to evolve and propel Crestron Home down the path to becoming the dominant smart home OS in the industry. The new partnerships are with Josh.ai and Somfy, both well-regarded technology players in the custom integration channel.
STRATA-GEE – This is the fourth and final installment of our contemplation on the controversy swirling around MQA. I want to start by thanking Bill Leebens for the many, many…MANY hours he spent interviewing, speaking with his editor (me), writing, and rewriting these pieces. It was a lot of work that for him, I’m afraid, will largely be thankless, as one side or the other will decry his work. At the same time, Bill and I end up in a slightly different place and you can see some of my thoughts at the end of his piece. But none of that takes away from the herculean effort this topic represented and I am eternally grateful to Bill Leebens for his thoughtful approach.
Voxx International has announced that they have finalized their agreement to partner with Sharp Corporation to acquire the Home Entertainment Division of Onkyo – news that Strata-gee readers knew about last week. The news comes as a result of Onkyo shareholders voting last Friday to approve the sale of the company to Voxx’s subsidiary known as the Premium Audio Company. Not much was new here on the Onkyo front, as we already told you about the deal only covering the Onkyo and Integra brands. However, we did learn some more interesting details on the company’s attempts relative to the Pioneer and Pioneer Elite brands.
Recently, in a special Zoom presentation for Strata-gee by SnapAV executives Jeff Hindman (Chief Revenue Officer) and Kordon Vaughn (VP Marketing), I was about to learn about the company’s new brand strategy going forward. Ever since SnapAV acquired their largest division, Control4, there has been much speculation about how to address the market with two strong, well-known brands. I joked, “So what’s it going to be…ControlAV or Snap4?
It turns out I wasn’t that far off, as the executives shared with me that they would be rebranding the organization as Snap One.
Well after much coverage on the VOXX/Onkyo deal by Strata-gee, in which VOXX remained strangely silent, the company finally issued a press release today in which they acknowledged that they had signed an asset purchase agreement (APA) with Onkyo for $30.8 million. The deal remains subject to approval by Onkyo shareholders in a vote scheduled to take place on June 25, 2021.
This news was likely not a surprise to Strata-gee readers. But what was a surprise is that this purchase does NOT include the Pioneer and Pioneer Elite brands.
Bryston Ltd., a well-regarded manufacturer of high-end audio and home theater gear, announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with Azione Unlimited, a nationwide buying group of integrators. The move looks to expand their potential network of dealers here in the U.S.
SnapAV announced today (Tuesday) that its latest rendition of its automation brand Control4’s OS 3 operating software – OS 3.2.2 – finally introduces full support of the company’s popular OvrC remote management platform. No doubt part of their ongoing integration strategy since they first acquired Control4, this news is sure to make life just a little easier for their Control4 dealers who support OvrC.
On Wednesday, at a specially convened meeting of the Board of Directors for Onkyo Home Entertainment Co. Ltd. (Onkyo), company directors formally voted to authorize the transfer of Onkyo’s home AV division to the partnership of VOXX, Intl. and Sharp Corporation, in a deal valued at $30.3 million. The transaction is pending shareholder approval. This development represents real progress on a deal that had appeared to be bogged down recently.
