Strategy in TECH...
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the organization that owns and operates the Consumer Electronics Show, has notified members that it has “changed our [dues] structure and dues.” They weren’t kidding, depending on the membership category your company falls under, along with your annual revenues, your dues may have increased greater than five-fold, starting with your 2023 dues. Ouch!
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known as Foxconn, the world’s largest contract manufacturer, surprised many on Tuesday when they announced they were raising their outlook for the quarter and for the year based on what they say is improving supply chain stability in China. The company is one of the largest suppliers for many companies, including Apple, Inc.
For the last two and a half years, many industries have struggled with supply chain issues – especially Tech. During that period of time, I’ve heard over and over from integrators who were furious at one company or another for failing to deliver on their open orders. I’ve heard expletives hurled at pretty much every brand in the industry…including Crestron.
Now, in a letter to dealers from Crestron Chief Operating Officer Daniel Brady, dealers are being told that the company is “in a better position now than ever before.”
At the end of last week, Snap One Holdings Corp. released the results of their fiscal 2022 first quarter, a period which ended April 1, 2022, with comparisons to the same quarter last year, which ended on March 26, 2021. The company showed good revenue growth in the quarter but is still dealing with a net loss – albeit less of one than in 2021.
Today in Osaka District Court in Osaka, Japan, Onkyo Home Entertainment Co. Ltd. (formerly Onkyo Corp.) filed for bankruptcy ending a long and storied history of innovative audio products. The action was taken less than a month after the company declared bankruptcy for two of its major subsidiaries in April. Now, the parent company has fallen as well…
More and more evidence continues to emerge suggesting that the economy is undergoing a fundamental shift, a turn if you will, that will at least slow economic growth – and may lead to recession. Perhaps the clearest indicator of that is the turn taken by tech, which has lost a trillion dollars in value in just three days of trading on the stock market. For the last two-plus years, tech was the driving force behind a dramatic economic expansion during the pandemic. What is happening now?
Savant offered industry media a presentation revealing their vision of the deep integration of energy sources (and uses) into a fully-fledged, well-thought-out, total smart home system. To drive the industry towards this future, Savant’s vision is expansive, intelligent, and in my mind, pretty exciting. It starts with a foundation of power and how to make it smarter.
Below, you’ll find some of the key highlights of Savant’s plans for smart energy.
AudioControl, a specialty electronics manufacturer of innovative residential, commercial, and mobile audio products, revealed today that it has upgraded the semiconductor technology resident in its recently introduced 70-volt, dual-mode CM line of amplifiers. This upgrade, to Gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors, offers many performance improvements over traditional silicon-based ICs and is said to take the performance of this category to a whole new level.
For years, many Tampa, FL-area integrators relied upon distributor Dow Technologies as a valued supply partner for the technology solutions they needed to complete their system designs and installations. But not long ago, the owners of Dow Technologies acquired an integration business and merged it with their existing satellite installation business to create a new Tampa integrator they call SMARTSolutions – and now many of those same integrators say a partner…has become a competitor. And they are quite angry about it…
I’m not sure that anyone in Tech has done more than Strata-gee to report on the issue of the failing supply chain and its at times ruinous impact on our industry. My very first report on the supply chain – AKM Fire: 2020 was Almost Over, Then Disaster Struck Again – is the second most-read story I’ve ever written in my life. I had always assumed that the issue was so big that everyone was affected equally.
But then I discovered, almost by accident, that one company has a clever strategy to beat the shortages. That company is Savant, and their strategy is equal parts brilliant…and a bit insane.
