Strategy in TECH...
The battle rages on between D&M Holdings and Sonos over the patent infringement lawsuit brought by Sonos in 2014 against the HEOS by Denon line, and in which Sonos won the first set of their claims in a bellwether trial that concluded this past December. In retaliation for the Sonos lawsuit, D&M Holdings filed a countersuit that is now heating up, and in which they just lost a major decision from Judge Richard G. Andrews.
Unless you live under a rock, you most likely have heard about Amazon Go, the experimental grocery store that uses technology to allow shoppers to bypass the checkout counter and simply walk out the door with their purchases. Within minutes of leaving, they receive an email of the items they left with, and the receipt with the charges to a card of their (previously registered) choice. The idea is to eliminate a signficant pain point – standing in line for the sometimes time-consuming checkout process.
Major news services are reporting that a significant scientific breakthrough has yielded a new projection technology that offers incredibly realistic 3D holographic images that are eerily similar to that scene in the original Star Wars movie when R2-D2 projected a holographic image of Princess Leia delivering a message to Obi-Wan Kenobi.
James Loudspeaker, the scrappy, custom creation-centric speaker manufacturer, announced this week a new series of 2.1 soundbars. By 2.1, they mean the soundbar reproduces left-channel audio, right channel audio, and deep bass via an included subwoofer…all in one. Because of this unique configuration, James calls it their LR-S soundbar.
One month ago, on December 6th, Strata-gee launched a series of articles on recurring monthly revenue (RMR) programs based on research conducted for a cover story in the December issue of Residential Systems Magazine. That Series, called Strata-SERIES: RMR, ran the entire month of December and into January with a total of five posts of content, plus an additional Series introduction and this Series wrap-up.
[NOTE: This post is part of a series of articles on recurring monthly revenue programs we call Strata-SERIES: RMR. It will likely make more sense to you if you start by reading our Series Introduction here… and then our Topic Introduction and First Installment here…]
Because he had worked with an alarm company for the last twenty years, Matt Walin of Costa Mesa, CA-based Brilliant AV was very familiar with the concept of RMR programs as it related to central station security system monitoring. But as it specifically relates to residential AV and home automation solutions, it was about two years ago when they began exploring the process of offering their clients some form of a maintenance agreement covering their system installations.
Control4 announced today that it has acquired remote system monitoring and management pioneer Ihiji of Austin, TX. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The deal sends a strong signal of the growing importance of remote installation monitoring and management systems for integrators moving forward.
NOTE: This post is part of a series of articles on recurring monthly revenue programs we call Strata-SERIES: RMR Programs. It will likely make more sense to you if you start by reading our Series Introduction here… and then our Topic Introduction and First Installment here…
In our last installment, we learned how Chris Smith and the team at Cloud9 Smart have embraced maintenance contracts in order to ensure they have the infrastructure in place to properly maintain and service their installations. In this installment, we visit with Ben Lentz and the team at Cyber Technology Group who had a slightly different motivation for developing an RMR program they call the Client Care Plan for their clients…and income was NOT the main motivating factor.
Korean media is touting a major breakthrough in battery technology from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) called graphene ball. Said to dramatically improve both charging capacity and charging speed, the breakthrough could have a real impact on consumers who have come to rely on their battery driven mobile devices. And there are implications as well for electric automobiles and other applications.
A new survey conducted by the CTA just this past September shows what tech products consumers are planning to buy to give as gifts for under the Christmas tree this year. And yes, we find the order of priority of some of these items very interesting.
