Strategy in TECH...
Gibson Brands announced at the end of last week that it had successfully completed a $16.6 million coupon payment to holders of its $375 million 8.875% senior secured notes due 2018. This news, a seemingly positive development for the company, really only means that they get to march forward towards their mid-year debt maturities – the big event. But, for the moment at least, they are stayin’ alive.
After an interminably long wait of around a year, CEDIA finally announced this week their new three-year strategy. This “new” strategy takes us through 2020 and is based on three areas of focus, in summary: 1) education; 2) standards, guidelines & best practices; and 3) engagement with design and build community.
Why did I put the word “new” in quotations? Read on…
In sort of a cross-technology sharing agreement, Bryston says it has partnered with relative newcomer StormAudio to create new products that will embody shared technologies from the two premium companies. According to the announcement, the agreement will enable “both companies to leverage their respective design and manufacturing expertise in an array of new product offerings.”
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.
Monster, Inc. (formerly Monster Cable) announced this week that it is launching its first ever television ad during the NBC broadcast of Super Bowl LII this Sunday, February 4. Usually the biggest TV event of the year, Super Bowl commands a king’s ransom in fees for advertisers, reportedly $5 million for a 30-second spot according to Sports Illustrated. Monsters ad? A full 60-second spot.
CEDIA announced this week that it was promoting Tabatha O’Connor to permanent CEDIA Global President and CEO. O’Connor, a sixteen-year CEDIA association employee, had recently been serving as the “acting” President and CEO in the wake of the sudden dismissal of former CEO Vin Bruno in 2017.
Unfortunately, what this means is the organization has decided to go back to day-to-day association management of operations, rather than drive growth through a strong, visionary CEO with industry experience and great force-of-will to stem the erosion of the organization’s influence.
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.
Just last week, we learned that real estate investment company Somera Road filed a lawsuit in the Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville, alleging that Gibson Brands had reneged on a deal to sell them a property known as the Valley Arts building. Now, in a report from the Nashville Post, we’ve learned that another party has sued Gibson over the same property.
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.
Luxul announced today that in response to its growing business, it has added two key hires in product management and technical writing. Joining the networking solutions provider are John Epeneter as its new product manager and Lindsay Bull as technical writer.
