Strategy in TECH...
Bloomberg News reported late on Monday that Apple is dropping Sonos [NASDAQ: SONO] and other non-Apple branded products from their stores. The news of Sonos losing such a major customer caused their stock to derail in after hours trading, down almost 7% in value at one point. On Tuesday, Sonos stock price closed down 3.2% as Wall Street digested the news.
Bang & Olufsen A/S, the well-known Danish premium technology brand that balances high performance with high design, has spent a year searching for a prospective buyer. The good news is that they were successful. The bad news is that they were only a little successful…they found exactly one potentially interested party. And as any businessperson can tell you, that there is only one bidder doesn’t bode well for sparking a bidding war to drive up the deal to ever more profitable levels.
Last month, we reported on the pre-launch of a new brand…the rather boldly named AudioXperts – founded by well-known industry veteran, Eli Harary and the team of sales, marketing, engineering, and product specialists he assembled. This pre-launch announcement was then followed-up by an official launch at a press event in Manhattan on Tuesday of this week. For a lot of reasons, this was a notable event – not the least of which is that there are very few new companies launching in the current incredibly difficult industry environment. But this “birth of a brand” also – for a number of reasons – set a very high bar for expectations related to its launch, which drew a substantial press contingent.
<June 1, 2011> Lenbrook America Corporation President and CEO Dean Miller began with an apology. In a May 20th email communication with BEACON editor Ted Green, Miller apologized for his lack of responsiveness, saying that until he read last month’s BEACON he was unaware that attempts had been made by its editors to contact him. Miller, it seems, was on an aggressive two-week spin through Europe to attend a Tivoli event in Italy, a Munich high-end show in Germany, and finally a Lenbrook International distributor show.
