Strategy in TECH...
This week, high-end specialty brand Bryston announced that long time company Vice President James Tanner had partnered with Colquhoun Audio Laboratories, Ltd. to acquire the company. The news was a bit of a surprise and appears to be connected to Bryston CEO Chris Russell’s decision to retire from the company.
Here’s a dilemma…imagine you make a product that is so good that it may be your peak achievement. It’s built solidly with great technology, sounds great, and works today…and for many years of tomorrows-to-come. Your engineers forgot to build in “planned obsolescence” where the product will “automatically” require upgrading a few years down the road. In fact, it’s built so well, you put an industry-leading 20-year warranty on it!
How do you get owners – who are, for the most part, blissfully enjoying this product for years and years – to upgrade to the latest version with even newer and better technology? It is a conundrum that Bryston faced…and has now solved…by offering an easy upgrade program for owners of their famous 4B amplifiers.
I had barely lit up the pixels with my post on Nortek’s holiday termination of their remaining independent sales representative groups, when I began hearing from a number of other sources about high-end specialty brand Bryston terminating their rep force as well. It’s like a New Year’s assault on sales representative groups…and they aren’t happy about it…
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.”
By now you’ve likely heard that sales of vinyl records are growing to meaningful levels. We recently reported in March that while sales of all physical media are down, vinyl sales grew 32.2% to over $416 million dollars last year. While this is small compared to historical highs, it is part of a trend that has been developing – vinyl sales have grown each of the last ten years in a row.
Now specialty manufacturer Bryston announces their entry into the analog turntable field – the source necessary to play all that vinyl – with the all-new BLP-1. Bryston, more known for their electronics, looks to have done their homework on this impressive new model.
High-end manufacturer Bryston announced the launch of a major new line of amplifiers – they call it their “Cubed” Series – at CES in Las Vegas this week. This new line replaces their respected “Squared” Series launched back in 2009 and embodies the latest technological breakthroughs from the company’s continuing research.
