Sound & Communications NEWSLETTER, February 2019

PANDUIT ACQUIRES ATLONA

Panduit Corp. (Tinley Park IL), known for electrical and network infrastructure solutions, has announced that it has acquired Atlona (San Jose CA), which designs and develops products for a range of commercial AV and IT markets worldwide. Atlona’s product categories include networked AV, signal distribution, wireless collaboration and AV system automation. As part of the acquisition, the Atlona team will join Panduit’s Enterprise business group. Atlona will continue to serve its customers from its global headquarters for all sales, customer support and training-related inquiries. According to Dennis Renaud, President and CEO of Panduit, “[Atlona’s] industry-leading solutions complement Panduit’s extensive physical infrastructure portfolio, which will allow us to offer customers a quality end-to-end solution as they move to increasingly complex network infrastructure systems.” Ilya Khayn, Atlona’s CEO, added, “There are strong synergies between our companies.... This partnership will ultimately provide our market channels with a single-source solution and expand our footprint globally.”

MARCO EXPANDS IN WISCONSIN, PURCHASES ESG

Marco (St. Cloud MN), a technology services provider, has announced that it has purchased Enterprise Systems Group (ESG, Little Chute WI), a business IT services company. ESG has been providing technology solutions since 1992. The company has 75 employees, and it provides phone systems, access control and video surveillance, audio/video and data-networking solutions. ESG’s employees have joined the Marco team, and they’ll be serving customers from the company’s offices in Little Chute, Brookfield WI and Madison WI. Marco currently has six other offices in Wisconsin. The company will be operating as ESG for a short time. “We have been serving the state of Wisconsin for the past seven years,” Jeff Gau, Marco’s CEO, said. “This acquisition accelerates our growth in the IT services business throughout the state of Wisconsin and Upper Peninsula. We welcome ESG’s clients to Marco and look forward to being their technology provider.” This is Marco’s seventh acquisition in the past year. Last November, the company expanded to the east coast with its purchase of Phillips Office Solutions (Middletown PA), a copier/printer and document management solutions company. Marco now has 1,430 employees and serves more than 35,000 customers from its 64 locations nationally.

INLINE AUDIO DEBUTS AT NAMM SHOW

At the NAMM Show, Inline Audio (Hong Kong), which describes itself as an “audio incubator,” launched. The company’s Founders are Al Walker, who also serves as CEO, and Costa Lakoumentas, who also serves as COO. The company pairs product ideas and audio design talent with a community of investors. Inline Audio offers inventors a safe, secure outlet for their development ideas, along with the cross-functional technical, engineering, marketing and sales support they need to get started. The company invests its own resources in promising ideas, with the goal of bringing the products to market. The first phase of incubation is to get the product to a functional prototype. The second is to present the prototype as a commercially viable product. Having documentation, bills of materials, production schedules and sales forecasts, brands stand a better chance of securing the capital needed. Inline Audio presents funding opportunities in multiple rounds to appeal to a wide range of investors—from those interested in initial seed funding to those looking for fully developed brand and product propositions. Inline will leverage the supply chain that the Guangdong Pearl River Greater Bay Area offers.

LEA PROFESSIONAL LAUNCHES AT NAMM SHOW

LEA Professional (South Bend IN), which will debut a series of amplifiers in the coming months, launched in January at the NAMM Show in Anaheim CA. The engineering, sales/marketing and executive teams feature leaders in their fields who have considerable accomplishments regarding product innovation, business transformation and growth. Blake Augsburger is Founder and CEO. “LEA Professional is inspired by many conversations with members of the professional audio and integrator communities,” Augsburger said. “We listened closely and looked carefully at amplifier performance, networking, UX, and built a range of products and a new company that respects the way things get done today, but that offers a bold new approach capitalizing on new technologies from outside the AV domain.” The first physical manifestation of Augsburger’s strategy is a series of professional grade, twochannel and four-channel amplifiers for small to medium-scale installations. Featuring DSP, wired or Wi-Fi connectivity, webpage configuration and control, the LEA Connect Series will be composed of IoT-enabled, professional-grade amplifiers.

MARK UREDA JOINS BIAMP

Biamp (Beaverton OR) has recruited Mark Ureda as Executive Advisor. With more than three decades’ combined leadership in commercial AV systems, Ureda will play a pivotal role in the execution of the company’s global expansion. As a former Senior VP at Harman Professional for Products and Technology, Ureda has an understanding of the commercial AV industry, technology trends and global product strategy, which will strengthen Biamp as the company moves to expand its presence in the conferencing and sight- and sound-reinforcement markets. “I had the privilege and pleasure of working with Mark several years ago, and I came to know him as a leader and visionary,” Rashid Skaf, President, CEO and Co-Chairman of Biamp, said. “Biamp is on an aggressive journey of expansion into new professional audiovisual product categories and markets. Adding Mark to our team as Executive Advisor will help us stay aligned to important industry trends and ensure we leverage Biamp’s core strengths and values....” In addition to his role as CTO and SVP of Harman Pro, Ureda’s career has included terms as President of JBL and VP of Corporate Strategy at Northrop Grumman.

GUITAR CENTER ACQUIRES TVTI

Guitar Center (Westlake Village CA) has acquired audio and video integration firm Tunnel Vision Technology Inc. (TVTI, Chicago IL). TVTI is the latest addition to Guitar Center’s Business Solutions Group, which added Audio Visual Design Group (AVDG, San Jose CA) to its portfolio last year. With the addition of TVTI, Guitar Center’s Business Solutions Group will now offer its systems design and integration services to commercial customers in the Midwest. Under the direction of Doug Carnell, Guitar Center’s VP of Business Solutions, the company has been looking for and evaluating opportunities such as this. Carnell remarked, “For the last year, Guitar Center has been looking to bring in unique and trusted design and systems integration firms that are seeking a like-minded strategic business partner focused on the opportunities in the B2B integration sector. With TVTI, we have found such a firm.” Founded in 1999 and with a second office in Bannockburn IL, TVTI has a staff of more than 35. TVTI offers personal and comprehensive in-house project management, audio/video design, installation, programming, IT services and 24-hour service to ensure clients have an outstanding experience.

EAW CO-FOUNDER KENTON FORSYTHE RETURNS

Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW, Whitinsville MA), which marked its 40 th anniversary last year, has convinced EAW’s Co-Founder and former VP of Strategic Engineering, Kenton Forsythe, to rejoin the company. Long known for his designs, Forsythe’s mid-1970s vintage BH215 dual 15-inch bass horn became the basis of some of EAW’s earliest products.

COMPILED BY DAN FERRISI