“Credit and inventory is what matters most to our dealers and we’re going to give them both” — Kevin Kelly, Stampede President & COO

AMHERST, NEW YORK, January 25, 2012 — Putting its money squarely behind its stated commitment to serve as a complete business partner for its 9,000 dealer network, Stampede Presentations Products, Inc. today announced that it is expanding the credit facilities it offers to qualified dealers and investing millions of additional dollars in deepening its product inventory to be in a stronger position to meet dealer demands for faster order shipments.

“Our dealers have made it very clear to us that they see 2012 as a very strong year for them if they can obtain the credit they need and the product they need to complete their customer installations in a timely way,” Stampede President & COO Kevin Kelly said today.  “Stampede is in a very strong financial position to meet both of these needs and we intend to do so by expanding the credit we offer to qualified dealers and increasing the inventory we carry on critically important core products, such as displays, projectors, and video conferencing equipment.”

Stampede has successfully served as a beacon of financial stability for its dealer network throughout the most recent recession.  While many of its competitors cut back in every part of their business, or exited the business entirely, Stampede invested tens of millions of dollars in new product lines, company acquisitions, new technologies, and people.   During 2011 alone, Stampede extended over $55 million monthly in credit lines to its dealers. This critically important credit lifeline helped countless customers not only maintain their businesses but expand them in very challenging times. And now that business in general is improving, Stampede is totally committed to increasing its financial support to dealers in the two areas that matter most to them — credit and inventory.

Stampede is able to step in and provide the support its dealers need because it has a record of sustained year-to-year growth despite the recession, a detailed understanding of the economics of the ProAVindustry, and a rock solid relationship their its financial partners.  “You have to remember that last year Stampede experienced a 51-percent growth in unit sales in core categories and a 48-percent increase in operating profit, constituting the most successful year in our 15-year history.  In fact, Stampede now represents more than 120 different manufacturers, with 35 new lines added just in the last two years, to support our 9,000-plus dealer partners,” Kelly emphasized.

Amplifying this message further, Stampede Chief Executive Officer Mark Wilkins invoked Warren Buffet’s famous investment maxim in explaining that Stampede’s strategy is to be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.  “If you think back to when the financial crisis really started in 2008, credit lines were being closed down almost overnight. Stampede throughout this entire time provided stable and growing credit to the professional AV marketplace. We circled the wagons and, with our financial advisors, we decided that this can’t go on forever.”

As a result of their ability to offer financing, Stampede helped keep the market liquid for countless customers. “We’ve invested millions of dollars in financing and in additional inventory, to be able to provide that value to those manufacturer partners, and to be able to have that product on hand and available for immediate shipment to our dealers. At the end of the day we are enabling dealers to do a job that they may not have been able to do themselves without the value-adds that we provide. It could be a situation where they didn’t have access to a certain category of products. It could be a situation where they didn’t have access to certain credit facilities that would enable them to do a larger job. We are stepping in an filling in the gaps wherever they exist.”

Industry leading value added distributor of ProAV solutions is expanding Stampede University to offer online courses to meet dealer user requirements as well as new categories of courses on M&A and new market development.
 
Stampede Presentation Products Inc., the leading value-added distributor of ProAV solutions, today announced the addition of a completely integrated series of online courses to its Stampede University training curriculum, making Stampede the first ProAV distributor to offer online courses to its dealers at times that meet each dealer’s unique requirements.  In addition, Stampede President & COO Kevin Kelly said that the University is now offering new categories of courses to address the larger business issues confronting today’s dealer, including mergers and acquisitions and new market development.
 
“Today’s ProAV dealer is challenged as never before to find new ways to grow and expand their business that go far beyond the basics of product knowledge,” Kelly emphasized.  “To be sure, dealers must be fully educated on the products they sell, but they now need to be experts in long term business planning, business transition, and new market development.  What’s more, their businesses run virtually around the clock.  All of this means that a university tasked to meet their needs must keep pace with the demands of the times.  That is what we are doing with Stampede University.”
 
According to Kelly, Stampede University’s training programs now include more business-oriented courses, including courses on transitions and mergers and

acquisitions, as well as a consulting program designed to help residential dealers develop commercial markets and vice versa. What’s more, many of these courses will now be available online 24/7/365 to allow learners to proceed at their own pace and on their own schedule.
 
These new course offerings come in addition to Stampede University’s already substantial collection of dealer and integrator learning aids found on the website. These include training materials in the form of webinars, how-to videos, white papers and other media that cover the breadth of the AV technology experience from video walls to distance-learning technology, and represent large numbers of major equipment manufacturers, including Hitachi, Sharp, VUKUNET, InFocus, NEC and Samsung.  
 
No other AV systems distributor offers a more comprehensive and knowledgeable array of training materials than Stampede University, and Stampede has established its learning proposition to be a bridge between manufacturers and dealer/integrators, achieving unprecedented synergies by serving the needs of both simultaneously. “Part of our mission is that not only do we have to offer a value to our customers but also we have to offer a value to our suppliers,” explained Kelly. “A significant part of the value we offer to a manufacturer through Stampede University is by educating the marketplace in new technologies, and manufacturers do want to teach dealers how to use their products and how to sell their products. In that way, we act as a very necessary bridge between the manufacturer and the dealer.”  
 
Kelly pointed out that Stampede University’s training hub not only disseminates product training widely but also does it cost-effectively for manufacturers: instead of multiple manufacturers redundantly mimicking each others’ training efforts, Stampede University acts as a portal through which dealers and systems integrators can search for and find new products and platforms as well as the training and information they’ll need to best leverage them. The enhanced availability of information through Stampede University has enabled many dealers to broaden their product and services offerings to customers, and that’s helping the AV industry as a whole, as it continues to operate in a challenging economic environment.  
 
“More than ever, knowledge is power, as dealer/integrators seek out new markets, add core competencies and expand their knowledge base, in the effort to bolster revenues. Stampede University is the sole commercial resource nationally that can offer that necessary link between manufacturer and integrator to assure the needed exchange of information that will guarantee future success. “We know that knowledge and training are the keys to the future in this industry,” said Kelly. “And Stampede University exists to make sure they are always available to our customers.”

Take me to Stampede University Now

New GAVA system enables control of audio, video and home automation via any Web browser or iOS/Android device; Orrin Charm leads new control group.

Gefen is getting into the A/V control business. The famous maker of A/V switchers, extenders and adapters demonstrated for the first time its new GAVA (Gefen Audio Video Automation) system during CES 2012.

The new GAVA line includes the GAVA processor and two control hubs: the Professional Automation Control System (PACS) and the Mini PACS, which differ only in their I/O feature set. Both models offer RS-232, IP and IR communications, as well as relays for triggering motorized shades or other automated devices (more details in PR and specs, next page).

The PACS can be used in a rack in the case of a centralized A/V and control system. For a more distributed architecture, use the Mini PACS at each equipment cluster. When plugged into a home network, the GAVA processor brings added control to the PACS solution.

But that’s just the hardware. GAVA is really a software product, enabling control of audio, video and home automation products via any Web browser, smart phone, tablet or traditional home controller. The PACS and Mini PACS have built-in Web browsers, and Gefen provides easy-to-use configuration tools.

“There’s no programming required,” says Orrin Charm, a home automation veteran recently hired by Gefen to spearhead the company’s new automation initiatives. “You just tell it which products you’re using.”

GAVA is not unlike similar solutions offered by Global Cache and Bitwise, but Charm says the Gefen solution offers more built-in memory and provides streaming capabilities and content management not found in other Web-enabled controllers.

The streaming is “a big one,” says Charm. “It’s not just control.”

Furthermore, Global Cache and Bitwise are more like platforms on which third-party developers can create applications for A/V and home control (and they have do!). For now, Gefen is only using the GAVA hardware with its own software; however, Charm says the solution will "evolve to allow other apps."

Home systems integrator and CE Pro contributor Rich Fregosa says, “Hagai Gefen's company has certainly evolved and expanded from its initial 'Touch the Music' CD Management System from the early. It was revolutionary at the time.”

By Matt Hamblen | Computerworld | Jan 11, 2012 1:00 pm

Touchscreen smartphone and tablet users know their devices are tough to use while wearing gloves in in cold weather.

The problem is more widespread than one might think, and has spawned a market for specialized gloves that can ease the task and conduct a person's bioelectricity.

One vendor, Agloves, showed off its knit gloves this week at the Consumer Electronics show here.

The gloves, priced at $23.99 a pair, come in black with actual threads of silver woven in, said Jean Spencer, who founded the Boulder, Colo. start-up with her mother.

Many smartphones and tablets, including the iPhone and iPad, rely upon capacitative touchscreens, which means a person's fingertip bioelectricity is needed to activate a swipe or touch action on a screen.

Agloves claims that the silver fibers running throughout its glove can bring the electricity from other parts of the hand to the fingertip. Officials said some gloves from competitors put conductive material in just a couple of fingertips, and thus don't work as well as the Agloves design.

The company uses the Periodic Table symbol for silver, Ag, in its name.

Agloves was launched off in September and claims it has already sold more than 170,000 pairs worldwide.

Some of the gloves are made in China and others in the U.S. The Agloves Web site was down for maintenance this morning, but Spencer said the business is thriving nonetheless.

In a quick trial, Agloves worked quite well moving tiles on the latest Words with Friends game running on my phone.

Unfortunately, Agloves didn't improve my spelling.

Article from: PCWorld.

Target Corp. is tired of being used.

By ANN ZIMMERMAN - wsj.com - In one of the starkest signs yet that chain stores fear a new twist in shopping, Target is asking suppliers for help in thwarting "showrooming"—that is, when shoppers come into a store to see a product in person, only to buy it from a rival online, frequently at a lower price.

WSJ's Ann Zimmerman has details of Target stores making efforts to deter shoppers from 'showrooming', the act of viewing a product in the store and then purchasing it online from another retailer. AP Photo/The Telegraph, John Badman

Last week, in an urgent letter to vendors, the Minneapolis-based chain suggested that suppliers create special products that would set it apart from competitors and shield it from the price comparisons that have become so easy for shoppers to perform on their computers and smartphones. Where special products aren't possible, Target asked the suppliers to help it match rivals' prices. It also said it might create a subscription service that would give shoppers a discount on regularly purchased merchandise.

"What we aren't willing to do is let online-only retailers use our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom for their products and undercut our prices without making investments, as we do, to proudly display your brands," according to the letter, which was signed by Target Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel and Kathee Tesija, Target's executive vice president of merchandising.

Showrooming is an increasing problem for chains ranging from Best Buy Co. to Barnes & Noble Inc., at the same time that it's a boon for Amazon.com Inc. and other online retailers. This year store sales overall edged up 4.1% during the holiday shopping season, while online sales jumped 15%. And while online sales represent only 8% of total sales, that is up from just 2% in 2000.

Other retailers also are likely to take steps similar to Target's plan, according to Deborah Weinswig, Citigroup retail analyst, who mentioned the letter in a research note Friday and said it was likely to have gone to suppliers of consumer electronics, health and beauty products and food.
Vendors are likely to have little choice but to play ball with Target because of its clout as the second-largest discount chain. Major suppliers, including Kraft Inc., TV maker Vizio and Procter & Gamble Inc., either wouldn't confirm they received the letter or didn't return calls seeking comment.

Target declined to comment other than to issue a statement saying that it "has long prided itself on having truly collaborative vendor partnerships and we continually work with our vendors to remain competitive in the ever-evolving retail environment."

Some analysts said Target's new tactics are unlikely to reverse the showrooming trend, because they fail to address the root problems traditional retailers face. Online-only retailers have significantly lower labor costs and, at least, for the time being don't collect sales tax in most states.

More important, the growing competition from Amazon is based on a different business model entirely: Amazon can sell products so cheaply because it uses its other profitable units—such as cloud data storage and fees it charges others to sell on its website — to subsidize the rest of its business.

"The traditional retailers are still doing business the old way while Amazon has reinvented the model," says Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester Research. "Wal-Mart and Target are willing to sell a few things at a loss. Amazon's whole business is a loss leader."

Consumer preferences are also moving to online. "That is where we're heading," said Adrianne Shapira, retail analyst at Goldman Sachs. "You can try and dance around it, but it's a fact."

Retailers like Target and industry giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have a lot of catching up to do, as analysts estimate their websites account for only 1% to 2% of their annual sales.

Target had a tough Christmas season, with sales at stores open at least a year rising just 1.7%, about half of what the company expected. As a result, Target recently lowered its fourth-quarter earnings per share range to between $1.35 and $1.43 from $1.43 to $1.53.

The company said sales were particularly disappointing in electronics, movies, books and music—products whose sales have migrated most significantly to the Internet. Those products accounted for 20% of Target's annual sales of $65 billion in 2010, down from 22% in the prior year.
This fall Target relaunched and upgraded its website, which had been operated by Amazon for the last decade. But the site crashed several times, most notably when shoppers rushed to buy a special line of items made by Italian fashion house Missoni.

Target has a long tradition of getting suppliers to provide exclusive products. It has teamed up for years with fashion designers to offer time-limited discount clothing collections, and it recently announced it will open a series of temporary boutiques featuring clothes, food and home furnishings from popular regional stores.

These programs set Target apart from less fashionable rivals such as Wal-Mart, but "they are completely immaterial" to the company's bottom line, said Colin McGranahan, retail analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein.

John Laposky | TWICE | 1/4/2012

Aurora, Ill. - Peerless-AV today launched a line of indoor and outdoor mounts that can wirelessly stream FullHD content to screens or projectors up to 131 feet away.

The new PeerAir Wireless Mounting solutions include indoor and outdoor wireless articulating arms and tilt wall mounts, a mobile cart and a wireless projector mount. They provide installers with an option when it's not feasible to run cables due to environmental constraints such as mirrored/glassed walls, historic sites, complex cable runs or safety/code issues, the company said.

The line is powered by Peerless-AV's HD Flow wireless multimedia kit, which features reverse IR to control content devices remotely, multi-casting to stream up to four screens or projectors from a single transmitter, and WPA2 security protocols.

The system can beam the signal through a 131-foot sphere, so users can leave the content delivery devices where they are and mount the screen or projector in a different room, a floor above or below, or outdoors, said Peerless.

The mounts ship with everything needed to deliver wireless content from source to screen, including the mount, HD Flow kit, power and cabling provisions, and short-length HDMI cables specified to fit neatly behind the screen, according to Peerless.

The PeerAir indoor line consists of a tilt wall mount for 37-inch to 63-inch TVs; an articulating wall mount for 42-inch to 60-inch panels, a cart for TVs 47 inches to 65 inches, and a projector mount for projectors up to 50 pounds.

Two weather-resistant outdoor models are available, an articulating mount and a tilt mount for flat panels 42 inches to 60 inches.

The PeerAir line also includes wireless integration kits that enable the conversion of almost any Peerless-AV universal wall or ceiling mount, cart or stand into a wireless solution. Also offered is an a la carte option with wireless integration modules that allow selection of the desired mount and HD Flow kit to piece together a custom product, available on www.peerless-av.com.

Eric Savitz, Forbes Staff

The global television market is expected to reach 254 million units in 2012, up 2% from last year, according to new data from market research firm NPD Display Search.

In 2011, unit shipments are estimated to have grown a scant 0.1%.

“Global economic conditions have improved in 2011, but more slowly than expected, and consumers in mature TV markets like Europe face continuing uncertainty, which is leading to very cautious spending patterns,” Paul Gagnon, Director of North America TV Research for NPD DisplaySearch, said in a statement. “Because price reductions are not as vigorous as a few years ago, partially due to a mature manufacturing base but also because of transitions to advanced features like LED backlights and 3D, consumers are becoming more willing to wait for peak sale periods to purchase.”

Flat panel TVs are now growing at just 2%-4%, as the transition away from CRTs is nearing an end.

Shipments of TVs larger than 40 inches are expects to grow 12% in 2012, with smaller sizes falling 3%. One major driver of increasing demand for larger sets: falling prices. NPD notes that sales of sets larger than 50 inches are expected to grow 18%; sets north of 60 inches are expected to fall below $2,000 for the first time. On Black Friday, NPD notes, sets in the 40-47 inch range were selling at prices under $500, and 60 inch sets fell below $1,000.

Full Article Here.

Ian Paul | PCWorld 

The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas next Tuesday, and gadget makers are getting ready to show off their latest tech products for the coming year.

Every year, a few big product trends emerge. In 2011, it was all about Android tablets; in 2010, 3D televisions and e-readers dominated the show; and in 2009, netbooks were a big topic. So what does 2012 promise? Here's a look at five CES trends that people are already talking about.


OLED
Organic Light Emitting Diode displays promise more vivid colors, faster response times, and smaller device footprints compared to LCD/LED TVs, but the technology has yet to break into the television market. That may be about to change at CES 2012, as LG announced Monday it plans to show what it calls the world's largest OLED HDTV.

LG's new TV has a 55-inch display, 0.16-inch depth, weighs 16.5 pounds, and promises a response time that is less than 0.0001 milliseconds (the average LCD has a response time between 5 and 2 milliseconds). OLEDs were also a hot topic for CES 2009.


Ultrabooks
Intel introduced the concept of Ultrabooks -- laptops with slim designs, solid state drives, and longer battery life -- in May. Since then we've seen a number of Ultrabooks come out, including the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, Acer Aspire S3, and Toshiba Portege Z835.

But the real onslaught of these MacBook Air competitors is expected at CES, with as many as 30 to 50 Ultrabooks making their debut in Las Vegas. Intel's President and CEO Paul Otellini is delivering a keynote address at CES next Tuesday when he may discuss the forthcoming Ivy Bridge Core processors, the miniaturized successor to 2011's Sandy Bridge chips that are at the heart of current Ultrabooks.


Quad-Core Phones
Get ready for blazing fast smartphones loaded with quad-core processors, such as Nvidia's Tegra 3 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4.

The first round of quad-core smartphones are expected within the first three months of 2012, and many tech watchers expect to see these devices at CES.


4K
No we're not talking about kilobytes, but a type of display resolution that has four times the pixel density of 1080p HDTVs, the current gold standard for mass market high-definition displays.

LG plans to show off an 84-inch 4K 3D HDTV with Internet connectivity during CES. Toshiba is also working on a 4K 3D display, so perhaps we may see more than one 4K set next Tuesday in Las Vegas.


Ice Cream Sandwich
Tablets have been a big topic at CES since 2010, when device makers scrambled to get out in front of the looming release of Apple's iPad. CES 2012 is expected to have more of the same, thanks to the release of Google's latest Android flavor, Ice Cream Sandwich.

Unlike 2011, where the Motorola Xoom was the only device running Google's tablet-specific version of Android (Honeycomb), ICS is already available to any manufacturer who wants it.

Electronics maker Coby plans to debut four ICS tablets at CES, and it's a good bet other tablet makers will follow suit.

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