davidf
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Posts: 331
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Post by davidf on Jul 14, 2017 21:36:02 GMT
I see in news today that the Harman Group, owned by Samsung, has bought Arcam. I wonder what this will mean for the British company? Will they continue as is, with an injection of cash and development? Will we see interesting new models? We'll have to wait and see...
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Post by iluvtech on Jul 28, 2017 11:14:24 GMT
We seem to be in a World where large companies keep getting larger and small ones fail or get swallowed up. I used to work for a software company that acquired anything that moved. In many cases the acquired companies benefitted from the R&D funding available otherwise they were going to fail anyway and their tech lost forever. This was never about the quality of the products, but the quality of the way the businesses were run and issues around realistic margins/market share/etc.
I think Arcam can only benefit from this. They have lost ground recently in gaining interest from the likes of people like me because they are no longer leading edge, and their products are clunky compared to the opposition. Whilst their products are premium, and are enjoyed by a small niche who have the mooney and desire to get the very best, that's probably not enough of a market to generate the funds needed to keep up with everything. I mean look at the latest fiasco around 4k and DV pass thru for starters. Arcam took years to have a receiver that could even decode the HD sound standards on Blu-ray and when they came up with a receiver it was £4k I believe. Made my eyes water as I had an Arcam AVR250 and wanted to upgrade but alas could not.
I wold love to have the brand back in my house (although I run a superb 2nd user P25 amp which is fantastic but old).
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davidf
Administrator
Posts: 331
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Post by davidf on Jul 28, 2017 14:50:22 GMT
There's been many acquisitions over the decades - B&W and KEF to name a few, and they've gone on to bigger and better things. They've pretty much been left alone to continue as they were, albeit with a little nudge here and there to bring in higher numbers to the score sheet. If this does the same thing for Arcam, maybe they can build on their success with their excellent AV amplifiers...
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