Samsung buys Harman for 8 billion!!!

[prerich]

Samsung buys Harman International for 8 billion dollars!!!! What does this forebode for JBL, and Revel!!!!???

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by prerich

Samsung buys Harman International for 8 billion dollars!!!! What does this forebode for JBL, and Revel!!!!???

And AKG, Infinity, Lexicon, Mark Levinson, Crown, Studer and a few others.

Samsung says that Harmon is going to be operated independently, but corporations always say that. Then after they acquire, they look for "synergies", which means "let's merge these operations and fire all the extra people so we can cut costs". It usually starts with backroom operations like HR and Finance, but it eventually hits engineering, sales and marketing as well.

I think this is going to be a test of whether Trump is full of crap or not. While the President can't personally stop this, he can put pressure on the agencies that have to approve this deal.

Over the years, there has been a big flow of American media and electronics companies to foreign owners. Based on his campaign, Trump should be against this. My bet is that he does nothing about it.

A few examples on the content front:
- The former Columbia/Epic/CBS Records and the former RCA Records/BMG are owned by Sony.
- American publishers Random House and Bantam-Doubleday-Dell are owned by Bertelsmann, a German conglomerate. It merged with Penguin PLC, owned by Pearson, a British company, in 2013 in a joint venture. Bertelsmann owns 53% and Pearson owns 47% of the joint venture.
- Warner Music, although officially an American corporation, is owned by Access Industries, which is owned by Soviet-born Leonard Blavatnik.
- Universal Music is an American-French company owned by French Vivendi.

Now all of these "foreign" companies still employ a ton of people in the U.S., and I'm not aware of any situations where they applied censorship, but I always did have concerns that the largest American publishers and music companies are owned by foreign entities.

Syd Harman is probably rolling in his grave.

[DangeRuss]

Originally Posted by prerich

Samsung buys Harman International for 8 billion dollars!!!! What does this forebode for JBL, and Revel!!!!???

I'm afraid the same thing that happened to several marquee brands that Harman bought years ago ........

A rather slow lingering death

Besides ................................. Harman has been in a backslide for several years now

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

And AKG, Infinity, Lexicon, Mark Levinson, Crown, Studer and a few others.

Samsung says that Harmon is going to be operated independently, but corporations always say that. Then after they acquire, they look for "synergies", which means "let's merge these operations and fire all the extra people so we can cut costs". It usually starts with backroom operations like HR and Finance, but it eventually hits engineering, sales and marketing as well.

I think this is going to be a test of whether Trump is full of crap or not. While the President can't personally stop this, he can put pressure on the agencies that have to approve this deal.

Over the years, there has been a big flow of American media and electronics companies to foreign owners. Based on his campaign, Trump should be against this. My bet is that he does nothing about it.

A few examples on the content front:
- The former Columbia/Epic/CBS Records and the former RCA Records/BMG are owned by Sony.
- American publishers Random House and Bantam-Doubleday-Dell are owned by Bertelsmann, a German conglomerate. It merged with Penguin PLC, owned by Pearson, a British company, in 2013 in a joint venture. Bertelsmann owns 53% and Pearson owns 47% of the joint venture.
- Warner Music, although officially an American corporation, is owned by Access Industries, which is owned by Soviet-born Leonard Blavatnik.
- Universal Music is an American-French company owned by French Vivendi.

Now all of these "foreign" companies still employ a ton of people in the U.S., and I'm not aware of any situations where they applied censorship, but I always did have concerns that the largest American publishers and music companies are owned by foreign entities.

Syd Harman is probably rolling in his grave.

He's probably been doing so for several years

[Johan1981]

Originally Posted by DangeRuss

I'm afraid the same thing that happened to several marquee brands that Harman bought years ago ........

A rather slow lingering death

Besides ................................. Harman has been in a backslide for several years now



He's probably been doing so for several years

Yeah, a lot of good brands disappear from the market! Harman Kardon was my first brand AVR, Dolby Pro Logic!! High tech stuff at the time, but I have to be honest that HK has never really made name for itself after the introduction of DD.

Though always a shame seeing these brands fall.

Just bought a pair of JBL Control One speakers, nice little things for an even better price. They used to be a big producer for commercial theaters. JBL doesn't really offer too much in the speaker department anymore unfortunately.

[DangeRuss]

Originally Posted by Johan1981

Yeah, a lot of good brands disappear from the market! Harman Kardon was my first brand AVR, Dolby Pro Logic!! High tech stuff at the time, but I have to be honest that HK has never really made name for itself after the introduction of DD.

I think their major downfall began a little later when couldn't get the bugs out of their HDMI switching and handshake issues .... Then there's the fact that they were always late to the market with the latest HDMI versions and audio codecs

Though always a shame seeing these brands fall.

Indeed it is ................. And now the market is full of smaller boutique brands that often cost a pretty penny

Just bought a pair of JBL Control One speakers, nice little things for an even better price. They used to be a big producer for commercial theaters. JBL doesn't really offer too much in the speaker department anymore unfortunately.

While it's true ............. the regular JBL line has been whittled down to just a few models ........ their Synthesis line has quite a few exciting models such as these .......

Samsung is a registered trademark of great influence in some Asian countries

This is something really exciting. Now has to see that Samsung would also be able to make it Global and Famous like itself