Russound to Acquire Colorado vNet

This is a good move for Russound, hopefully they get rid of the CEO and VP of Sales at vNet and get a good team in their to manage the company appropriately!

I only agree with half of your comment.  IMHO, Bill the CEO was a good leader.  He had the right vision.  I just think he gave too much control to the VP of sales and didn’t realize the horrible job that guy was doing.  The VP of sales had a knife ready at all times to stab you in the back if he thought you didn’t have a potential sale locked up.

Chris you maybe right, i only had the bad experience of dealing with Mike thier VP of sales, he certainly ruined our excitement in a cool product.

Well we can hope the sales will be handled by Russound. A clear shame that they made such progress and fighting the fight. But once again the investment “rich” guy put the race car on the track with a flawed plan, pit crew and driver. What is interesting is seeing the long term damage this created from the beginning and how they were unable to recover. Last week somebody informed me that a few of the original sales team made their way over to Exceptional Innovation. Wow that explains so much…..

Good luck to vNet crew and this could be interesting connection to the Russound product line. Not to mention provide them some lighting which they had none of. They probably got it for a song too.

This is obviously good news for Colorado vNet. Even if RadioShack aquired them it would be better than having the doors close for good. Russound grabbing them is a good move IMO. It would be nice to see them build a new integrated product based on the technology from both companies.

I am a huge Russound fan and really like the vNet lighting.  I agree they should make their products work together.  I second the motion that the management team behind the vNet CEO was horrible.  They came out the gates with a good staff, but had lots of turn over, and the current sales leaders turned us off after they bad mouthed every product we carried including russound, ironic?

I’m glad to hear the news of vNet coming back. I’m not a huge fan of the Russound’s fit and finish, but I think their products are solid. So with some Colorado vNet influence and the technology engineers coming together at one table the combined future looks bright. IMHO, Bill the CEO of vNet should play an integral role, his vision and direction helped this segment and products even if economic conditions did not support those lofty goals.

I think there are some people missing the point. Just because Russound is a great company doesn’t matter. They are stepping into a business they know nothing about. If they keep the business units seperate then there is nothing stopping them from killing Vnet in 3 months, 6 months etc. It would not hurt their core business. The core business is built on distributors such as ADI. Last time I checked just about any of their gear could be had on the Internet for a coue of hundred bucks more then disty cost if that. I hope everyone knows what they are getting into. This could be a short lived victory. Vnet had a great product. It is going to take at least a month if not more to get a true feeling as to what Russound is ACTUALLY going to do with Vnet. I think this could be an interesting trip - I just don’t know which way it is going to go. I would not want to get burned a second time.

Jimmy they had lots of turnover as a result of leadership coming in and firing people at the drop-of-the-hat for no justifiable reason. I’m talking good staff who knew their jobs. In addition to the VP of Sales, their CFO and COO should be rid of as well, they’re the main reason vNet didn’t make it.  They’re loose cannons, all smoke, no business sense and just out to make a name for themselves.

VNET has some great products and I beleive Russound has a good history of being a solid company.  The key to this being successful is going to be finding the right people to run VNET very quickly. I know that Russound has went through lots of its own recent management changes and if VNET has a chance they are going to have to find the right team and get them firmly in place at VNET for the long haul to show the industry they mean business! The same players will get the same results if they don’t make a change.

As the Australian Distributor of Colorado vNet I believe the business ramp down process could have been handled better before it got anywhere near that stage. Who is accountaboe for that I don’t know?

However, what I can say, is that in our dealings with Mike, Bill and the rest of the Colorado vNet team they have been nothing short of professional. I can only express our own personal experience which has been a good one to date.

Colorado vNet has managed to produce a great system in a relatively short period of time. In my 15 years experience working in this industry both on the manufacturer side and the integrator side, Colorado vNet has many benefits over and above other systems, hence the reason we decided to take it on.

I am pleased that Russound has taken on Colorado vNet and that the technology will continue to live and evolve. This will surely benefit the industry as a whole.

I think some of the success to make the Colorado vNnet Such high-profile brand with 950 dealers
worldwide also belongs to Bill and Mike, Beyond the amazing Engineering and Development staff and the fantastic Technical Support team.
From my point of view i can tell you that In the last two years, Mike went out of his way to help us introduce the brand and technology to the Israeli market,
to do whatever it takes to adapt it to 220V
and make it one of the most wanted brands in Israel side by side with giants like Lutron, Vantage and Crestron.
As my colleague from Australia said,
I am also pleased that vNnet technology will continue to live and evolve.
And please remember That in the end of the day we all have families and we all just want to make a living
Good luck to Russound, Colorado vNet and to us all.

The Distributor of Colorado vNet in ISRAEL.

“the fish rots at the head first”.  Seems like there’s lots of hubris in this ecosystem even though many of pundits/supporters behind this wave have not proven themselves in the market place.  Seems like we have a long trail of dead bodies (dead companies) and lot’s of on the street SME’s who have half baked “strategies” and borrowed vision as to what the next great thing is for this industry.    At the expense of the “gloom/doom” attitude, look at this as the start of the dark ages of Home Automation and Video/Audio switching….

Net, net, V-net went where it was supposed to go - Out of business, but I am sure the leadership and some tag alongs had a great old time at Cedia, EHX and CES year over year for the last several years.  Just add this latest collapse to the list of non PC centric automation companies that behaved like they borrowed pages from the Bernard Madoff’s play book on how to grow a company…  next follow the paper trail and supporters of this, and folks I am sure you will find more of the same

Lastly, for those that are still resisting the new order, the dark ages will end when we are all running off of CPU’s, coupled with open source OS’s and applications (and closed, like MSFT and Apple), meshed in the ether for connectivity, mobile and in various form factors, provisioned from the cloud and running media rich tools/application running on CPU’s throughout the home, in your car and in your pocket.  The old order of hardened, ACIS like systems (e.g. the “black box) has gone the way of the old empires.  API’s couple with content will rule the roost.  Integration with PC’s, smart phones, the cloud and the ubiquitous PC (be it Windows, Linux or Apple) is where this is heading once the economy turns…  It all a matter of time.  And if that does not happen sooner than later, just look for the blockers, FUD makers and corporate undertakers (e.g. the failed policy makers leading to the death of a company).  My thoughts re the acquisition.  Russound better have some visionary programmers/PC centric people to get them into this new era so they can do something with the client base they just acquired.…

Racy shouldn’t that be Ray C.?