Pete McCrea Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 From the press release, "With immediate effect, the name “Element Labs” ceases to exist" as Barco have bought the intellectual Property products and rights. In my thought Element labs were one of the 'alternatives' to the larger manufacturers in the LED arena, and certainly a very respected creative LED manufacturer. It'll be interesting to see how Barco merge the Element labs products into their portfolio and how things like Vizomo fit against their digitisers, and where it all sits in terms of pricing. Interesting times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lightnix Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Like many manufacturers, Element Labs have seen tough times over the last couple of years and let about a third of their people go at the end of 2008 :unsure: IIRC their original backing came via some venture capitalists (not the only LED company to have got off the ground that way) and maybe (that's maybe) the investors decided this was the best way to make a return on their investment. I hope that Barco will continue to support and develop the Element range - I always thought the VersaTile was a really neat tool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian H Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Thats a shame. Element produced good inovative kit and being submerged into the Barco massive will do nothing for the product Best of luck to Rob and Andrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lightnix Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 And here's that press release in full... I notice especially that it says...Barco will not book any goodwill on this transaction......meaning that they have paid the book value only, for just the assets of EL; with no consideration given to the value of any business they were doing, or contracts they may have had in the pipeline (click here for a further explanation of "goodwill"). In short: it sounds like this may have been a bit of a fire sale :( Element produced good inovative kit and being submerged into the Barco massive will do nothing for the product.It also wouldn't do much for market concerns - which already exist - regarding the general long term security of investment in LED gear It's difficult to tell what's going to happen. On the one hand it says... With a focus on mid-end market requirements... the Element Labs products complement Barco's existing high-end product range... This comprehensive product portfolio allows Barco to serve customers with different budget levels......but ends with...Barco will announce its new mid-range LED products in the coming months. Whether these will be rebadged EL products, or something totally new and backwards incompatible, is not immediately clear; but whatever it means, it's not the kind of news that encourages people to go investing large amounts in LED kit :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian H Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Expect further ground shaking news shortly affecting other Large video companies.. Its certainly tough out there and the number of companys are set to reduce once again Moderation: Big unnecessary quote removed - for general info, there's no need to use the quote at all if a post follows the one containing the original Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted March 18, 2010 Author Share Posted March 18, 2010 In short: it sounds like this may have been a bit of a fire sale :( Was exactly my thought too. Also sorry for not putting the actual release in the OP! My bad in the rush to post and get to the swimming pool. Element produced good inovative kit and being submerged into the Barco massive will do nothing for the product.It also wouldn't do much for market concerns - which already exist - regarding the general long term security of investment in LED gear It's difficult to tell what's going to happen. It wasn't too long ago we were looking into the Cobra range.... Kinda glad it got no further than looking! Though Barco would be foolish to kill the support for the legacy kit, but they will look to reduce the cost of support, so I guess will try to minimise their 'exposure' to different systems. Hopefully it'll be a tweak of maybe making the Cobra range operable with the existing Barco Digitisers. Expect further ground shaking news shortly affecting other Large video companies.. Its certainly tough out there and the number of companys are set to reduce once again :(I'm guessing you can't say too much on the open forum, but there are quite a few people chasing the work, and this isn't great for margins. I was surprised to see VER opening up in the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lightnix Posted April 1, 2010 Share Posted April 1, 2010 Barco will announce its new mid-range LED products in the coming months.Whether these will be rebadged EL products, or something totally new and backwards incompatible, is not immediately clear...I now have it on good authority, that the new products will be rebadged EL ones. Whether old equipment will still be supported, is unknown... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian H Posted April 3, 2010 Share Posted April 3, 2010 Good to know that the EL range will continue. I have just returned from 10 days in Phoenix building the largest LED event I have ever seen (WWE- Wrestlemania) we had 2500+ stealth tiles and 4500 plus Mitrix tiles --- and after initial testing we changed ZERO stealth and never stopped changing Mitrix tiles through rehearsals and the show.... So lets hope Barco learn something from Element Labs Demise. Ian H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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