Jon Martin wrote on Tue, 08 December 2009 10:50 |
Nothing is going to change.
Midas will still be "Midas" as we know it
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For how long? Is Crest still the old pre Peavey Crest? What about EAW? In fact, is Mackie even still the same after LOUD? How many "Mackoids" (Mackies term for their employees) were fired when Mackie moved production overseas?
I predict that Uli will follow his current successful business model and reduce costs where he can in production by using cheaper components, and overseas labor. As you and others have mentioned, Behringer
used to make quality items (I still have 3 German Comps I use), but changed their business model for bigger profits. Why do you think he stopped making quality products? It was all about the money.
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all of the U.K. folks are still in charge of Midas, David Cooper will still be the brains of Midas (he built the XL4/XL8/PRO6) and they will continue to build products worthy of the Midas name. (no Legend cracks..OK?)
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For how long? I'm going to bet that as soon as Uli gets a good look at the books, he will start weeding out some of the talent to save dough (First to go will be any designers and R+D). Then as soon as Uli starts using crappy components in the Midas gear, I'm sure many of the rest of the staff will flee, not wanting to be associated with crappy products.
I predict that Behringer will be using the Midas and KT brand names, and introduce lower priced products in those lines (think Behringer guts in a KT or Midas case) to try and sell those good names to markets that probably could not afford them (like smaller churches, schools, installs and local musos) When Behringer sees that the profit from the low end stuff far outperforms the real Midas and KT, those high end products will be discontinued, as "NEWER and BETTER" (read as CRAPPY) models replace them.
The biggest problem with large corporations is that no matter how great the intention, it all comes down to the money. Sam Walton, who I believe was probably a good man with good intentions, and who probably really cared about his workers and the quality of his merchandise when they were a small company, grew his company into what many, including myself believe to be a large evil empire. Some of it fueled by consumer greed to have products at the lowest cost, some fueled by manufacturers and suppliers greed (think of all the toys with lead paint recalls), but many of it fueled by Wal-Mart's desire to keep generating more profits.
Last year I worked for a large AV company. Because the economy was down, so was their revenue. Instead of thinking, "Hey, we are still making
MILLIONS OF DOLLARS even in the bad economy when many of our competitors and other businesses are going belly up, all I heard was "WE ARE NOT DOING GOOD ENOUGH NUMBERS!" When you base you business on profit, the quality of services always suffers. That's one of the reasons why I left there. And thats how most large businesses operate.
Midas and KT may or may not be profitable now, but with some changes (cheaper engineers, overseas labor, lower cost components) Uli can reap more profit from them, even if they are what I call profitable right now.