Rio and ReplayTV go to auction at the San Jose court house today, where a number of companies are expected to tender bids. More info to follow when we have it!

Rob

Wow. So it's a court run auction eh? interesting. Who are you pulling for?

Hope it turns out well for you.

I, too wish you come out of it with all you wish, which is, presumably an organisation with an understanding of the value of the exceptional skill and intellect, linked to an appreciation of the innovative path, that you and the Empeg team have forged. Not to forget the extraordinary level of customer service.

We don't know for sure who will be there. Of the bidders I *suspect* will be there, I only know of one likely to bring about "bad things" for our team. Some of the other potential bidders have some very exciting propositions.

If it all goes horribly wrong at least we can survive by begging for Thai curry donations on the BBS

Rob

Gulp! Good luck!

Fingers crossed!

Rio and ReplayTV go to auction at the San Jose court house today, where a number of companies are expected to tender bids. More info to follow when we have it!

Presumably the result is public knowledge as soon as it's announced? So we can just sit there with a browser window in the Reply form and the caret after "Rio, and thus Empeg, have been bought by" in order to just type and go, as soon as we hear ourselves?

Peter

Presumably the result is public knowledge as soon as it's announced? So we can just sit there with a browser window in the Reply form and the caret after "Rio, and thus Empeg, have been bought by" in order to just type and go, as soon as we hear ourselves?

I wonder how many court auctions are this closely followed?

Seriously, good luck guys. I know everyone here is pulling for you to end up in a good situation and is eager to hear whatever news you have as soon as it's available.

Greetings!

Best wishes! Any particular hopes on who gets you? Also, if it does come to "begging for curry", let me know.

If it all goes horribly wrong at least we can survive by begging for Thai curry donations on the BBS

Ponders the delivery charges...can I just send some Rama noddles through the mail?

And I was wondering why you cared about (our) tax day.

Of the bidders I *suspect* will be there, I only know of one likely to bring about "bad things" for our team.

Damn it, I *knew* Microsoft would show up.

we can just sit there with a browser window in the Reply form and the caret after "Rio, and thus Empeg, have been bought by" in order to just type and go

What kind of Athena-Widget-using browser are you running?

Bitt, FYI, it's called a caret by the Windows SDK as well. You'll just rarely see it called that in user documentation.

What kind of Athena-Widget-using browser are you running?

OK, I admit it, caret is the RiscOS word for it. Even on RiscOS it was never actually caret-shaped (i.e. never U+2038-shaped). What would it be called under Windows? Insertion point? or just cursor?

Peter

I'd have had more respect for Athena Widgets

I seem to have gotten overly serious responses.

Just being funny, guys. Or trying to.

To be honest, though, I've never heard it called a caret under anything but Athena Widgets. Never used Acorns, though.

I seem to have gotten overly serious responses.

Just being funny, guys. Or trying to.

As the official old fogey of Empeg (at the age of 31), I've grown immune to people taking the mick out of my vintage terminology. They still all look at me strangely when I refer to the thing in Pearl as a "winchester". (Another example of a locution which survived much longer in Acornland than elsewhere.)

Peter

the official old fogey of Empeg (at the age of 31),

i'm sure that you must be "The Official Empeg Old Fogey" by dint of your employer. I can give you 25 years on the other title: After all, I was around when Joe Lyons thought of doing the payroll with a room full of valves, instead of a room full of clerks.

They still all look at me strangely when I refer to the thing in Pearl as a "winchester".

Now that made me smile, but it also reminded me of a story I was told while we were touring a company called Istel when I was at school, they showed us their computer room and advised us not to stand in front of the drives, as they had one fail a few weeks ago. Aparently the platters spun vertically rather than horizontally, and the spindle broke, the platter broke out of the case, through the wall (2 layers of brick) across the car park and ended up embedded in one of the managers cars. The plater was 15inch diameter and stored a whole 20MB.

I am not sure if the story was true or not, but noone went near their disks

I only know of one likely to bring about "bad things" for our team.

Damn it, I *knew* Microsoft would show up.

/me wipes tea off monitor again...

Best of luck to Rob and the rest of the Cambridge party animals. Can't wait to hear the results.

So will there actually be an announcement today, or is this one of those things where we may not get any details until everything is finalized? I was readying the Replay section of AVSForum.com where many people seem to suggest that we won't hear anything for a while (I guess the GOVideo sale wasn't announced immediately?). Between the empeg team and the ReplayTV I bought a few months back (and just finally got a fully working unit after warranty issues) I am very curious to see how this turns out.

-Mike

Am I too late?
Goo luck to you all, guys! You deserve the best!

It's now close of businees in San Jose, I wonder if any of the Cambridge-ites stayed up to hear the news?

D&M Holdings (owners of Denon and Marantz amongst other brands) won both the ReplayTV and the Rio auctions. There will likely be a press release soon.

One other party bid for ReplayTV, and three others bid for Rio, including Creative Labs and Motorola.

Full implications of the sale will come to light over the next several days and weeks, however D&M have been in long running discussions with SONICblue and the expectation is that it will be business more or less as usual.

Rob

I wonder if any of the Cambridge-ites stayed up to hear the news?

Of course! The party started when the auction opened, several hours ago. It was quite exciting with bid-by-bid updates arriving from our spies at the San Jose court house.

Must go. There is still some alchohol left.

Rob

We need to throw a party!

I'm so glad to hear this Rob! I'm sure you can't talk about specifics of what they've said, but it's good to hear that they were concerned with openly talking to you guys prior to this (even if it was in a bid to buy)

Excellent, from everything I have read about the potential sale(s) D&M sounds like a pretty good match. Lets all hope nothing changes too much and you guys get a good home.

Can you tell us how much the winning bids where out of curiousity?

-Mike

Woohoo

$18m for RTV and $18.2m for Rio - I believe, but don't take it as gospel.

Rob

A bargain!!!

Hearty congratulations to Rio! It's all good news!

Rob,
This outcome is fantastic news for everyone.

This means that the Pearl is probably on track for release this year.

So, when does the "pre-registration" process start to pre-order them?

Must go. There is still some alchohol left.

Hey, yeaa! Rob neads murre alchohol!

(Oh, great news, BTW. The best!)

Sorry I meant alchohohohol.

Rob

So yeah, before I forget:

1 msr vodka
1 msr gin
1/2 msr tequila
dash cointreau
3-4 msr cranberry juice
1 msr orange juice

...ish

Glad to hear the news,thats the last thing the bay area needs is more people losing there jobs.and thats a nice new building you guys are in.

If you mean the SONICblue building near Mission College I'm certain we're not going to be in that much longer. It could hold four times as many people as we have.

Not that WE are in there anyway, being in Cambridge as we are.

Rob

yes i was talking about the one off of 237 yes that is a big building.very nice though.will those employes be keeping there jobs .I no the parking lot is always quiet empty.

There were references to Winchester drives in the 4.3 BSD for IBM RT sources, IIRC.

I still have IBM RT serial #26 in my dining room.

Looks like today was also the day I became Pooh-Bah. Woo.

LOL,( congrats)

D&M Holdings (owners of Denon and Marantz amongst other brands) won both the ReplayTV and the Rio auctions.

I trust that by the tone of your posts, this was not the company with not-so-good plans for you guys? Please tell us who that is!

I'll guess "Creative"

I would guess either of the other two would be rotten.

alchohohohol

Ooouff. Don't you hate it when you go to a party, you have a few drinks too many, Roger starts inventing cocktails, and the next thing you know you're waking up in bed with a major Japanese corporation...?

And where did this road sign come from?

Peter

I would guess either of the other two would be rotten.

Motorola might have been about as cool as Denon. I know it's a huge, huge company, but the folks that visited us seemed really nice, and seemed also to realise that the way to keep up the flow of cool products was to keep the Empeg culture as it was rather than impose a culture on us. They were also the only bidder to visit Empeg Towers -- the others, including Denon, visited only the US office.

Basically, as soon as only Denon and Motorola were left in the bidding, we knew we were onto a winner whatever happened...

Peter

I'll guess "Creative"

I couldn't possibly comment on that.

Rob

empeg lives!

Motorola has a way of ruining a good thing. Sounds like the D&M path is/was the best option. Congrats!

Reuters New Story:

14:36 16Apr2003 RTRS-D&M Holdings to buy Sonicblue's ReplayTV, Rio

NEW YORK, April 16 (Reuters) - Japan's D&M Holdings Inc. <6735.T> won a bankruptcy court auction to acquire Sonicblue Inc.'s <SBLUQ.PK> ReplayTV television recording service and Rio portable audio unit for about $36.2 million, Sonicblue said on Wednesday.
D&M Holdings said it bought inventory, receivables, intellectual property and capital equipment, and that it would also take over certain contractual relationships and liabilities. It intends to keep all ReplayTV customers and will design and manufacture a line of ReplayTV and Rio products.
D&M added that the costs related to the acquisition will be slightly dilutive to its earnings in fiscal year 2003 but add to earnings thereafter. In addition, it said it remains comfortable with the consensus market analyst earnings per share estimates for fiscal year 2003.
On the surface, the price was cheaper than the $40 million, plus assumption of some $5 million in liabilities, that D&M agreed pay Sonicblue in a similar agreement reached in March, after Sonicblue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the northern district of California in San Jose.
That pact with D&M, the parent company of established high-end audio equipment makers Denon Ltd. and Marantz Japan Inc., fell through, which left the assets up for auction.
ReplayTV is the brand name for Sonicblue's personal digital recorder, a set-top box that allows users to save television programming to a hard drive and play it back when they choose.
The Rio unit is best known for making the first mainstream device to play music in the popular MP3 format, and also makes other portable music players.
Santa Clara, California-based Sonicblue had hoped to sell the units as a whole rather than to a suitor interested in dismantling the service.
Sonicblue Chief Executive Greg Ballard on Wednesday said the product lines would "continue to compete successfully in the marketplace," and that many, if not most, of Sonicblue's employees will continue their work.
The transaction is expected to close in approximately 10 days, D&M said.
Earlier this month, the California bankruptcy court approved Sonicblue's sale of its GoVideo business unit, which makes DVD players and digital home theater systems, to Opta Systems LLC. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

...the folks that visited us seemed really nice, and seemed also to realise that the way to keep up the flow of cool products was to keep the Empeg culture as it was rather than impose a culture on us.

I've heard that one before. Every time, without exception, that I have worked for a company that was purchased by another, larger company, the purchasers always say something to the effect that "...we want you to keep right on doing what you're doing. We're not planning on making any changes in the operation."

Yeah, right.

NOBODY spends $36M to buy a company that was so poorly managed that it was forced into involuntary bankruptcy, and then wants that company to continue on just the way it was before.

Now it is very likely that the empeg group was one of the few "shining stars" within Sonic Blue, and it is my fervent hope that the same people who have the ability to spend $36M also have the ability to realize that the Empeg culture, as you put it, is extraordinarily valuable, far beyond any normal nuts-and-bolts, assets-and-debits method of accounting could demonstrate, and if they have any sense at all they'll at least try to leave it alone for a little while so it can prove its value.

But I am not optimistic about this.

tanstaafl.

In the company I work for, the "culture" that they so much stressed needed to be preserved is all but gone. For example, the latest desiogn flow chart showed one beer at the end, not a beer between each major design step. That's the truth nowdays, too. Not enough celebration, though with the layoffs and not-so-good numbers, celebrations are hardly justifiable lately, but we did celebrate the loss of a few individuals in the layoffs privately...

Is the "preserving the culture" a mostly British thing? I'd never really heard it that much until I started at a British company.

In the company I work for, the "culture" that they so much stressed needed to be preserved is all but gone. For example, the latest desiogn flow chart showed one beer at the end, not a beer between each major design step.

I'd be thrilled to work for a company that has a beer located anywhere on any company presentation.

Well the best part is while there is a "No alcohol on company premises" rule, the VP of Sales gave us the quaterly rundown with an oil can of Foster's in hand... in the training room... That's one thing I love about the company, beer is still part of the culture, but not as much as before the tech slowdown...

In reply to:

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so poorly managed that it was forced into involuntary bankruptcy

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I think this happened because of lawsuits against Rio (remember how they got sued for making mp3 players by the RIAA? Well the RePlayTV lawsuits were even bigger) and not due to poor managment.

Or in the case of Metrowerks, ruining a bad thing ;-)

Greg