Just read in CE Pro SnapAV was acquired by Hellman & Friedman. Hmmm wonder how things will change over the years.

Sounds like a mixed bag.

This was a 6 weeks or so ago, not new news and there probably is a thread with guys whining about the acquisition here. I see and use very little Snap gear so have no input on how it is going.

Given that the previous owners had been working hard to apply lipstick to a pig, this may very well be a good thing.

Why do you say that?

That sucks for the employees. Rarely do things get better for employees after buyouts. Then diarrhea drips down to the consumer or in this case AV guy

Because the investors that previously owned the company only had one goal. To flip the company and make a profit. While they did a lot to make the products better, everything they did was geared toward making the company more marketable. The new owner wants to make a profit by selling products. To me it seems this is a better type of owner for us.

Fair statement (albeit lipstick on a pig is not :) ) Its always the goal of any buyer to increase the value of their company. And they did just that. So hats of to them. Mostly for dumping unsaid millions, I guessing over a $100 million into the company to build that value. The new owners goal may be the same, increase value and sell, or maybe not. Regardless, their goal is to increase the value. They can only be done one way. Increase the value of the company to the dealer base. Lets see how it goes. I suspect just fine.

If you can't see there was some lipstick applied after everything that went on, then I don't know what else can be said.

My orders to snap av have been getting fewer and fewer lately. I had a $2000 order about a year ago for a retro fit. I needed a set of speakers for one of the rooms that was a certain size. It was only available if I was at some level. They would not sell me them. So I went with a different brand and bought everything else some where else.

They started to seem different lately. Like they only care about the bigger companies.

I still get monthly calls from my rep. I still get the same level of service. They just helped me with getting some speakers replaced a client blew (they overpowered them). Snap still stepped up to the plate and made everything easy. I really haven't seen a difference in the service side of things.

We've had more errors on orders lately and more delayed shipping. Of course it would probably help if my boss would use their website instead of calling orders in like its still 1989

Incredible service. They just replaced an old WB unit i had on the shelf that was three years old with new model because of a known problem. They also told me about two additional units i had purchased that had a suspect date code.

This is just so amazing...had a long conversation with Portal last week about using their service and was amazed that they e-mail the purchase orders into vendors, so I really would not know what warehouse a product was coming from to give accurate scheduling detail. The Portal guys relayed to me that that the vast majority of orders are e-mail rather than through vendor portals and there is still a significant number of dealers using faxed orders or calling the rep firm.

Nice technology industry we are in....

Crazy. I try to never speak with anyone. I hate people. Web orders for the win!!!