Earlier this year Philips shut down their global Pronto business, after talks with Michael Henriksen, the CEO of Qualifi in Australia, and three other dealers in France, Switzerland and the UK broke down. Henriksen had offered to buy 50% of the company.
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Yesterday Henriksen said that a market for old controllers had developed and that he was not prepared to sell his stock.
“I am getting emails all the time from people looking for Philips Pronto stock, earlier this week I had an email from a dealer in Europe who offered me $320,000 for 80 TSU 9800 units that we are currently holding for own customers in Australia”.
Henriksen said that dealers are “desperate” to get old stock because the system was reliable and they had staff, who had been trained in the Philips Pronto control technology.
Late last year Philips realised that dealers were set to move from proprietary remote control systems, to a new generation of control systems integrated via iPads, tablets and Smartphones.
David Richards has been writing about technology for more than 30 years. A former Fleet Street journalist, he wrote the Award Winning Series on the Federated Ships Painters + Dockers Union for the Bulletin that led to a Royal Commission. He is also a Logie Winner for Outstanding Contribution To TV Journalism with a story called The Werribee Affair. In 1997, he built the largest Australian technology media company and prior to that the third largest PR company that became the foundation company for Ogilvy PR. Today he writes about technology and the impact on both business and consumers.
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