Russound Set To Move Into The Cloud VNet Technology Back In Play

Last week Russound poached Tom McCarthy the former Vice President of Engineering at Nile to head product development at Russound.

McCarthy will “assist our team in expanding our strategy of leveraging our technology assets to fully embrace cloud-based content, integrate with third-party subsystems, and ultimately offer home automation and lighting control products,” CEO Charlie Porritt said.

 He added” McCarthy is fluent in current developments in digital audio and video” and “has a keen sense of how these new trends can be adapted to simple solutions that benefit our installers and their customers.”

Russound already offers one product that streams Internet radio services and plans a second, but those products don’t stream video via the Internet. The company’s Collage system, which uses powerline technology to distribute audio over a home’s electrical wiring, features Internet radio, as does the planned DMS-3.1 Digital Media Streamer, due in May for integration with Russound’s C series of more traditional multi-room-audio systems.

According to TWICE Magazine, at one stage of his career McCarthy was chief technology officer at D&M Holdings and advisor to the board chairman and Bose director of worldwide R&D operations. He has also held management positions with Lockheed Martin and GE Aerospace.

Speculation has also surfaced that Russound is set to have another crack at making automation Company Colorado vNet a viable operation.

US dealers claim that the vNet branded products are set to be marketed as Russound. In 2009 Colorado vNet was sold to Russound after struggling to survive.

Then in in December 2010 Russound suddenly closed the doors on the vNet operation.

Now the manufacturer of lighting controls, multiroom audio and home automation is set to get a new life according to letters being syndicated to US and Canadian dealers.
One letter reads “As of today Russound, has decided to continue on with the product but will transition from the vNet badge to a Russound badge over the course of the year on a SKU by SKU basis.

Any registered projects that were sent in by the end of Dec will continue to get 2010 pricing. New projects that you will quote will be at 2011 pricing. Attached is the Jan 2011 Price List”.
ChannelNews has been unable to confirm details due to time differences with the US.