AD8 TA, page-78

Thanks for the compliment.

'Hold' reflects only my personal situation - no money available to 'buy'. Also, I bought at $5, and my small portfolio is now overweight with AD8. (I may not have correctly reflected my sentiment with that status!)

The AV world (equipment manufacturers) is alive with mergers and acquisitions at the moment. What was once a world of small/specialist companies populated by audio geeks and enthusiasts is transitioning in many ways to align with the ways of the IT world (sales and marketing approaches, the people who do the installations, a more business-focussed approach to decision-making and portfolio planning). It's a bit sad in some ways to see the passion being replaced by hard-nosed business sense. But that probably reflects my years in the industry (and feelings about the people). Anyway, this is a long way of introducing the idea that I reckon some more corporate activity is likely. I can imagine things such as:

• Cisco acquiring a number of specialist firms that create products built (increasingly) on IP technology (I'm thinking about privately or VC-owned targets such as Biamp, QSC - not ASX companies to be sure, but players in the AD8 world)
• big/multi-national tech distributors continuing to acquire smaller/regional distributors as a way of bringing the higher AV margins into their IT worlds (in Australia, companies like the privately-held Jands or ASX-listed AMO)
• and even a player like Intel, AMD or Arm might make a play for AD8 - seeking to leverage application-side growth.

That's all just speculation (been hanging around a few forums this arvo - not all investment-related - and this has stimulated by speculative juices.