www.limelightwired.com: As part of the transition, X-Laser will continue operating under its own name through a new entity, X-Laser USA, at its current headquarters in Laurel, Maryland. The facility will remain a hub for manufacturing, prototyping, and R&D, while also serving as Elation’s East Coast service center. All existing customers will continue to receive full product support, warranty coverage, and service through that location, now reinforced by Elation’s global infrastructure and distribution network.
3 comments:
While I'm glad to see Elation beginning to have a bigger presence in the Lighting Industry. I still think that the lighting industry has a long way to go before they become unmonopolized. I mean there are really only a few major companies that control every single aspect of the entertainment lighting industry. We definitely need some new competitors in the industry, in order to lower prices and improve consumer lives. It would also in general push for more innovation in the industry, and improve the technology that we have been maturing for a long time. I personally believe that there's gonna be some sort of anti-trust suit with this at some point, it just seems unreasonable for one of the few Lighting giants to be able to basically crush one of their major competitions in the industry, and eliminate their own competition just by buying them out. But at the same time I understand that consumers in the entertainment industry are different than ones in other consumer markets.
The idea of a laser control system is very fascinating. In my opinion I did feel that the say lighting rigs are set up and spaced had some room for optimization. All of the work that I have done with setting up lighting rigs in theater has more or less been based on the designers vision, and felt like the placement of fixtures was based merely on opinion, and not based on super optimized technical reasoning. This laser system seems to bridge this gap and would allow for designers to make super optimized lighting rig set ups for shows, and may allow for easier install with the placement of the overall fixtures being in the most perfect spot for the show and design. On top of all that the fact that this system would also allow other laser systems to be programmed through only DMX is an extremely ground breaking thing that would drop costs for using lasers due to not needing secondary control systems for said lasers. This would mean that if a theater got one of these laser control systems then that would allow that theater to buy laser fixtures without worrying about extra costs for using them in shows.
I didn’t really expect this acquisition, but I also don’t find it particularly surprising. My first thought with this acquisition is maybe Elation is seeking to create a moving light with a laser based source. If I recall correctly, Claypaky also made their own laser source fixture, I think that fixture was the Xtylos? Elation may also be seeking to expand their market share and diversify their theatrical assets. I do have a slight concern that this acquisition may stifle further product development at X-Laser, as Elation may just want to continue at their existing developmental expenditure levels, spreading the money more thinly rather than keeping up whatever development cycle X-Laser has. I’m not familiar with the laser market as I am with the lighting market, but this could also be a step to bringing those two systems together as one? Regardless, this is certainly and interesting and exciting acquisition.
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