Nortek Companies Embrace Digi5 Home-Grown Cat5 Audio Technology
Elan, Linear, Niles, SpeakerCraft and Xantech to develop products around their own Digi5 solution.There’s a new Cat5-based audio solution in town, and its backers hope to make it an industry-wide standard.
The technology, Digi5, is a product of five companies within Nortek’s Linear Home Technology Group: Elan (and sub-brand Aton), Linear, Niles, SpeakerCraft and Xantech.
Digi5 marks the most ambitious collaborative effort among the Linear companies, which generally have recognized synergies through more conventional measures, such as cross-marketing products and sharing manufacturing facilities.
All five companies have plans to develop products based on the platform, and it matters little that the products may compete with each other.
“If you look at who our competition is, it’s not Elan or Niles,” says Steve Hayes, director of sales for SpeakerCraft.
“It’s all the discretionary-fund sucks [for example, hot tubs and granite countertops]. If we as tiny players don’t figure out how to play together, we will be consumed.”
