Given the current rate of UK dealers closing (due to the franchise not making enough profit to stay in business) I think it unlikely that any new strategy will include price reductions that will reduce the dealers margins even further.

Don't forget that at the moment in the UK we have the option to buy over 12 months with no interest charge, a free 5 year warranty on all main items, a gauranteed minimum £500 trade in for ANY old B&O working TV and a free BeoSound6 when you buy BeoSound1.  We have also just seen a promotion of a free Sky HD box when you buy a main TV. You can't accuse B&O of not trying to drum up some business.

Personally I think that the product development on TV's has been one of the main problems. B&O don't seem to have handled the switch to digital TV and the release of dual branded gimmicks seems to have been a quick fix strategy that has now been ditched.

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of BeoSound5 to see how this is recieved after all the cloak and dagger stuff aprior to its release.

B&O products have always stood out from the crowd. I think that at the moment they are percieved as just being part of the crowd, just more expensive. I hope that whatever the new strategy is, B&O get back to doing what they do best. Producing products that may you say  "WOW".

Opman

If Bang & Olufsen are going to survive, they are going to have to give into the majority of my demands! Forget MasterLink! I want ThunderLink or MegaLink! I want to be able to control products in rooms I'm not in! I want features and upgrades that are indistinguishable to any of my senses, but are listed on a piece of paper to put my mind at ease! I want all the products to be reduced in price! I want HDMI 1.5 before it's released and I don't want to acknowledge any existing problems with HDMI! I want to work from home! I want full support for the most experimental and exotic audio and video codecs that only a handful of people know about and which have no practical value in a real world applications! I want a 90 day return policy! I want to be paid for my ideas! I want free installations! I want that thing I read about online! I want the company to return to its roots and stay true to its identity while also supplicating itself to another marginally related technology company! I want them to pump Jacob Jensen full of vitamins and get him back to work! I want to earn money in my spare time! I want Linux support! I want Google Earth! I want wireless electricity! I want CougarLink! 

Anything else would be suicide!

I wonder with the pending release of the Beosound 5 if there is going to be any alliances with the media producers like Linn Records and ECM? I wonder if they have considered selling pre-installed ultra-high quality media files (as opposed to going the Apple iTune route) and carve out their own niche?

It may be considered very un-youth-like, but it may be something that may appeal to those who do not want Apple integration or to get into the business of ripping thier collection and they (B&O) they can do it to show-off the quality of their own proprietry algorithms in the BS5?

I wonder if the long delays in the BS5 have anything to do with building music libraries whereby ownders can send their CD's to to ripped on to the harddrive (as with Olive)?

Money to be made in the hardware and the media. Made Apple rich.

10%

Hello?!

This is B&O we are talking about here!!