Keta,

Thanks for your post. You raised some interesting philosophical issues. As we speak I am on my way to CES for a whole host of meetings for involving Outlaw, Atlantic and a few other companies.

In actuality, due to the way we market and the known level of quality of our customer base (Yes other companies visit the Saloon to see what we are doing and what our customers want) we have been approached by others to market specific products that they believe are ideal for Outlaw. Many companies wanted a targeted marketing approach.

Some examples:

Terra: They named us the only authorized Internet retailer of their outdoor speakers

Vudu: They approached us and put together a unique (at the time) bundle of free movies for outlaw customers.

Cue: Listened to our ideas on making a special version of their radio with improvements to listening modes. (They are now requesting that they be allowed to incorporate the ideas in the Outlaw version in their own model by late spring)

Oppo: We are very close with these people. They (among other things, have given us an education on Anchor Bay video processing.) As a result of this relationship, we are one of only three companies outside of themselves that is invited to offer the limited edition of the BDP-83 Blu Ray player.

Onkyo: Well that one was our idea because we knew that the 997 would be quite late due to glitches and other issues at Inkel (that our completely out of our control.) Many customers who could not wait have taken advantage of our acquiring the 886’s and we have now virtually tied up the market on the remaining new units with all the latest software.

.

In this world of rapidly changing technologies there are few companies that can totally develop a platform on their own. It costs well over one million per platform, if you include the software development and approvals. Furthermore, by the time one delivers, the technology has moved on again (HDMI 1.4 anyone?).

So Outlaw as with a few other online companies has technology and marketing partners. While we would like to have everything with our brand name it is virtually impossible unless you remain fairly narrow in a rapidly changing product environment.

So this week, we and other Outlaws are exploring opportunities for our customers and yes some of them will be unique to Outlaw. (Without talking out of school since it has already been written about in the audio press H-PAS speaker technology is in our future.) Work continues on the 997 (Suffice it to say, we will not release it until it is totally vetted) and there are real good surprises coming that no one sees coming as of today.

Will we continue to offer special products from our colleagues? Yes, but where possible, we will put a special Outlaw touch on them.
That is it I am on an early morning plane. Happy New Year everyone and thanks again Keta for raising the issue