Most everyone is flying to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico today to party with the surf industry at the 12th Annual SIMA Surf Summit which runs September 30 through October 3, 2009. Speakers this fall reportedly include VF Corp’s Steve Murray, Volcom’s Richard Woolcott, Andrew Zolli of Pop!Tech, and The Intelligence Group’s Jane Buckingham.
We’re just hoping there is some good surf, because it makes all the nob polishing so much more palatable.
[Link: SIMA]
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Hey, computer nerds. Check out this big news from Burton. The company has reduced server costs by over 80 percent according to Novell.
Burton migrated all of its mission-critical systems to Dell* servers running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, including SAP* ERP, Business Intelligence, CRM, Enterprise Portal, as well as its Oracle* applications. The company plans to use the built-in Xen* virtualization to reduce its number of physical servers and adapt quickly to changing workloads. The ability to quickly deploy virtual servers will greatly improve the IT staff’s ability to add new applications as needed. Virtual servers will also help the team create better development and testing environments on existing hardware.
Take that AT&T. For more of this scintillating info, follow the jump.
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The bargain lift-ticket seller Liftopia.com has added Whistler/Blackcomb, Killington, Mammoth Mountain, Winter Park, Copper Mountain, and Stowe, to its list of discounter resorts this season, and rounded up $1 million more in funding, according to a story on TechCrunch.
Liftopia allows ski resorts to offer variable pricing for tickets based on much how traffic they anticipate seeing on the slopes — in other words, resorts can lower their prices if they think they’re going to have a slow day the same way an airline does if a flight might not fill up. Some resorts have been able to do this to a limited extent with ‘peak season’ tickets (a ticket for Christmas time would cost more than one a month or two later), but up until now they haven’t had a good way to adjust their pricing on a daily basis. Liftopia gives them this option.
Definitely something worth checking out this season. . .
[Link: TechCrunch]
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GE Capital sent out a press release yesterday explaining how happy they are to act “as collateral agent on a $200 million asset-based credit facility” for Quiksilver. Yes, that General Electric. Founded by Thomas Edison, owners of NBC Universal (Dew Tour, Alliance of Action Sports), makers of large jet engines.
“GE’s ability to commit a significant amount of capital helped to provide us with the liquidity we desired”, said Joe Scirocco, CFO for Quiksilver. “Also, their in-depth retail finance knowledge enabled us to quickly complete this transaction, which was integral to our ability to simultaneously execute other financing transactions both in the U.S. and in Europe.”
It doesn’t get much bigger than GE.
[Link: Lessors.com]
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After viewing some marketing material describing 70 styles of The North Face footwear as “antimicrobial” the US Environmental Protection Agency has reportedly filed suit against The North Face’s parent company VF Corp. for making “unsubstantiated public health claims regarding unregistered products,” according to a story on Sports One Source.
The suit centers around shoes featuring The North Face’s “AgION antimicrobial silver agent” which reportedly “inhibits the growth of disease-causing bacteria.” By the EPA’s definition that constitutes a pesticide.
Products that kill or repel bacteria or germs are considered pesticides, and must be registered with the EPA prior to distribution or sale. The Agency will not register a pesticide until it has been tested to show that it will not pose an unreasonable risk when used according to the directions. Consumers should be careful to look for the EPA registration number printed on product labels, and to follow the directions for proper use.
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One of the friendliest faces in action sports marketing and electric eyewear co-founder Mike Carter, has officially taken the job of vice president of global marketing for Rick Alden’s headphone company Skullcandy. Here’s what Carter said in the press release:
“This is a very rare and unique opportunity to join such an incredible team. The brand passion that Rick Alden and the entire Skullcandy family have created is infectious, and I’m excited to make my own unique contribution to a category leader that shares my similar marketing values and visions. I look forward to being apart of the next chapter in the ever evolving Skullcandy story. Let the good times roll…”
We really should have seen this coming. . . follow the jump for the entire release. [click to continue…]
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For the past 32 years the SnowSports Industries America has released an “intelligence report” of topline numbers from the snow sports marketplace. This year is no different. Here are some of the bullet points we cared about:
For all the details click here or follow the jump for the rest. [click to continue…]
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It’s the middle of summer, but the Snow Industries of America wants everyone to know that the show’s move to Denver, Colorado (yee haw) is the best thing ever and they’ve got video proof from the likes of Joel Gomez, Dave Roseberger, Andrew Marriner, Rick Alden (and some guys we don’t know from some ski companies) in this six minute “come to cowtown” video.
[Link: SIA]
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World Industries is taking their warehouse on the road in the Southwest this fall with a fleet of vehicles that will be able to sell and deliver single board to multiple board or larger purchases right out of the back of the van.
“We’re really looking forward to using Southern California and the other select territories to test this concept,” said World Industries President John Dickinson. “The hope is to be able to build this program into a great benefit for our skate retailers and move it into all territories across the U.S. By bringing the product to the shops we hope to add a little more savings to the retailer, help them increase the frequency in which they update their product offerings, and give them better margins on hardgoods.”
There’s nothing like door-to-door service, especially in trying economic times. Follow the jump for the rest of the info.
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This morning, while surveying the action financial landscape from the comfort of our bed we noticed that Zumiez was up nearly 10 percent on morning trading to $16.87. Aside from making us wish we had purchased it at $7, we wondered what the deal was. According to Forbes it was an back-to-school upgrade from Wedbush analyst Betty Chen.
“We believe Zumiez benefited from solid back-to-school selling during the Labor Day weekend and while there may be some deceleration in the latter half of the month, we believe September sales will once again demonstrate an improvement from year-to-date trends,” Wedbush’s Betty Chen wrote in a client note.
We say this all the time, but this news kind of makes us wish we bought industry stock. . .but we don’t.
[Link: Forbes.com]
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