CEDIA announces the four elected directors to serve on the board for the 2020-2021 term. Melanie Malcolm fills the open EMEA position and Jamie Briesemeister, Bill Skaer and Amanda Wildman fill the open positions for the rest of the world.

The results follow a 41-day voting period for CEDIA members, where they also voted to approve the move of domestication of CEDIA from Illinois to Indiana.

“The collection of skills and experiences our board leadership brings to bear is exceptional and the four elected directors will answer the call,” CEO Tabatha O’Connor says. “As the industry, organisation, and needs of membership continue to evolve, we’re excited to have a board of directors that can respond and take action that moves us to the next level.”

According to Canalys, global smart speaker shipments total 28.6 million units in Q3 2019-- a 44.9% Y-o-Y increase with Amazon in the lead, followed by online retail giant Alibaba reigning supreme in China.

The open retail channel makes it increasingly challenging for smart speaker vendors to stimulate sales, even as it regularly offers promotions and discounts. The Amazon "Echo Upgrade Program" helps entice users to trade-in old Echo or non-Echo Bluetooth speakers to further increase Echo device penetration, while Google is looking into partnerships with the likes of Spotify to drive sales through different channels. Alibaba is also running collaborations with local and international companies in order to boost the consumer appeal of Tmall Genie devices.

The CEDIA Designer (TCD), the cloud-based software helping installers create home cinema or media room design plans, documentation and minutes, releases a host of valuable upgrades.

Upgrades include the ability to generation documentation reports in Spanish, the specification of soundbar products within the tool and a Project Progress feature. Project Progress allows users to demonstrate the phase the project is in, including sales agreed, trim out, first fix and second fix stages.

RTI announces the appointment of CFO Mark Derus as CEO, following the decision of former CEO Ed McConaghay to step down from a leadership position in favour of an "advisory role" within the company.

Derus says he will focus on driving global growth and expanding the presence of RTI within the commercial market. He will also continue to build on successful RTI initiatives, including the 3-year warranty, robust training programs and the creation of a global Dealer Experience team.