An awesome presentation from Dutch real estate developer Coert Zachariasse, CEO of Delta Development, from the Circular Economy 100 Annual Summit 2014. Zachariasse’s presentation (and demonstrated business success) is a hugely refreshing breath of fresh air and is an outstanding … Continue reading coert zachariasse: a vision for the built environment
Some press for Ketra, which has a couple of my former Color Kinetics colleagues. Wow! $31m in funding! Continue reading ketra in fortune magazine
Via Reuters: Germany’s Osram (OSRn.DE) plans to transfer its 2 billion euro ($2.5 billion) general lamps business into an independent legal structure, paving the way for a possible spin-off or sale and allowing it to focus on automotive lighting and … Continue reading osram ditching lamps
The pan-European EnLight research consortium is making progress. According to their introduction page: Intelligent lighting The EnLight project aims to exploit the full potential of LED lighting through breakthrough innovations in integrated lighting solutions beyond retrofit applications. This includes intelligent lighting … Continue reading EnLight research consortium
Philips recently announced its intention to divest its Philips’ OLED division. My colleagues in the OLED team did a fantastic job creating unique concepts for OLED and generated tremendous buzz for their products. I think the root cause is quite simple: … Continue reading philips lighting to divest OLED group
There is tremendous pressure from the specification community for manufacturers to offer very long warranties on lighting equipment: 5 or 10 years is now the typical request. The usual comment goes something like “if you claim your product lasts for a bazillion hours, why don’t you back it up?” I find this naive on the part of the specification community. A warranty doesn’t solve the fundamental problem that many LED fixtures are designed as “disposable” items instead of as modular assemblies based on industry standard parts. Specifiers don’t like to imagine (or admit to their clients) that an entire fixture has to be replaced if … Continue reading a warranty does not equal a service commitment
Rogier van der Heide is already busy at Zumtobel, opening a new R+D center in Amsterdam. According to the press release: Before January is out, the company, which is based in Austria, is to open a new “Lichtforum” (light forum) at the heart of Amsterdam. The new facility will be designed to act as an open house, facilitating dialogue and close collaboration with leading architects, lighting designers technology experts and research partners. The Lichtforum, which will be located on the top floor of the UP Building – one of the tallest office buildings in downtown Amsterdam – will also host … Continue reading zumtobel to launch customer R+D center in amsterdam
A few interesting pieces relating to developing a Circular Economy: Philips hosted a expert panel debate in Brussels: In the past century, the developed world has followed a linear model of production and consumption. Goods were manufactured, sold, used and disposed. It has created immense wealth, but this model is starting to reach its limits. The circular economy aims to decouple economy growth from the use of natural resources by using resources more effectively and repeatedly, thus eliminating waste. It provides multiple benefits, including: innovation, new business models, creation of more value, reduce waste landfill and emissions, and better quality … Continue reading circular economy update
Wow. Samsung is backing away from the lighting business, abandoning its nascent lamps effort (and presumably whatever strategies it had for luminaires) in favor of just producing LED components (which it needs to do for LCD production, anyway). So it leads … Continue reading Is the lighting party over? What’s next?
Wow. At Strategies in Light Europe 2014 in Munich, Christian Schraft, President of Havells-Sylvania made the following comment: In China, the top 50 lighting players account for 20% of the market. The top player holds only 1%; everyone else is less than a percentage point. The other 80%? Tens of thousands of tiny companies. Unfortunately I didn’t catch which market analyst Schraft was referencing. (I’ve heard that Philips Lighting is the #1 lighting company in China; but I can’t confirm this without further research.) Later, Gary Hua, President of Inventronics, Inc, referenced a Frost and Sullivan report which claims that … Continue reading china’s huge but fragmented lighting market
Philips Lighting has finally decided to part ways with two long-running R+D side projects so that it can finally focus once again on being the preeminent lighting company in the world. The history of Philips, and why exactly Philips now sells a product range … Continue reading philips lighting finally ditches healthcare and consumer product divisions
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