This merger of operations will take place in all territories where both Roland and Edirol Europe currently operate and will result in a more streamlined distribution network throughout Europe with Edirol and RSS allied together and distributed by the Roland Systems Group companies. Roland, Cakewalk and Boss will be handled by the music distribution arm of Roland.
The Edirol brand, with its focus on video products and hi-end field recorders, will become fully integrated within the Roland Systems Group, consolidating an audiovisual solution powerhouse alongside Roland's RSS Digital Snake and V-Mixer range, based on their REAC* protocol.
Edirol Europe started 11 years ago in London and quickly became a key sole distributor in Europe for Edirol-branded products manufactured by Roland and specifically designed to address new markets in the fields of audio and video recording, editing and mixing. The company premiered many groundbreaking products in various areas such as USB and FireWire audio capture interfaces, hand-held field recording products, video editing suites, vision mixers and visual effects processors.
Edirol Europe's founder and president Massimo Barbini says, "We are extraordinarily proud of what we have achieved in Europe with Edirol over the last 11 years. We have managed to enter completely new markets from scratch and build some amazing success stories along the way by working very closely with key partners in the industry. The merger of operations with existing Roland JV companies will guarantee continuity of this success story and allow Roland to focus on its brands with a whole new level of coordinated efforts inside the group. I would like to thank all of my colleagues for having spent many great years together and for all of their hard work in making Edirol what it is today."
The Roland and Boss brands will continue in the musical instrument sector, while the Cakewalk by Roland brand will be focused on computer music hardware and software products, effectively becoming Roland's desktop music production brand. Roland's desktop music products will therefore continue the trend started at the beginning of 2009 and be branded Cakewalk by Roland.
John Booth, director of Roland Corporation Japan states, "We are pleased to announce this very positive merger of operations and brand realignment. We believe it will significantly improve our brands, product lines, distribution and potential customer awareness and understanding of what we do across all of our product ranges. We are pleased to bolster our Roland Systems Group operations with the complete audiovisual range of products now jointly represented by Edirol for video and RSS for audio. The Roland and Boss brands continue to lead the way in their respective markets while Cakewalk is now one of the strongest brands in desktop music production."
(Jim Evans)
