Posted 02/13/06
Well the last signficant domino has fallen. Aquascapes Design owned by the hard charging Greg Wittstock has accquired the last competitor. Pondsweep is now part of the Aquascape empire.
Not only did Greg have all the media streaming forth with the opening of his new gig “Aqualand” where the new company headquarters is located. This announcement from Feb. 3rd is thrown on top of that.
My biggest curiousity is what will the loyal Pondsweep customers do. They have refusen to embrace the Aquascape way and shout out that anyone who has-is drinking a kool-aid that is very bad for your health. So where will they go to buy product, I have been to some of their conferences (pondsweep user’s only please . . .)and believe me they would rather chug pond scum than give Greg Wittstock a dime of their dough.
Greg had often talked of how he was proud of the simplicity of his product line. That went out the door when he bought Nursey Pro, now with the additional line what will the catalogue look like???
I hope this buyout brings some family happiness to the Wittstocks’ I really do. There is no way in hell this will bring happiness to the “no rocks in the bottom” crowd. Maybe Chic over at Savio is salivating, maybe.
It will also be interesting to see what happens to some of the liner guys, a couple of product lines in particular. I’d rather wait till I talk to a few of them before I really comment.
So Greg now has alomst all the professional installer’s market, and a really big chunk of retail. How will he respond? How will the company respond? How will the forlorn Pondsweep customers respond-and I am not kidding when I say they probably feel like they were punched in the gut.
Aquascapes Designs is the last man standing-will anyone step up to keep them honest? Will a new/younger/faster more flexible company show up out of the blue? It remains to be seen. Right now it’s all Aquascapes Design, all the time.
The Whispering Crane Institute 