Wow! This forum sounds like someone threw a firecracker in a chicken coup.
I've seen corporate acquisitions/takeovers as a dealer who put his heart and soul, reputation, and more than a few shillings into brands we were passionate about. This included taking the brand (or even a product category) from a virtual unknown, to market dominance. These takeovers were sometimes neutral, sometimes beneficial, and sometimes an emotional and financial disaster for us. Watching an esteemed brand you took years, space, dollars, and human interaction to build, converter to an over-distributed, dumbed-down commodity can be down right brutal (on many levels).
It is dependent on the corporate strategy starting from the top, working its way to regional managers, to the boots on the ground guys/gals that come face to face with the dealer network -- and, the end user -- the customer. I'm hoping that Bose maintains the Mac staffers who understand the brand and what makes it work.
I doubt if we're going to see McIntosh hybrid SS/tube amps bulked stacked at Costco any time soon.
And, on yeah, Volkswagen owns Porsche and Lamborghini.