A six year development and retail partnership between EK Waterblocks and Aquatuning came to an end today following months of uncertainty over licensing payments to be made to Aquatuning for multiple waterblock products. According to Aquatuning this decision was a response to EK's refusal to continue licensing these technologies rather than a simple end of contract period, and indicates an acrimonious separation in what was a fruitful partnership which included the development of the bestselling EK Supreme CPU block.
In the short term the fall-out to customers of Aquatuning is pronounced - EK Waterblocks will no longer be available from the various international webshops. In the long term Aquatuning will likely seek to form partnerships with other prominent manufacturers in the market such as Phobya and XSPC, with an eye toward creating new products for retail channels.
The full text of the press release is as follows:
PRESS RELEASE
EK Water Blocks and Aquatuning go separate ways.
With effect from 17.05.2013, the management of Aquatuning has decided to drop all EKWB products from the webshop. In 2007 and following years Aquatuning developed many products for EK Water Blocks under license and technology agreements among other products the EK Supreme CPU block, which immediately became the new No. 1 CPU water block. After many years of successful collaboration, EK Water Blocks surprisingly decided to stop the payment of the licenses to Aquatuning.
Due to the ultimatum from EK Water Blocks to either accept the breach of contract or stop buying products from EK Water Blocks, the Aquatuning management saw no other way then to inform the public about the background of the unprecedented incident never seen before in the 10-year history of Aquatuning.
We regret the end of the collaboration with EK Water Blocks very much, especially because in recent years many good and successful products have emerged from it. The products we licensed to EK Water Block will now be given to other manufacturers so that we can continue to bring revolutionary cooling products to market.
EK Water Blocks and Aquatuning go separate ways.
With effect from 17.05.2013, the management of Aquatuning has decided to drop all EKWB products from the webshop. In 2007 and following years Aquatuning developed many products for EK Water Blocks under license and technology agreements among other products the EK Supreme CPU block, which immediately became the new No. 1 CPU water block. After many years of successful collaboration, EK Water Blocks surprisingly decided to stop the payment of the licenses to Aquatuning.
Due to the ultimatum from EK Water Blocks to either accept the breach of contract or stop buying products from EK Water Blocks, the Aquatuning management saw no other way then to inform the public about the background of the unprecedented incident never seen before in the 10-year history of Aquatuning.
We regret the end of the collaboration with EK Water Blocks very much, especially because in recent years many good and successful products have emerged from it. The products we licensed to EK Water Block will now be given to other manufacturers so that we can continue to bring revolutionary cooling products to market.
Source: Aquatuning.co.uk
