Shimano should have bought them to compete with the SRAM/Rockshox combo.
They must have some patents.
Sad to hear but they have become rather irrelevant in the last number of years… you know you’re in trouble when Suntour is getting more press than you are.
Definitely a game changer in the MTB world though… freeride wouldn’t have been without the Monster T.
They certainly have fallen off their game. Xfusion has been getting some respectable press.
Shame. They were the go-to suspension for Ducati as well for years. I really thought they were a bigger operation than that and could withstand the market forces against them.
Some companies go through cycles of innovation followed by periods of milking the innovation where they focus on manufacturing cost reductions. The engineering in the later phase is minor low risk stuff.
The danger is when the company cannot raise enough interest and cash to enter into the next innovation cycle.
If Suntour can pull them selves out of the bottom end and innovate then Marz should too.
Maybe though Suntour has cash from selling tonnes of low end forks that they could pay for the innovation cycle where Marz just faltered trying to sell obsolete high end forks and ran out of cash required for the next innovation cycle.
Other companies continually innovate with a small percentage of their profit instead but maintain a smaller engineering team.