That is great to hear. Viking is my first (and current) true playing cue (the one's before were just cheap novelty cues that came pre-warped). Hopefully, they remedy the issues that stifled them during these hard times (hopefully resolving some issues I mention below).
It's a great cue in terms of balance, joint feel, and vibration (in the butt, but not the shaft). Everybody who has played with my cue loves it. There are definitely nicer cues, but at a greater cost.
I think the article, and the people here hit the nail on the head about Viking's business problems (just my opinion, I am not an insider). They needed to update their cue designs, and they also needed to improve their Web presence. I also think they needed to make one technical improvement, and that is their shafts.
Their cue catalog had a lot of different styles, but despite the number of options, many of there looked dated or left much to be desired. Like my cue for example, it is a bit funky, but it's just a dark blue color stained maple... Nothing fancy. But as simple as it is, it looks better than some of their more artistic and costly cues. I think it's not a good thing when a $180 cue gets more compliements than a cue that exceeds $500.
Despite the style issue, one of the great thing about Viking is that they had a lot of customization options for their cues... Like Burger King, you could have it your way. But this leads-in to another issue, their business front-end.
Viking required customization requests to come through their dealers (per the Web site). However many dealers didn't even know that Viking would do customizations, and actually didn't know much about Viking cues in general (I called a lot of dealers trying to get a customized G83 cue a few years ago). When I had questions about customizations, many of the dealers had no clue and weren't interested about ordering a cue for me.
Additionally, as noted in the article, the Web site wasn't really geard-up for business with either dealers, and not at all for consumers. It had a catalog of cues with the photos, some basic descriptions, info on it's joint options, and a section regarding customization. That sounds fine, but they needed to get more specific info about the cues available, and an ordering function for dealers, and consumers if they wanted to add that. That Web site may well have been designed in the dark ages.
Also, in my opinion, the shaft quality leaves a bit to be desired. It's a standard shaft like a lot of other mass-produced maple shafts, but it seems a little whippy/rubbery. But even if it were just a "normal" shaft, the shaft ends-up being the weak point of their cues. Some of Vikings cues retailed almost $1000, yet they were shipping with the same shaft. I am guessing their customers would gladly pay a little extra for a shaft made from a better sample of maple, or at least having the option of purchasing a premiere solid shaft, rather than going to a 3rd party to only have the option of a LD shaft.
That's all I have to say about that.
