What's so great about RCA?

[andy]

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[Sandy G]

Seems like so many companies thrived when they had a guy who was a definate "Personality" at the helm, usually the founder...Sarnoff was one. Paul Galvin at Motorola was another, as was Commander McDonald at Zenith. Billy Durant, the founder of GM was one. George Eastman was another. Sarnoff & McDonald reportedly couldn't stand each other, McDonald was the patrician WASP, Sarnoff the hardscrabble Jewish immigrant...Henry Ford was undeniably brilliant, but he was also, uhh, shall we say, a "half-bubble offa plumb"...

[peverett]

I see a possible future parallel with Apple. They are doing great now, but what happens when Steve Jobs is gone. He looks like death warmed over now!

Microsoft is another possible one-they have had absolutely no sucess getting into wireless devices. This is also true of Intel-they keep trying to buy their way into wireless, but with little sucess so far. Of course, PCs will sustain these guys for quite a while yet.

[peverett]

Ford is kind of unique. He was brilliant when he was young but became very stubborn as he got older and almost killed Ford. His grandson, Henry Ford II was the same way, he rescued Ford in the 1950s, but almost killed it in the 70s. So far it appears that Bill Ford is smart-he stepped down and hired a good outsider to run the company.

[Sandy G]

Yep. Ford would have prolly not survived as a company had it not been for the V-8-By 1935, certainly by '40, Fords were rather hopelessly obsolete-They were still using basically the same chassis design as the 1908 T-model.

[rca2000]

Originally Posted by andy

I agree that Sarnoff was the driving force behind RCA. It seems that many companies have lost their way when their leadership changed. RCA started out developing and selling cutting edge technology. First it was radio, then TV, then color TV, then they just coasted for 20 or 30 years and faded away.

I see a lot of parallels with the top Japanese companies now. What has Sony done in the last 20 years apart from video games? They don't even have a worthwhile display technology anymore.

Well...Sony HAS had a LOT of "Duds" over the decades..Lately--AIBO was probably one of their biggest. But They HAVE had ONE "win"" lately--BLu-RaY, was mostly Sonys, after all. And Sony "coasted" on the Trinitron for 30 YEARS!!

[andy]

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[rcaman]

Originally Posted by andy

I agree that Sarnoff was the driving force behind RCA. It seems that many companies have lost their way when their leadership changed. RCA started out developing and selling cutting edge technology. First it was radio, then TV, then color TV, then they just coasted for 20 or 30 years and faded away.

I see a lot of parallels with the top Japanese companies now. What has Sony done in the last 20 years apart from video games? They don't even have a worthwhile display technology anymore.

they have a hell of a 3d tv. and it seems more and more of my tv sets are turning into sony tv,s i use one 32" for my computer monitor absolutey fab color and clairity. and another just waiting to be used. their led sets are awsome also. just my 2 cents worth. steve

[holmesuser01]

Sony has not helped the theatre business. Their SDDS system of theatre digital sound is basically gone now, after years of almost no support from the company.

The digital system by Sony that is in use at my theatre seems to be working OK, but eats xenon lamps for lunch, and is somewhat flaky in operation at times.

I have to replace filters in them. One of them is in a locked up compartment, and if I open the door, we have to pay money to Sony to get a "code" to restart the projector after replacement of this filter. What do they think I'm going to do to their $200K projector??

Sorry to be off-topic, but since we are talking about Sony...

[andy]

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[miniman82]

Originally Posted by andy

What has Sony done in the last 20 years apart from video games?

I'm partial to Sony's line of camcorders, the Handycams have always been a favorite of mine. Easy to use, light, long bettery life, feature packed, and the DV cam software is a snap to make/edit videos on the PC. I personally would never buy any other brand when it comes to video equipment, just like I would never buy any other home theater brand than Pioneer, or any old color TV than RCA. I guess I just go with what has worked in the past, and I stick with that.

[andy]

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[Red Raster]

Once apon a day when i could earn a living fixing tvs the thing i realy liked about RCA (acronym, repairs come always) is that throughout the line i rarely found a bad crt and when you concider the sheer volume of RCA it is impressive. Un like so many bad Sony crts especially those suprise intermittant ones that took out the power supply and so many other brands where the crts would go soft quickly making a repair a bad option.If a set had a good jug you could for the most part make a good buck.