WRT the support, it is really the best effort part I was mentioning. We had a third party evaluate RF products for support life (our scope products haven't been around long enough) and on average, our support was roughly 5 years longer than others in the industry. Again, a large portion of this is due to us being privately held - if we have inventory we hold on to it, versus writing it off to improve things like ROIC (which is often important to investors in publicly held companies). For scopes, I think you are correct about LeCroy - from what I can tell they do a very good job of long term support too.
I know from my own experience that R&S really keeps even very old parts on stock, and in general even tries to support old equipment, but as I said that's in line with what other big brands offer. I also don't think this is a question of being privately held or a public company (not every public company has surrendered to the MBAs, Keysight and even more so LeCroy are very engineering-driven; on the other side, Tek is a good example of a T&M company purely driven by MBAs).
The real advantage for companies being privately held shows during economic hard times like the 2008 financial crisis, as they tend to weather the storm much better than public companies who have to baby nervous shareholders. And the valuation of your company not based on rumors and expectations is generally a good thing as well.
I didn't know R&S was privately held!
That's the norm for many German companies. And of those that are public companies often the majority is owned by one or two families as well.
Interesting. That is a whole new kettle of fish (in a good way). I've been an exec at both public and private companies, and yes definitely, the focus can be very different, especially with respect to investors/stockholders. Kind of the "new thing" here in the States the last few years has been taking public companies private (again), especially via large hedge fund buyouts, to get the thing out of the public eye and end the required public quarterly reporting nightmare, so they can move forward more nimbly.
In the US, especially the west coast, the modern general mantra for company founders says you can be either a king (i.e. you have full control over the company) or be rich (i.e. you make a lot of money from the company) but not both. So if you setup a startup and seek investment, once the company grows to a certain size usually your investors will ask you to step aside and cede control to a new CEO, and by doing that you're reaping the riches the new CEO will generate. The thinking behind this is that while an entrepreneur is usually a specialist when it comes to the specific products the company makes, he's often overwhelmed by the more mundane responsibilities that come with leading a growing business, so an 'experienced CEO' (one of those types that can easily drive down a company and still make it off with the golden parachute, someone like Carly Fiorina or Leo Apotheker) is brought in to decide the company's future path (short-term focused of course).
In Germany however (although it used to be common in the US, too) it's common that company founders keep control of their business pretty much to the founder's death, and then control often goes to someone in the founder's family (i.e. sons/daughters). As the company grows, they learn how to manage their company pretty much on the job, and accept that they're not getting rich quickly (but money is usually not the reason they're in it in the first place). Which resulted in a swath of internationally renowned German companies not just R&S but also Aldi (which is now even in the US), Thyssen Krupp, Abt, Krauss-Maffei, Bosch and others. It shows that, indeed, you can be king and get rich (although it takes a lot longer).
I guess the main difference is if you're in for the quick buck (in which case the US model is a better choice) or for the long-term.