Things don't sound good at Tektronix

[orbiter]

you dont get it do you? or havent read from page 1? not gonna happen. what happened is those poor engineers are forced to copy 10 years old design (2.5Kb mem) with not so much better to modern UI, at the same price tag as 10 years old before and ask kids to buy it. do you know how it feels like to work with ham burger maker and gambling nuts standing next to you on the right side and an attorney on your left with arm crossed?

Nope..and nope. That's all ya gettin' out of me Mr.

[TRIO_Smartcal]

Consider what has happened to the Danaher Stock Price in the last 5 years. The same period this article refers to.  Look here.....

http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=DHR   (click on the link and select 5-years in top left of graph)

And here's what an analyst is saying about the stock....

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11798034/1/danaher-corporation-stock-buy-recommendation-reiterated-dhr.html?puc=CNNMONEY&cm_ven=CNNMONEY

Tek seems to have chosen to re-market / re-position / re-price the TDS1000/2000 basic hardware to make it more competitive while still obviously maintaining the brand premium price for, let's face it, very mediocre performance in today's market. People however will buy it for no other reason than it has the TEK logo on it and it's blue.  Tek will know that from market focus groups and they are very good at that.

Every company has limited R&D funds and the funds will go to where the best bang-for-the-buck can be achieved. I'm sure that under Danaher that will be even more strictly enforced within TEK. These folks are no fools. The Danaher stock price is up almost 50% in 5 years through the GFC. 

If people still buy these scopes then DHR will make a truck load of cash for minimal investment out of blinkered engineers having excessive brand-loyality. If the TEK brand name can command $1,520 for the 150 MHz version of this shoe box that can't be more than $150 to build, then that's good product portfolio and R&D funds management.  TEK seems to know how to extract maximum dollars from brand-loyal followers that don't look elsewhere.  That's business and not engineering. And the qualifications/skill-sets of Danaher's management team, that someone pointed out earlier, makes very clear that's what they are good at and the stock market obviously approves. Tek is now being run as a business and under the threat of the plethora of low-cost scopes and more likely the restrictions from finite R&D dollars, the best they can come up with is the TBS.... for now presumably.  And the answer is simple, if you don't like what they have done don't buy the product.

Notice too they have dropped the warranty back to 5 years on the TBS yet similar hardware has a limited lifetime warranty in a TDS box.  Is the TBS less reliable?  I doubt it. But making provision for a 5-year warranty is most likely less costly than making liability provision for a 10-year or limited-lifetime warranty and that will show up on the balance sheet. And that's presumably what it's all about now.

[ttp]

Tragic.

Uuurgh! Reading the corporate blather at the Danaher site makes me shudder.
Looks like Tektronix has been handed the same poison chalice as HP drank from when they took on Carly Fiorina as CEO.

Here are the people to blame at Danaher: http://www.danaher.com/leadership

VERY interesting, if you click the "+" after each of the Danaher executive officer names, you'll find that there appears to be just one science degree held between all of them.  The rest are  MBA's, BA's, Lawyers, Accountants, Economists and a spurious Psychologist...........   Hmmmmmm.......
Just what a technology company needs perhaps?   I won't answer that........   Just re-read the article.

I work for a small company (40-60 employees) that was rated 4th to 8th im word market share from year to year. That was until we were bought by big multinational (but with US dominated management and culture). All is important now are financial reports, no one gives a shit if we actually do any R&D, trying to sell stuff to customer or fix customers' problems. Somehow in the past I've spent 2-3 hrs in meetings a month, now if I go to all meetings they want me to it would be close to 2-3 hrs a day. I could whinge for pages but since I'm not a Pom I stop right here.

[TerraHertz]

The process of small to medium, successful companies being rapidly destroyed by corporate/marketing MBA droids is something I'm very familiar with. Over and over.... In fact it's one of the reasons I took early retirement - I was sick of seeing good work I'd done being trashed by idiots who's sole ambition in life seemed to be profits for them and their mates via stock market pump-and-dump schemes. While putting large numbers of honest and competent workers out of a job. I'm not going to work for a corporation, *ever* *again*.

It's probably not a good idea for me to tell specific stories with company and personal names. Much as I'd like to.

[EEVblog]

It's probably not a good idea for me to tell specific stories with company and personal names. Much as I'd like to.

Company names, hell yes!

Dave.

[TerraHertz]

Ha. It's very tempting. But thinking about it, I don't see any useful way to tell these stories without details of the people responsible. It just wouldn't make sense. But if I did use personal names I could get sued.
I'll think about it some more.

[nanofrog]

It's probably not a good idea for me to tell specific stories with company and personal names. Much as I'd like to.

Please use company names, and create fictional names for the people involved.

[Smokey]

I give them two more years ...

No way. They can milk the cow, flog the dead horse, and shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic for a lot longer than that I recon. Plenty left to do 
The chances of seeing a truly new scope out of them again is starting to border on zero, unless they have something in the works already...

Dave.

Looking through some old threads I came across this one. 
Does the MDO series fit this bill?

[EEVblog]

I give them two more years ...

No way. They can milk the cow, flog the dead horse, and shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic for a lot longer than that I recon. Plenty left to do 
The chances of seeing a truly new scope out of them again is starting to border on zero, unless they have something in the works already...

Dave.

Looking through some old threads I came across this one. 
Does the MDO series fit this bill?

Yes, and no.
Yes in that it was innovative to add a real spectrum analyser into a scope and to do it real cheap. But that is where the innovation ended.
The scope architecture is just the same old tired design they have had for decades, hence why it's very slow.

[Corporate666]

Times change.  Markets change.

The problem many companies experience is they get into a rut and lose their vision and adaptivity, and then fail to keep up with the changing times. 

I think Tek can survive and grow again to be a big player in the game - the question is will they do the right things to make that happen.  And will Danaher give them the tools to do the job?

I think Rigol is showing the rest of the market how it's done.  They are delivering a hell of a lot of bang for the buck, as well as bucking the trend in features and options.  There is no reason Tek couldn't do the same - or even leapfrog Rigol and beat them at their own game.  But do they have the tools (from management and/or Danaher) to do the job?  It's doubtful.  When they are in a world of shit, companies often cut back on R&D and go into survival mode, which only ensures they will do anything but survive.

[SL4P]

I give them two more years ...

No way. They can milk the cow, flog the dead horse, and shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic for a lot longer than that I recon. Plenty left to do 
The chances of seeing a truly new scope out of them again is starting to border on zero, unless they have something in the works already...
Dave.

Look at other companies of the same era - DIGITAL EQUIPMENT & AMPEX.
AMPEX led the broadcast technology and video recording industry in every segment until 'everyone else' had access to low-cost digital processing technology and revived many of the fundamental ideas developed by AMPEX and others.
A couple of missteps (Composite Digital (D2) recording), and the arrival of desktop editing - and they were starting on the slow decline.

Ampex had a last gasp - in they developed an uncompressed 3/4-in digital tape technology (DST) for industrial/defence applications in parallel with their DCT video technology(which lasted about 5 years - then also faded away against Digital-Betacam from Sony).   Their DST technology let them hold on to another decade of military recording contracts - but I'm not sure what they're doing now...  but they get paid for patents on a lot of tech that was in everyday use through the 1970s-2000s!

DIGITAL EQUIPMENT (DEC) - are a slightly different story.... Leading the minicomputer industry with PDP and VAX systems through the 70s-90s...   They didn't handle the transition to personal desktops well, and COMPAQ (of all people) gobbled up the remnants, in turn eaten up and so-on until today.

Life goes on, but disruptive technology does exactly that.  Disrupts.
Sadly - all we got out of it was crappy web pages, and grey text on white backgrounds!

[Blofeld]

If anybody wants to take a look at their glorious past - people like Prof. Lundberg are crazy for vintage Tek scopes:

http://readingjimwilliams.blogspot.de/search/label/Scope%20Sunday

[Kjelt]

There are less and less workplaces that require an oscilloscope, compared to the 80s.
Then which workplaces really need GHz scopes? The market of 300MHz and lower oscilloscopes has had an enormous price erosion thanks to Rigol and sorts.
Getting into the GHz bandwidth takes an enormous investment.
I am not sure if this is a business they should continue to be in, you see it often with large companies, too slow to change over time while the environment changes dramatically.

[Corporate666]

There are less and less workplaces that require an oscilloscope, compared to the 80s.
Then which workplaces really need GHz scopes? The market of 300MHz and lower oscilloscopes has had an enormous price erosion thanks to Rigol and sorts.
Getting into the GHz bandwidth takes an enormous investment.
I am not sure if this is a business they should continue to be in, you see it often with large companies, too slow to change over time while the environment changes dramatically.

...on the other hand, the hobbyist market is exploding.  And hobbyists love $300-500 scopes.  Rigol is making a killing with them, IMO.  Then you have the semipro level like the DS2072 and beyond... the $500-1000 range. 

Tek has nothing on the low end to compete with the DS1054Z and nothing that stacks up well against th DS2072.  That's where they should focus.  Given their history and capabilities, I would have to think a DS1000 series competitor would be a piece of cake for Tek to design and manufacture.   Do something for $500 that matches the capability of the DS1000, but add in the software decoding and other features that cost $$ on the DS1000 for free.  Perhaps make the screen 2-3 inches bigger than the Rigol and have 20Mhz higher bandwidth.. but charge $100-150 more than the Rigol.  I'd buy that scope all day over the DS1000.

They should also look at power supplies and electronic loads... I think Rigol does well with the DP832 series, I think it was a game changer in price/performance.  I would think PSU's and loads are comparatively easy next to O-scopes and function generators... Tek could come up with a DP832 and e-load that would be great value for money and I bet they would sell like hotcakes also.

But to do the above would require a commitment and an investment from Danaher or Tek senior management... and that is a bold move when the company is perpetually downsizing and clinging to life in a declining (for them) market. 

[Smokey]

It's a shame because there really isn't much competition any more. It seems like its Rigol and Agilent, and then a bunch of also-rans who either do specialist scopes (e.g. Yokogawa) or who just suck and can't compete.

However much we all love the cheap stuff Rigol puts out, it really isn't in the same class as Agilent/Keysight, Lecroy, or even Tek on the high/middle end.  Rigol only compete at the low end where just functioning as a basic scope and being cheap are the only real requirements.  Watch some TheSignalPath episodes, specifically the one where he was looking at noise floor if you want an example.  This could change at some point, but it's the case now.  In the same way that Tek needs to innovate to stay in the game, Rigol needs to innovate to get out of the low end market.

[Kjelt]

I don,t think a company like Tek can compete with Rigol in the low end of the spectrum. We have seen this so many times with other companies in the past like IBM with their PCs against clone manufacturers. It takes many manhours to design a new product no matter if it is a cheap scope or an expensive one the cost of manhours outweighs the BOM if the quantities you sell are below hundreds of thousands and the wages are skyhigh.

[LabSpokane]

The future is not found at the bottom.

[linux-works]

a few years ago, I had an interview at a company that danaher bought.  they were clueless and they were looking to hire only h1b's and 'affordable talent'.   it really put a bad taste in my mouth, from that experience.

I got a rejection from them (fine, probably for the best) but then, over the years, I continued to get calls/emails from one of their recruiters.   they turned me down and yet they still come back to waste my time, year after year?

if this is how danaher is running tek, might as well close the doors and send everyone home.  pity that they also own fluke and a few other tech companies, too ;(

[LabSpokane]

Danaher's 2014 annual report is actually interesting reading. The CEO strongly hits at asset sales this year. T&M division's operating profit is down year over year for the last two years. Tek going on the chopping block would be a good bet.

Lots of comedy in the "Environmental" business with gas pump equipment manufacturers Gilbarco and Veeder-Root being lumped into the Eco-bucket.

[Smokey]

Funny. 
I just got an add from Tek.  Looks like they have a new 70GHz scope with the following banner specs:
    
• 70GHz Analog Bandwidth
• 200GS/s Sample Rate
• 4.3 ps Rise Time (20/80)
• >25GHz Edge Trigger
• 5.25" Compact Form Factor
• Channel-to-Channel Jitter <500fs

http://info.tek.com/www-dpo70000sx-ati-performance-oscilloscope-em.html?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRokvajOeu%2FhmjTEU5z14u8pW6O%2Bhokz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTsJjMrjYDBceEJhqyQJxPr3AJNQNzcV1RhnmCA%3D%3D

[SL4P]

The future is not found at the bottom.

But that's where it's heading!

[pickle9000]

The future is not found at the bottom.

But that's where it's heading!

Meaning that Rigol, Siglent and Hantek are not selling scopes? For Tek to ignore such a large market seems off to me. The goal is to sell product one bleeding edge scope verses 1000 cheapos. Why not both?

[Corporate666]

The future is not found at the bottom.

And Tek is free to continue to believe that while Rigol and others gobble up massive amounts of market share.  They can keep believing it at the asset auction too.

Good business is where you find it.  The "maker" scene is something new and is bringing millions of people into the electronics hobby with devices like Arduinos and R-Pi's.  And those buyers aren't looking at $10,000 scopes, let alone $1,000 scopes.

Lower price doesn't have to mean lower margin, and by leveraging technology they already own and have mastered, they can bring unprecedented features down market.  That's exactly what Rigol is doing and it is working out fantastically well.

I'd rather sell a single $100k scope than 1,000 $100 scopes.  But I'd rather sell 1,000,000 $500 scopes than a thousand $50k scopes.  Not to mention the opportunity to drive those customers further into your brand with a widening product range.

Tek needs to take a page from the car manufacturer handbook.  BMW/Mercedes/Audi all realized that pushing downmarket brings buyers into the brand - it's a winning strategy.

[LabSpokane]

The future is not found at the bottom.

And Tek is free to continue to believe that while Rigol and others gobble up massive amounts of market share.  They can keep believing it at the asset auction too.

Good business is where you find it. 

I just don't see $500 scopes to the "maker" community as a great business model.  Rigol is stretched far more thinly, technically and financially, than most want to believe, in my opinion. 

Commodore sold lots of cheap computers.  They are gone as well.

[Smokey]

The future is not found at the bottom.

But that's where it's heading!

Meaning that Rigol, Siglent and Hantek are not selling scopes? For Tek to ignore such a large market seems off to me. The goal is to sell product one bleeding edge scope verses 1000 cheapos. Why not both?

Not saying Tek should ignore the low end market completly, but neither Keysight or Lecroy have anything to compete with Rigol there either (not counting rebadged Rigol and Siglent stuff).  It takes a whole different product design mentality to make something to the absolute lowest price point.  You can't expect your high end design team to know how to do that without a lot of practice and product revisions.  Going from the design mentality of using the best components regardless of price to trying to figure out how many decoupling capacitors you can remove to save 5cents is a big step.  The car analogy is a good one but you have to take it all the way to the oscilloscope market extreme.  It's sort of like asking why there is no model BMW to compete with the Geo Metro.  BMW still makes plenty of money without playing in that arena and just having such a low end model and all the compromises that entails can hurt their high end image.