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Why did Tektronix stop making the great scopes?

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Wuerstchenhund:

--- Quote from: rx8pilot on December 24, 2014, 06:28:35 am ---This has happened to so many innovative leaders. Somehow, the MBA's are only taught to milk the cow without any understanding that they also need to feed it.

--- End quote ---

Indeed. LeCroy had more luck, though. They were taken over by Teledyne in 2012 but unlike Danaher Teledyne seems to leave LeCroy a lot of leeway to do their own thing, and the takeover hasn't hampered their capability to innovate.

miguelvp:
I wouldn't mind having an MDO3000 series but to rich for my pocket ;)

LabSpokane:

--- Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on December 24, 2014, 05:48:20 am ---
--- Quote from: LabSpokane on December 24, 2014, 05:22:29 am ---One last point, don't underestimate the allure of the PC market of the mid 80s through the 90s. Tek had a market-leading color printer in the Phaser series, and like HP, they wanted out of the fuddy duddy T&M business and into the "gold-mine" PC market.  That's where the focus was for long enough for HP/Agilent to leave Tek in the dust in T&M.

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Not quite. Tektronix had some advanced printers (i.e. solid ink printers, which is what the original Phaser Series was)
but the color printer market belonged to ink jets and later color lasers which both were cheaper than solid ink. When it turned out that solid ink wasn't the commercial success Tek had hoped Tek started making laser printers as well. The commercial failure of solid ink was a problem for Tek as they did invest quite a lot in this technology.

However, Tek never had illusions that the printer business would become more profitable than their T&M division, and certainly didn't want to get out of the (at that time) more profitable T&M business. The fact that they struggled with their printer business was the reason they eventually sold the whole division to Xerox in 2000.

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Mmmm...ok...but we worked directly with every major printer company besides Canon and as far as as print quality and speed at that time, Tek ruled. Of course inkets were much higher volume and killed everyone on price with the advent of the sub-$100 printer.

We worked direct with Tek and what I saw in development was printers printers printers. T&M felt like a sideshow in that era. Just my perspective from the cheap seats.

Fsck:

--- Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on December 24, 2014, 06:34:02 am ---
--- Quote from: rx8pilot on December 24, 2014, 06:28:35 am ---This has happened to so many innovative leaders. Somehow, the MBA's are only taught to milk the cow without any understanding that they also need to feed it.

--- End quote ---

Indeed. LeCroy had more luck, though. They were taken over by Teledyne in 2012 but unlike Danaher Teledyne seems to leave LeCroy a lot of leeway to do their own thing, and the takeover hasn't hampered their capability to innovate.



--- End quote ---

lecroy's low end is kind of a joke though.

LabSpokane:

--- Quote from: EEVblog on December 24, 2014, 05:50:06 am ---
--- Quote from: Ecklar on December 24, 2014, 12:11:36 am ---Why did Tektronix stop making scopes like the venerable 2465 or 2465B?   What changed?

--- End quote ---

Danaher.

--- End quote ---

Working for Danaher has to absolutely suck and I'm sure they're nailing the last of the coffin shut, but Tek was massively contracting at least a decade and a half prior to that event (in 2007).  Tek hosed itself over before anyone else had a chance to assist.   

By the late 80s / early 90s cash flow was essentially non-existent at the satellite shops.  Tek literally had toolmakers cutting fasteners out of hexagonal bar stock because there was no money to buy them.  I wish I would have kept some of those.  It was hard to convince the old timer toolmakers that it was OK to buy nuts and bolts again, so they kept making fasteners by hand.

I just checked the news and it sounds like Tek is down to well under 1000 employees now.  :(

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