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The Twelve Most Tarnished Brands In Tech

Posted by timothy on from the packard-bell-is-in-its-own-class dept.

harrymcc writes "Polaroid, Netscape, CompuServe, Westinghouse, Heathkit — these were once among the most respected names in the technology business. They're still around, but what's happened to them is just plain sad. I took a look at the tragic fates of a dozen mighty brands that have, in one way or another, fallen on hard times."

26 of 430 comments (clear)

  1. HP didn't make the list? by Ihlosi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Odd. They lost the HP way a long time ago.

    1. Re:HP didn't make the list? by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hell yes! If anybody deserved to be on the list it was Compaq. Did everybody just forget the "fun" that was Compaq RAM? For those kiddies too young to remember. Compaq, in an epic attack of douchebag behavior, decided they needed to "lock" in customers so that they would come to them and ONLY them for RAM, which of course they bent you over and treated you like the latest bimbo in a Seymore Butts movie when you came to purchase it.

      You see, they had the boards rigged so they would run just a little bit undervolted or overvolted on the RAM, so if you tried to put in "normal" RAM it would cause weird errors, throw BSODs, or just fry. Fun, huh? And woe be unto you if you were a PC repairman at the time, because Compaq RAM often wouldn't work in...other Compaqs! That's right, because some ram ran under and some ran over you couldn't even use Compaq RAM in another Compaq unless it was rigged the same way! Gee, isn't that nice of them?

      And that of course don't count the substandard parts, or building boards with only PCI slots when everyone else had AGP (hell I wouldn't be surprised in this age of PCIe that Compaq still sold models with only PCI) or shitty caps, lousy sound chips that sounded like a speaker at a drive-in, etc. At the shop I was working at at the time we had a mound of PCs that were scrap, and guess what a good 7 out of 10 were? Compaq. The other three were usually little old ladies that were foolish enough to have bought a Packard Smell.

      So yeah Compaq should have been in the top 5 at least. A truly craptastic brand of PC that deserves to be right up there with Packard Smells and IBM Deathstars on any "giant can o' suck" PC list.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    2. Re:HP didn't make the list? by dissy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Compaq never had a good brand reputation to lose. They've made junk computers since day one. HP at least used to have a reputation as the best maker of printers - they still make good printers, but now I mostly think of them as the makers of the worst computers.

      You do realize of course that the very computer you are using to bash Compaq would not be in existence if it wasn't for Compaq, right?

      Nor would the computer of the person that modded you insightful :P

      They were the ones that clean room reverse engineered the IBM PC BIOS that every computer from the 80s until just a couple years ago makes use of. Even the past couple years, MOST "PC compatible" systems sold today still contain that IBM PC BIOS.

      Compaq created and sold the first 100% IBM PC compatible computers, and that was one of the driving forces that turned the PC hobby into the PC industry it is today.

  2. HP by joeflies · · Score: 4, Insightful
    When you say HP, the first words that comes to mind is innovation and great engineering. However you look at the past 10 years and HP has done surprisingly little in innovation or great engineering, and has not been creating market changing technology. They've gotten stuck building pcs and selling printer ink because that's the safe way to make money.

    I don't know whether it was the compaq acquisition or the carly regime that made HP soft,. Maybe the HP name hasn't fallen and it's not tarnished as much as some of the other names on the list, but the company behind the brand isn't what it used to be.

    1. Re:HP by tibman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The first thing that comes to my mind is huge bloated printer drivers that are constantly updating.

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      http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
    2. Re:HP by TheRealFixer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think most people would blame Carly Fiorina. She effectively took HP out of the hands of the engineers who made the company great, and put it squarely into the hands the shareholders who were concerned only with short-term stock price during the dotcom bubble. She spurred a massive shift in culture that killed off the innovation that they were famous for, obliterated morale throughout the company, and generally made it an undesirable place to work. The Compaq acquisition was just one aspect of her failure.

    3. Re:HP by japhering · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think most people would blame Carly Fiorina. She effectively took HP out of the hands of the engineers who made the company great, and put it squarely into the hands the shareholders who were concerned only with short-term stock price during the dotcom bubble. She spurred a massive shift in culture that killed off the innovation that they were famous for, obliterated morale throughout the company, and generally made it an undesirable place to work. The Compaq acquisition was just one aspect of her failure.

      sarcasm on

      Isn't that the function of Great CEOs... first drive the company into the ground will getting multi-million dollar bonus for cost reductions and stock value, then sell it to some hedge fund at a profit of 2 or 3x the share price for all share holders, which always includes the hedge fund paying the execs to exercise their options on 10s of millions of shares, thus increasing, yet again, shareholder value. Ah..the bright side of capitalism

      sarcasm off

      Seriously, so many at the Executive level haven't got a clue about what their company does and to make up for it simply rely on what the bean counters are telling them.

    4. Re:HP by WaywardGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      She wasn't the only one. I joined HP in 1988, and the job was horible. Donuts on Friday disapeared the week I arrived. the "HP Way" was being scuttled. I could only take it a year and a half, and then I moved on to more intresting work. The problem was that David Packard had retired from the board and no longer guided the company. It got so bad, he came out of retirement a couple years later to put HP back on track. When he passed away, there was no way to replace him. Stockholders always lean towards the likes of Carly Florina, for the reasons already described - short-term profits. It takes an genius evangelist with nearly unlimited power to keep a company great. Take a look at what's happening at Microsoft since Bill stepped back, and how the stock market follows Steve Job's health.

      Anyway, I veiw all those famous brands mentioned in TFA quite differently. What they have in common is that they have faded, but that's all. Heathkit is a brand spoken even today in awe of what they did for America. Polorooid revolutionized film based photography, and faded into obscurity when their strong leadership faded. Westinghouse faded through conglomeration. What do they make now? Coffee or nuclear reactors? Netscape killed themselves, through incredible stupid and evil strategy - make the Internet so complicated that only Microsoft and Netscape could offer functional browsers... someone should be shot.

      I reject the idea that a company the dies with it's market has failed. Sun Microsystems is the most amazing workstation vendor in history. They gave the world technologies that will benefit the world for generations. Just because my cell phone has more power than a 1990-vintage workstation doesn't make Sun less great. These are brands to be celebrated for what they did in their industry, not to be morned when their industry passes into history.

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      Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
    5. Re:HP by ChrisMaple · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Polaroid had one trick, instant-print film and cameras. As far as I can tell, it was never really very strong financially, stumbling to make the next advancement in its technology to rescue it from impending doom. Quality never met conventional processing, and additional copies meant weeks of delay. Cheap 1-hour processing weakened its market substantially, and digital cameras sealed its fate. I don't think any management could have saved Polaroid. Look at Kodak, which had a huge industrial base to work from and has heavily and desperately invested in digital technology: it is struggling to remain a viable corporation.

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  3. Diebold? by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any such list that doesn't include Diebold is lacking. Once a well respected manufacturer of safes, vaults, and eventually ATM machines, they now are known for creating voting machines that can't count, and in some cases have shown evidence of maliciousness in subverting the democratic process. At worst they are guilty of treason, at best they are guilty of selling useless and harmful junk. At least Microsoft at their worst is entertaining (Bob, Clippy); Diebold is disgusting.

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    Qxe4
    1. Re:Diebold? by Volante3192 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They're only known for making crappy voting machines on this site.

      If some news outlet actually did a hard hitting expose on them, maybe, MAYBE, they'd fall from grace.

  4. Radio Shack by mdsolar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Junk products and won't honor extended warranties they sell.

    1. Re:Radio Shack by Thud457 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You know they've run out of ideas and swirling around the drain when they think it's a good idea to change the name they've been using for 50 years.

      Now they want to be called "The Shack".

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  5. Where would 3d gaming be without... by rjejr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    3dfx?

  6. IMAX seems to be slipping also by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It used to stand unambiguously for large-format filming (49 x 70 mm per frame), projected on large screens (around 53 x 72 ft). There were some variations, like the projection on a concave screen of OmniMAX (now IMAX Dome), but the general brand made sense. IMAX meant high-resolution film, projected on large screens.

    But for presumably commercial reasons related to a deal with theatre chain AMC, a large portion of theatres currently advertising "IMAX" films are actually projecting "IMAX Digital", a not-very-closely-related digital projection format. Film v. digital in theory I don't care much about, but the entire brand of IMAX=big is dispensed with with IMAX Digital's much smaller 28x58-ft screens. The digital projectors (dual 2K resolution projectors) also don't seem to be of sufficient resolution to match the quality of a 49x70mm film projector. As a result, it's not clear IMAX means a lot as a brand anymore, since any given theatre might well have a mostly normal sized screen and a not particularly high-resolution projector.

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    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  7. Re:Old modems by Xiaran · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Also Borland. Many programmer out there like me cut their teeth using Borland Pascal/C/C++.... then we went thru a brief optimism with Delphi... then the insane Inprise name change... then a long spiral into insignificance. RIP Borland.

  8. No Novell? by Salo2112 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No Novell? They used to own the LAN, and now they feed off MS scraps....

  9. Some substitutions by swordgeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Napster doesn't belong on that list, because at its height, it was never a great or proud company--just an early one.

    Packard-Bell has been a joke for so long that hardly anyone young enough to care remembers when they weren't.

    Netscape doesn't really exist. They acknowledge that, but still put it on the list. Same for Netscape, and (sorta) Compuserve.

    There are some others I would add to the list, though: Silicon Graphics and Atari deserve top honours. Also, hugely powerful and profitable though it may be, Electronic Arts almost defines "tarnished brand," considering their origins. Also, how about Radio Shack? Can you even get parts there anymore?

    Now if we jump into the audio world, there are more than anyone can count. Advent, Sansui, Nakamichi, Hafler, Scott, etc..

    --

    "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
    1. Re:Some substitutions by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Good call, I was going to mention Atari. They essentially brought the first generation of videogames to the mass market, and then plummeted into obscurity when the videogame market crashed in the 80s. Incidentally, if you ever see a game with "Atari" on the label, know that it has nothing to do with the original company in any way. The name was the only thing they sold.

      I'll throw out another one related to gaming, although it certainly wouldn't belong in the top lists anywhere: Sierra On-line. They made a bunch of magnificent games, such as the King's Quest series - some of the earliest PC games I played. The stories from a long-time developer working there were pretty astounding (in a horrible way), so it was no big surprise to me when they finally closed shop.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  10. digital by tengu1sd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Digital Equipment Corp, DEC, digital These folks started making test equipment, rivaled IBM when the PDP and VAX systems roamed the data centers. Their customer support was a pleasure to deal with. The only time a DEC field service engineer ever told me they didn't have a part in town, he told me it was coming in on a 2:00 pm flight and he'd be at my door by 3:00. A series of management by accountants slowly dissolved the company into take over bait. Despite making quality products they faded away. The low bidder trumps all.

  11. Re:To be Fair... by selven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is not a news site. This is a discussion site. And that's the way I like it.

  12. Adobe by moosesocks · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Might not quite be there yet, but it's well on its way.

    From the abominable performance/security of the Flash player to the ever-increasing bloat of Photoshop, Adobe's users are pretty much fed up with the company.

    At one point, it would have been heresy to criticize Photoshop. Now the design community is practically screaming for a replacement. (It's twice as bad if you're a mac user. Nobody's quite sure what prompted the Apple/Adobe divorce, but it's been ugly)

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    -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
  13. Silicon Graphics by Rob+Riggs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    SGI should be on that list. It was amazing to watch their death spiral in the mid-late 90s. That brand is way more tarnished than Napster (which didn't have much of a brand to tarnish).

    --
    the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
  14. SCO by nattt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    surely SCO is the most tarnished?

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    -- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
  15. 2 from the gaming world by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Would be Atari and Sega. Atari used to be the biggest video game company in the world, sold tens of millions 2600's and had billions in sales at the beginning of the 80's. I wonder how many current gamers would believe me if I told them that. (Since they're just a label now. As for Sega, they used to make systems and while they might have not been the most popular they're not the joke they are today. (I mean Sonic, how badly did they screw up Sonic? Of course sometimes they do something right by mistake but you know it'll only be a moment before they mess up something else.)

    --
    Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
  16. Re:Microsoft by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I was wondering why Microsoft didn't make the list. Tarnished? You bet! Of course, TFA is a subjective piece from start to finish. It's all about how the author perceives things to be.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br