WEBVTT

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if you've got a pre-built pc today it's probably sporting a brand name like acer

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dell hp or lenovo but there used to be

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plenty of other challengers that just kind of disappeared so we're back with the

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second installment in our something part series where are they now

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looking at the desktop computer companies of yesteryear starting with

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one of the industry's oldest heavy hitters tandy originally a leather

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company that got its start all the way back in 1919 tandy became successful

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enough over the next few decades to eventually buy radio shack in 1963

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paving the way for them to come out with the trs-80 model one in 1977. the model

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one was one of the very first home computers that was widely available on

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the market with tandy ultimately selling over 100 000 of them catapulting the

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company to a whopping 60 share of the microcomputer market

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the trs-80 wasn't ibm compatible though

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after all the ibm pc hadn't been invented yet so the popularity of tandy

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computers declined after the ibm pc hit the scene

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but the company did find a niche for itself making pc compatibles which

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proved quite popular for some time as the years went on though cost cutting

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by its competitors forced tandy to sell its computer business to ast which

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itself adopted a losing strategy of selling high cost pcs when other

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companies were trying to do it as cheaply as possible

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ast was eventually bought by samsung and then closed down relegating tandy to the

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dustbin of history let's change gears then to one of the

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cost-cutting competitors compac which focused on making ibm

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compatibles from early on in its history their business model was to take ibm

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systems and then make them better in some way like they did with the compact

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portable in 1982 and the desk pro in

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1984 which wasn't as visually striking as the

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portable but was quite a bit faster than ibm's offerings at the time

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this kind of innovation made compact a dominant force by the late 80s but it

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was forced to change its strategy to focus more on cost as the pc industry

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was rapidly becoming based around building commodity machines using

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inexpensive components produced elsewhere this led to compact releasing the

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presario line in 1993 which quickly

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became a fixture at big box electronics stores

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although this made compact quite successful again through the late 1990s

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the company started to gain a reputation for unacceptably poor quality and they

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were shipping way too many of these hyper-commoditized pcs combined with the

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fact that compaq was now being undercut by companies like dell that sold

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directly to customers instead of relying on retail middlemen that sold at their

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own markup the company was suddenly in deep trouble and was eventually sold to

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hp in 2002. the compact brand lived on for a while

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though as one of hp's budget brands with the name getting sold again to an

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argentinian company in 2015 and then

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quietly disappearing altogether a few years later next up is gateway another

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company that helped contribute to compact's demise through selling its pcs

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directly to consumers online over the phone or even in its own retail stores

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gateway's low cost and distinctive cow pattern boxes made their computers very

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recognizable and they even came out with the first all-in-one pc from a major

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brand name that cost less than a thousand dollars

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by 2004 gateway had captured about one-fourth of the pc market in the us

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but they missed a huge opportunity because they were very late getting into

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the laptop market at a time when a major shift towards portable computing was

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occurring instead gateway tried to get into the

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business of consumer electronics like tvs but they didn't end up making much

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money off that venture and combined with the fact that they weren't as aggressive

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trying to sell their pcs to large businesses compared to dell they were

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really struggling by the year 2007 when they were bought by acer

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today gateway is still around as a low-cost acer brand that can be found in

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some brick and mortar electronics stores a company that had a similar fate to

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gateway was packard bell another mainstay on store shelves during the

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1990s the company actually dates all the way back to 1933 and originally

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manufactured radios getting into the computer business in 1957 when they

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began manufacturing specialized computers for science and industry and

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then into the home pc business in 1986

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after a change in ownership packard bell quickly made deals with large department

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and big box stores and thanks to a manufacturing process that emphasized

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speed they quickly flooded the market with product by 1995 over half the pcs

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on sale at sears yes sears sold pcs were packard

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bells and their popularity was bolstered further by a shell program similar to

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microsoft bob called packard bell navigator which

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dumbed down the interface for novice pc users of which there were of course many

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at the time remember pcs were pretty new however the company quickly gained a

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reputation for poor quality and corner cutting and also turned off consumers

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when they found out that they were using used parts in their machines without

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properly disclosing the practice the company was in enough trouble that

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it merged with nec the very next year but the brand never recovered from its

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poor reputation in the us and packard bell disappeared from the u.s market in

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2000. with that said they didn't have the same public image problems in europe

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and other parts of the world where their pcs can still be found as an acer sub

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brand although they are becoming increasingly hard to find like a tinder

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