WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.440 If you've got a pre-built PC today, it's probably sporting a brand name 00:00:03.440 --> 00:00:06.800 like Acer, Dell, HP, or Lenovo. 00:00:06.800 --> 00:00:12.240 But there used to be plenty of other challengers that just kind of disappeared. 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:17.280 So we're back with the second installment in our something part series, where are they now? 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:20.440 Looking at the desktop computer companies of yesteryear, 00:00:20.440 --> 00:00:23.840 starting with one of the industry's oldest heavy hitters, 00:00:23.840 --> 00:00:29.160 Tandy. Originally a leather company that got its start all the way back in 1919, 00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:35.920 Tandy became successful enough over the next few decades to eventually buy Radio Shack in 1963, 00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:41.520 paving the way for them to come out with the TRS-AD Model 1 in 1977. 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:46.320 The Model 1 was one of the very first home computers that was widely available on the market, 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:50.000 with Tandy ultimately selling over 100,000 of them, 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.520 catapulting the company to a whopping 60% share 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:58.960 of the microcomputer market. The TRS-AD wasn't IBM compatible though, 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:02.000 after all, the IBM PC hadn't been invented yet, 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:05.000 so the popularity of Tandy computers declined 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:09.760 after the IBM PC hit the scene. But the company did find a niche for itself, 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:14.760 making PC-compatibles, which proved quite popular for some time. 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:19.000 As the years went on though, cost-cutting by its competitors forced Tandy 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:22.080 to sell its computer business to AST, 00:01:22.080 --> 00:01:27.600 which itself adopted a losing strategy of selling high-cost PCs when other companies 00:01:27.640 --> 00:01:32.680 were trying to do it as cheaply as possible. AST was eventually bought by Samsung, 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:37.360 and then closed down, relegating Tandy to the dustbin of history. 00:01:37.360 --> 00:01:41.440 Let's change gears then to one of the cost-cutting competitors, Compac, 00:01:41.440 --> 00:01:46.120 which focused on making IBM-compatibles from early on in its history. 00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:49.680 Their business model was to take IBM's systems 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:55.240 and then make them better in some way, like they did with the Compac portable in 1982, 00:01:55.280 --> 00:02:00.840 and the Desk Pro in 1984, which wasn't as visually striking as the portable, 00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:04.600 but was quite a bit faster than IBM's offerings at the time. 00:02:04.600 --> 00:02:08.960 This kind of innovation made Compac a dominant force by the late 80s, 00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:13.160 but it was forced to change its strategy to focus more on cost 00:02:13.160 --> 00:02:17.760 as the PC industry was rapidly becoming based around building commodity machines 00:02:17.760 --> 00:02:21.120 using inexpensive components produced elsewhere. 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:25.720 This led to Compac releasing the Presario line in 1993, 00:02:25.720 --> 00:02:29.560 which quickly became a fixture at Big Box electronic stores. 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:33.760 Although this made Compac quite successful again through the late 1990s, 00:02:33.760 --> 00:02:37.800 the company started to gain a reputation for unacceptably poor quality, 00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:41.880 and they were shipping way too many of these hyper-commoditized PCs. 00:02:41.880 --> 00:02:46.480 Combined with the fact that Compac was now being undercut by companies like Dell 00:02:46.480 --> 00:02:50.400 that sold directly to customers instead of relying on retail middlemen 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:54.400 that sold at their own markup, the company was suddenly in deep trouble 00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:57.880 and was eventually sold to HP in 2002. 00:02:57.880 --> 00:03:01.960 The Compac brand lived on for a while though, as one of HP's budget brands 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:06.600 with the name getting sold again to an Argentinian company in 2015, 00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:09.920 and then quietly disappearing altogether a few years later. 00:03:09.920 --> 00:03:14.440 Next up is Gateway, another company that helped contribute to Compac's demise 00:03:14.440 --> 00:03:17.680 through selling its PCs directly to consumers online, 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:21.360 over the phone, or even in its own retail stores. 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:24.920 Gateway's low cost and distinctive cow pattern boxes 00:03:24.920 --> 00:03:31.000 made their computers very recognizable, and they even came out with the first all-in-one PC 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:34.840 from a major brand name that cost less than $1,000. 00:03:34.840 --> 00:03:38.560 By 2004, Gateway had captured about one fourth 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:43.440 of the PC market in the US, but they missed a huge opportunity 00:03:43.440 --> 00:03:46.760 because they were very late getting into the laptop market 00:03:46.760 --> 00:03:51.040 at a time when a major shift towards portable computing was occurring. 00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:56.200 Instead, Gateway tried to get into the business of consumer electronics like TVs, 00:03:56.200 --> 00:04:01.520 but they didn't end up making much money off that venture, and combined with the fact that they weren't as aggressive 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:05.200 trying to sell their PCs to large businesses compared to Dell, 00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:09.720 they were really struggling by the year 2007 when they were bought by Acer. 00:04:09.720 --> 00:04:12.840 Today, Gateway is still around as a low-cost Acer brand 00:04:12.840 --> 00:04:16.240 that can be found in some brick-and-mortar electronics stores. 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:19.560 A company that had a similar fate to Gateway was Packard Bell, 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:22.960 another mainstay on store shelves during the 1990s. 00:04:22.960 --> 00:04:26.440 The company actually dates all the way back to 1933 00:04:26.440 --> 00:04:32.080 and originally manufactured radios, getting into the computer business in 1957 00:04:32.080 --> 00:04:36.520 when they began manufacturing specialized computers for science and industry, 00:04:36.520 --> 00:04:39.680 and then into the home PC business in 1986 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:43.040 after a change in ownership. Packard Bell quickly made deals 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:48.720 with large department and big box stores, and thanks to a manufacturing process that emphasized speed, 00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:56.000 they quickly flooded the market with product. By 1995, over half the PCs on sale at Sears, 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:59.160 yes, Sears sold PCs, were Packard Bells, 00:04:59.160 --> 00:05:02.600 and their popularity was bolstered further by a shell program 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:09.400 similar to Microsoft Bob called Packard Bell Navigator, which dumbed down the interface for novice PC users, 00:05:09.400 --> 00:05:13.400 of which there were, of course, many at the time. Remember, PCs were pretty new. 00:05:13.440 --> 00:05:18.280 However, the company quickly gained a reputation for poor quality and corner cutting, 00:05:18.280 --> 00:05:23.480 and also turned off consumers when they found out that they were using used parts in their machines 00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:27.600 without properly disclosing the practice. The company was in enough trouble 00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:30.600 that it merged with NEC the very next year, 00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:34.400 but the brand never recovered from its poor reputation in the US, 00:05:34.400 --> 00:05:38.320 and Packard Bell disappeared from the US market in 2000. 00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:41.720 With that said, they didn't have the same public image problems in Europe 00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:46.780 and other parts of the world where their PCs can still be found as an ace or sub-brand, 00:05:46.780 --> 00:05:49.840 although they are becoming increasingly hard to find, 00:05:49.840 --> 00:05:53.900 like a Tinder account that isn't trying to catfish you. So thanks for watching, guys. 00:05:53.900 --> 00:05:59.220 Like this video, check out our other videos, leave a suggestion if you wanna hear your idea 00:05:59.220 --> 00:06:02.740 on Fast as Possible in the future. 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