radio shack

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Tue Nov 20 13:51:38 2001

Back when the US was the only country manufacturing flat panel displays, heavily
depending on GOV support, a GOV investigation panel contacted an exec at HP
regarding their need for flat panel (LCD) display devices. (this was in the
late '70's, IIRC) What wast told to the GOV investigator was that HP did not
use LCD or flat-panel display technology then, nor would they ever do so, as
they were a leading maker of LED display products.

Within 6 weeks, HP started using LCD's in their battery-operated calculators and
on an entire line of laboratory devices. Unfortunately, the flat-panel
technology was not exploited in the US until the Japanese started offering them
to the US. Another example of senior management not knowing what's going on.

Clearly this is another case of the same sort of thing. The retail space is
certainly worth more than what it's bringing in as parts sales these days. They
still don't sell tools for handling surface mount devices, nor do they sell the
devices, and nearly nothing uses the old DIP packages any longer.

I doubt that parts sales have been a "pillar of the business" for over a decade,
since it was nearly impossible to find out what a part really was, in terms of
industry standard part number. Moreover, it's a famous problem getting a part
at Radio Shack by asking for a "74LS244" even though every store had them in a
blister pack on the rack. That suggests that they really didn't want that
business anyway.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: <Golemancd_at_aol.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 11:19 AM
Subject: radio shack


> am listening to a radio shack conference call from july on aol right now
> most of what they r talking about is parts sales and how that is there main
> business pride and joy. pillar of the business .
>
> hummm
> Joe
>
>
Received on Tue Nov 20 2001 - 13:51:38 GMT