Word: maker
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Perhaps the most spectacular example of the peril of venturing onto technology's edge is Trilogy Ltd. Founded in 1980 by Gene Amdahl, a former IBM engineer, it was to have been a bravura business encore by the man who created Amdahl Corp., a successful maker of big mainframe computers. Amdahl audaciously planned to build a new supercomputer based on a revolutionary semiconductor chip that would be far faster than conventional ones. But, concedes Trilogy President Frederick White, "it was just too much to bite off." The company abandoned plans for both its superchip and its supercomputer earlier this...
Diasonics is another firm that started as a supernova, only to turn into a financial black hole. The Milpitas maker of medical diagnostic equipment attracted some of the San Francisco area's most experienced investors and last year took in $123 million in one of the largest public stock offerings ever. But that sum has dwindled as Diasonics has lost $103.7 million since the beginning of 1983. Troubles in its line of digital X-ray devices distracted management from other problems and sapped funds before the line was sold to another company. Now Diasonics has shaved its work force...
Sears has 366 buyers and 302 assistant buyers, each assigned to a Sears product line, to watch over its purchases. Department 622, for example, is cooking-center appliances. Five buyers deal with three rangemakers, two dishwasher sources, one garbage-compactor company and one microwave-oven maker...
...with no written contract. Says Donna McLean, a Whirlpool official: "Any customer who represents 43% of your business is going to carry a lot of weight." Sears owns no factories outright, but it does own large shares of some of its suppliers. It has 33% of Roper, its range-maker, 31% of De-Soto, which supplies paints, and 20% of Swift, its textiles provider...
...Telling once delivered a friendly but firm ultimatum to the man ager of a money-losing store. "You know your job is on the line," said Telling. "This is September, and I don't see any reason why you can't turn this store into a profit maker by January. But if you don't, I won't come around again. So let's just shake hands now, and we'll part friends." The store made a profit by January...