Speaker 1: Tech with Technology with tech Stuff from HAST technolog Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and
Speaker 1: this is part two of our story on Royal Phillips
Speaker 1: better known as Justin Phillips here in the United States. Now,
Speaker 1: in part one, I talked about the founding of the
Speaker 1: company and continued all the way up through the retirement
Speaker 1: of Anton Phillips, who was the younger brother to the
Speaker 1: founder Gerard Phillips. We'll begin this episode with a discussion
Speaker 1: about what happened to Anton's son, Fritz Phillips as much
Speaker 1: of the world was plunged into the conflict known as
Speaker 1: World War Two. So if you remember from our last episode,
Speaker 1: Anton and his son in law Frandson or Franz Aton
Speaker 1: fled the Netherlands. They went to North America. They had
Speaker 1: established a North American base of operations to work from
Speaker 1: during the course of World War Two. Much of Phillip's
Speaker 1: management followed suit, but but Fritz Phillips stayed behind in
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, and Fritz really tried to protect the interests
Speaker 1: of the company as well as the company's employees during
Speaker 1: the entire Nazi occupation. Now, from nineteen forty until nineteen
Speaker 1: forty three, Fritz kept things running at Phillips, even resisting
Speaker 1: the moves by the Nazis to switch the operations to
Speaker 1: more warlike efforts to support Germany's UH operations, and Fritz
Speaker 1: really was able to resist that fairly effectively. But in
Speaker 1: April nineteen forty three, things took a very dark turn
Speaker 1: for Fritz, and obviously was a terrible time for much
Speaker 1: of Europe because in April nineteen forty three, the Nazis
Speaker 1: made a declaration that was pretty much the doom for
Speaker 1: Fritz Phillips at least for the next two years. So
Speaker 1: when Germany invaded the Netherlands back in nineteen forty the
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand members of the Dutch Army had been
Speaker 1: essentially captured, but then released after the Netherlands officially surrendered
Speaker 1: to Germany. So the three thousand members of the Dutch
Speaker 1: army were under German supervision for a while and then
Speaker 1: allowed to go back and rejoin Dutch society under the
Speaker 1: Nazi occupation, But in nineteen forty three Germany declared that
Speaker 1: those three hundred thousand soldiers would be conscripted and forced
Speaker 1: into labor on behalf of Germany, so they become, you know,
Speaker 1: a said slave labor to the Nazis, and the Phillips
Speaker 1: employees decided to go on strike to protest this move.
Speaker 1: It wasn't and move against Fritz Phillips. It was a
Speaker 1: move against the Nazis. But Germany held Fritz Phillips personally
Speaker 1: responsible and captured him and put him in a concentration
Speaker 1: camp and essentially was trying to use him as leverage
Speaker 1: to force Phillips employees back to work. Meanwhile, while in captivity,
Speaker 1: Fritz was put in charge of a camp workshop in
Speaker 1: that concentration camp, and it was staffed by Jewish prisoners.
Speaker 1: So again he did his best to protect his workers
Speaker 1: in the concentration camp, trying to make sure that he
Speaker 1: he made it clear that each one of them was
Speaker 1: necessary for him to do the work that the Nazis
Speaker 1: were demanding. Tragically, uh, he started with four sixty nine
Speaker 1: Jewish employees. Only two of them survived to the end
Speaker 1: of the war. Um and I say only three two
Speaker 1: because it's just a tragedy for any of those lives
Speaker 1: to be lost. Obviously, however, it's almost I can't even
Speaker 1: say it's a silver lining. But he did manage to
Speaker 1: protect quite a few of those people. In fact, if
Speaker 1: you compare those numbers with the Dutch Jewish population, overall,
Speaker 1: almost all the Jews in the Netherlands had been completely
Speaker 1: eliminated eradicated. So Fritz Phillips actually did succeed in saving lives,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that he would have wish that he
Speaker 1: could have saved all of them for his efforts. Israel
Speaker 1: actually decorated Fritz Phillips with the yad Vashim metal in
Speaker 1: and he was alive to accept that that honor. Fritz
Speaker 1: survived the war, as I just indicated. After his release,
Speaker 1: he dedicated the next several years to rebuilding the Phillips
Speaker 1: presence in the Netherlands because during the course of World
Speaker 1: War Two, Phillips factories were hit hard. They had been
Speaker 1: bombed by the Allies twice and then once by the Germans.
Speaker 1: When the Germans were withdrawing during their retreat, they also
Speaker 1: bombed the Phillips manufacturing factories. He would eventually become the
Speaker 1: president of Phillips in nineteen sixty one. He retired in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, and he passed away in two thousand
Speaker 1: five at the age of one hundred years old. But
Speaker 1: going back to just after World War Two, during that era, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it was a period of rebuilding,
Speaker 1: and by six most of the facilities had recovered. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Phillips research focused on things like transistors and integrated circuits
Speaker 1: over the next couple of decades. Really the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: was the era of the integrated circuit and the transistor. Uh.
Speaker 1: That work was really being pioneered at places like Bell Labs.
Speaker 1: But Phillips were, you know, the companies like Phelps were
Speaker 1: able to jump on that bandwagon, as it were, and
Speaker 1: add their own expertise in advancing the technology of integrated
Speaker 1: circuits and building a foundation for future work in electronics.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty nine, Phillips introduced the syncro cyclotron, which
Speaker 1: sounds like a really wicked amusement park ride, but the
Speaker 1: syncro cyclotron was actually a particle accelerator. Now that might
Speaker 1: sound unusual. You're talking about a company that's largely known
Speaker 1: for its work in electronics and stuff some that's fairly simple,
Speaker 1: things like radios and lamps, and a little bit in
Speaker 1: the medical field with X ray technology. But this was
Speaker 1: another example of how Phillips was really valuing pure scientific research.
Speaker 1: Not only was Phillips looking to join and create new
Speaker 1: markets and electronics, but also push our understanding of the
Speaker 1: fundamental nature of the universe. Uh. There was a physicist,
Speaker 1: a famous physicist named Kasimir who worked on this project,
Speaker 1: and Kasimir was a notable scientist. His name was actually
Speaker 1: used to describe a certain physical force that results from
Speaker 1: a quantized field. It's called the Kasimir effect. That research
Speaker 1: would later become important for micro electro mechanical systems known
Speaker 1: as mems. So there's another good example of how some
Speaker 1: fundamental understanding of science can end up being a huge
Speaker 1: benefit further down the line, something that you could not
Speaker 1: possibly have anticipated when you first set out to study it.
Speaker 1: I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but I
Speaker 1: really do believe deeply in this philosophy that pure science
Speaker 1: has value, and often it has value that we cannot
Speaker 1: anticipate when we set out to answer questions. And so
Speaker 1: if you happen to ever be in a position where
Speaker 1: you can help fund pure science, I urge you to
Speaker 1: do it, even if you don't have an immediate return
Speaker 1: on what that investment will mean, because you never know
Speaker 1: what's going to turn into in the future. All right,
Speaker 1: lecture over, let's get back to it. In nineteen three,
Speaker 1: skipping ahead quite a bit, Phillips introduced the compact audio cassette.
Speaker 1: This is what we in the eighties called a cassette tape.
Speaker 1: Cassette tape is essentially a little plastic cartridge, inside of
Speaker 1: which is a real that has a ribbon of magnetic
Speaker 1: tape upon which you can record audio. So magnetic tape
Speaker 1: was not a brand new medium. It's not like Phillips
Speaker 1: invented magnetic tape. Previous versions were already in existence and
Speaker 1: had been used for both commercial and home uses. But
Speaker 1: the home use was pretty limited because really, the predecessor
Speaker 1: to the cassette tape was real to real audio. Some
Speaker 1: people had real to real audio sets, but they were
Speaker 1: pretty expensive, so it was one of those things that
Speaker 1: only people with a lot of money and a lot
Speaker 1: of interest in technology actually owned. The average person didn't
Speaker 1: have a real to real tape player, and the cassette
Speaker 1: tape was kind of uh an effort to bring this
Speaker 1: sort of technology into the realm of the consumer market,
Speaker 1: creating a brand new space. UH. The Phillips innovation meant
Speaker 1: that you had a compact, portable and eventually an expensive
Speaker 1: alternative to real to real tape, and that was great.
Speaker 1: They debuted the cassette tape at the nineteen sixty three
Speaker 1: Berlin Radio Show. It would be introduced to the United
Speaker 1: States the following year, in ninet sixty four. Other companies
Speaker 1: were also attempting to establish a standard for personal audio
Speaker 1: at the same time. So that raises a question, how
Speaker 1: did Phillips end up making its design the cassette tape
Speaker 1: the standard. Why Why is that the standard and not
Speaker 1: something else that was being developed at the same time
Speaker 1: by another company, And the answer is mostly due to
Speaker 1: a strategy that was forced on Phillips. Phillips ended up
Speaker 1: licensing the design for free to Sony the design of
Speaker 1: the cassette tape to Sony. Sony had really been pressuring
Speaker 1: Phillips to do this. At that time. Japanese companies were
Speaker 1: really on the rise. They were rapidly overtaking other companies
Speaker 1: in other parts of the world, and so Phillips the
Speaker 1: writing was on the wall. If Phillips did not do this,
Speaker 1: then some other company stood to gain the most by
Speaker 1: becoming the standard in home audio formats. So they agreed,
Speaker 1: and as Sony adopted that Phillips form factor for cassette tapes,
Speaker 1: the standard was set, and and that is how we
Speaker 1: have cassette tapes and not some other format format. But
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be until the late nineteen seventies that the
Speaker 1: cassette form factor really became popular among consumers. So it
Speaker 1: was more than a decade later that people actually started
Speaker 1: to buy cassette tapes in large amounts. And the big
Speaker 1: reason for that was because the quality just wasn't there
Speaker 1: early on, but for both playback and for recording, and
Speaker 1: vinyl records had much higher fidelity. The sound was better
Speaker 1: from a vinyl record. If you bought a cassette tape
Speaker 1: and tried to listen to the same music that you
Speaker 1: could get on vinyl, you'd be disappointed in the noise
Speaker 1: that would be present on the recording. So cassette tapes
Speaker 1: originally could not compete with the fidelity of records, but
Speaker 1: as soon as that quality reached a good enough standard,
Speaker 1: cassettes began to overtake vinyl. So this is an example
Speaker 1: of a format that you could argue is of an
Speaker 1: inferior quality. There are people who will argue to their
Speaker 1: deathbed that vinyl records are the highest fidelity you can
Speaker 1: possibly achieve, um because it's a very true representation of
Speaker 1: the sound that was generated at the time of recording.
Speaker 1: But you could also argue that ultimately that doesn't matter
Speaker 1: to the consumer. You just have to make the quality
Speaker 1: good enough and make it super convenient, and if it's
Speaker 1: more convenient than the alternative and it's not prohibitively expensive,
Speaker 1: people will switch to that format. That's what happened with
Speaker 1: cassette tapes. They weren't superior in quality to vinyl records,
Speaker 1: but you could carry them around with you much easier
Speaker 1: than you could with records. You could even in all
Speaker 1: something like a tape deck in your car and listen
Speaker 1: to him on the go. Couldn't really do that with vinyl,
Speaker 1: at least not without taking the smoothest roads possible, because
Speaker 1: any bump would totally ruin your record collection. And it
Speaker 1: didn't matter that the quality wasn't as good because the
Speaker 1: convenience was there. But quick aside, you might wonder how
Speaker 1: does magnetic tape work? And I thought it might be
Speaker 1: cool to just quickly cover the basics to explain what
Speaker 1: magnetic tape is actually doing. So the tape itself is
Speaker 1: a plastic base. So the ribbons is plastic, and it
Speaker 1: has a coating of ferric oxide powder which is ferro
Speaker 1: magnetic um, and it's usually paired with some sort of
Speaker 1: binding agent so it sticks to the plastic film properly. Now,
Speaker 1: if you expose that feric oxide to a magnetic field,
Speaker 1: the magnetic field will cause the particles to align in
Speaker 1: a particular a. So if you move a ribbon coated
Speaker 1: with ferric oxide powder through a varying magnetic field, so
Speaker 1: you're changing the magnetic field over time as the ribbon
Speaker 1: passes through it. The ribbon actually becomes a record of
Speaker 1: the changes in that magnetic field. Like in other words,
Speaker 1: if you were to visually represent the changes of that
Speaker 1: magnetic field across the ribbon, it would be like a
Speaker 1: timeline your reconstruction, reconstructing the time from the beginning to
Speaker 1: the end of how that magnetic field changed. Now that
Speaker 1: magnetic field represents music or or sound. You get an
Speaker 1: electric current, you put it through an electro magnet. The
Speaker 1: changing current in the electromagnetic creates this variable magnetic field
Speaker 1: that gets recorded onto this tape. You play the tape
Speaker 1: back through a playback device. Moving this ribbon with the
Speaker 1: magnetic material past an electro magnet that's not turned on
Speaker 1: will expose the electro magnet to a changing magnetic field
Speaker 1: that ends up inducing electric current to flow in the
Speaker 1: electro magnet, which then can be sent to an amplifier,
Speaker 1: which then can be sent to speakers, and then you
Speaker 1: get your sound. It's really amazing, like it's it's actually
Speaker 1: pretty simple when you think about it. It's it's translating
Speaker 1: one type of energy into another and then using magnetic
Speaker 1: field to record it. But there's something in my mind
Speaker 1: that refuses to dismiss the possibility that all of this
Speaker 1: is magic. I understand on a physical level what's happening,
Speaker 1: but it's so phenomenal to me that you might as
Speaker 1: well have a wand in your hand and be speaking
Speaker 1: faux Latin. At any rate, that's how magnetic tape works.
Speaker 1: So let's get back to Phillips. They had set the
Speaker 1: standard for home audio with the cassette tape, and as
Speaker 1: a result they they managed to change the world of
Speaker 1: home media, but it took more than a decade for
Speaker 1: that to really take hold. The nineteen seventies were really
Speaker 1: challenging for Phillips. I mentioned that Fritz Phillips had retired
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one as president after a really prosperous decade.
Speaker 1: The sixties were pretty good, but the seventies were getting tough. Uh.
Speaker 1: The replacement was Hank Faun reems Ditch, that's my best
Speaker 1: guess at how to pronounce his last name, and he
Speaker 1: became the new president, but he was facing some pretty
Speaker 1: hefty challenges. Those Japanese companies were becoming increasingly powerful and competitive,
Speaker 1: and that really forced another round of reorganization over at Phillips.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that reems Ditch did was
Speaker 1: shut down some of the smaller factories that were owned
Speaker 1: by Phillips because these smaller companies, these smaller factories weren't
Speaker 1: as efficient as larger operations, so the smaller ones got
Speaker 1: shuttered and the larger ones were prioritized. In nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: Phillips introduced the first successful consumer home video cassette recorder system.
Speaker 1: The company called it Video Cassette Recording or vc R,
Speaker 1: but you shouldn't confuse this with the VHS or Beta
Speaker 1: Max formats. It was a different style of cassette tape.
Speaker 1: The vc are cassettes were actually kind of these chunky
Speaker 1: squares rather than rectangles, and they housed two coaxial reels
Speaker 1: of magnetic tape. They were available in three different varieties.
Speaker 1: You can get them in thirty minute, forty five minute,
Speaker 1: or sixty minute versions, although supposedly the sixty minute ones
Speaker 1: were particularly tricky. They could snag and and foul pretty easily,
Speaker 1: so they were not reliable. Uh and unless you're from Europe,
Speaker 1: you're probably not terribly familiar with the format. Because Phillips
Speaker 1: never sold the devices in any other regions. They were
Speaker 1: looking at getting into North America, and in fact it
Speaker 1: even started marketing campaigns in North America to try and
Speaker 1: introduce the VCR, but before they could, the VHS debuted
Speaker 1: in America and became adopted as the standard UM and
Speaker 1: that pretty much foiled the plans of Phillips during the
Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies to to bring the VCR to the US.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy four, Phillips purchased another company called Magnavox.
Speaker 1: Magnavox was an American electronics company that started all the
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen seventeen, and it produced a lot
Speaker 1: of different types of devices, but My favorite was the
Speaker 1: Magnavox Odyssey, which was the first home video game console.
Speaker 1: Now Phillips purchased it, and in the nineteen eighties they
Speaker 1: would combine Magnavox with a couple of other acquisitions that
Speaker 1: the company had made, Philco and Sylvania, so you had Magnavox, Philco,
Speaker 1: and Sylvania all combined into one division underneath the Phillips
Speaker 1: brand by the mid nineteen eighties. The president, Reems ditch Uh,
Speaker 1: stepped down in nineteen seventy seven. He was replaced with
Speaker 1: a man named Nico Rawdenburg, and the next few years
Speaker 1: saw an increase in sales, but revenue didn't really go anywhere.
Speaker 1: So even though they were selling more products, revenues were
Speaker 1: remaining kind of static. And in nine Visa Decker became
Speaker 1: president and chairman of the board of Phillips, and he
Speaker 1: restructured the company again. So you could almost argue that
Speaker 1: the history of Phillips is a series of restructuring and
Speaker 1: reorganizing to try and uh get more focus. It seemed
Speaker 1: like the company would pare down, then build up again,
Speaker 1: and then the next regime, if you will, would come
Speaker 1: in and pare down all over again in order to
Speaker 1: try and get some some laser like focus for this company. Well,
Speaker 1: Decker's plan ended up closing more than a quarter of
Speaker 1: all the plants located in Europe, and so this leanard
Speaker 1: company was able to turn things around and increase revenues
Speaker 1: once again. But Decker also started making some big acquisitions,
Speaker 1: including buying a lighting division from Westinghouse. So again an
Speaker 1: example of paring down but building back up again. Over
Speaker 1: the next several years, Phillips would have a few different presidents,
Speaker 1: so I thought I would lump them all together in
Speaker 1: this section rather than peppering them throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: the podcast. So I'm gonna just tell you all the
Speaker 1: people who have led Phillips from Decker to present day,
Speaker 1: so and keep in mind restructuring was pretty much a
Speaker 1: a go to strategy with each person. There was a
Speaker 1: Cornelis van der Kluet who led the company in nineteen six,
Speaker 1: Yon Tremor came on board in nine, Core Boonstra in
Speaker 1: nineteen six, Gerard Cloister Lee in two thousand eleven, and
Speaker 1: the current CEO is Franz von Houghton. So I decided
Speaker 1: to just sum them up all now so that we
Speaker 1: could get back into the technology. So Phillips. The company
Speaker 1: partnered with m c A to develop a new product
Speaker 1: called the Laser Disc that originally was marketed in the
Speaker 1: United States under the name of the m c A
Speaker 1: Disco Vision, which I think is a phenomenal product name.
Speaker 1: I wish Disco Vision had been its name forever. Uh.
Speaker 1: The first place it went on sale was actually Atlanta,
Speaker 1: Georgia in ninety eight. It went on sale there before
Speaker 1: it appeared anywhere else in the United States, So shout
Speaker 1: out to my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Now, both m
Speaker 1: c A and Phillips have been working on an optical
Speaker 1: video technology separately optical meaning that you're using some form
Speaker 1: of light to record and read the information off a
Speaker 1: disk in order for you to get the video and
Speaker 1: audio that has been put on that disc. And both
Speaker 1: m c A and Phillips have been working on this
Speaker 1: at the same time. But they both also noted that
Speaker 1: there had just been this massive war of formats between
Speaker 1: VHS and Beta Max, and m c A and Phillips
Speaker 1: came to the conclusion that it made more sense for
Speaker 1: them to join together and to combine their knowledge and
Speaker 1: come out with a united product rather than try and
Speaker 1: have another format war, which could hurt both companies, so
Speaker 1: they entered a partnership and created laser disc, which never
Speaker 1: really met with widespread success here in the United States.
Speaker 1: There are other markets, like in Asia where it did
Speaker 1: quite well. In the US, there was a passionate market,
Speaker 1: but it was very small. So there were some home
Speaker 1: theater enthusiasts, again mostly people who had a decent amount
Speaker 1: of money at their disposal, who adopted laser disc technology,
Speaker 1: but for the most part it was kind of an afterthought.
Speaker 1: Part of that was because you couldn't use it to
Speaker 1: write stuff to the discs. Now you're you're consumer products.
Speaker 1: They were read only, so you could buy movies and
Speaker 1: watch them, but you couldn't record anything. VHS had an
Speaker 1: advantage there you could record stuff from television onto tape
Speaker 1: and keep it forever. So even though laser disc quality
Speaker 1: was better than VHS quality, at least initially, again it
Speaker 1: didn't matter that the quality was better, it wasn't It
Speaker 1: wasn't practical and convenient enough for people who wanted to
Speaker 1: have that home theater experience. So ultimately it didn't really
Speaker 1: take off here in the US, and uh it still
Speaker 1: was a very interesting story, but it did lead to
Speaker 1: another partnership. This time it was a partnership between Phillips
Speaker 1: and Sony. They decided to work together to develop a
Speaker 1: digital audio disc. The two companies poured time, money, and
Speaker 1: other resources into research and development, and the result was
Speaker 1: the Compact Disc, which became a worldwide standard. And there
Speaker 1: are a lot of interesting stories about the history of
Speaker 1: the Compact disc, including things like how did they come
Speaker 1: to decide what were the standards for things like bit
Speaker 1: rate that you record to on a disk. Maybe one
Speaker 1: day I will do a full episode just about the
Speaker 1: compact disc and why compact discs are the way they
Speaker 1: are because those were decisions that were made. It's not
Speaker 1: like it it was just the magical properties of the CD.
Speaker 1: But in order to make sure that this standard survived
Speaker 1: the test of time, Sony and Phillips decided to do
Speaker 1: something similar to what Phillips had done with cassette tapes.
Speaker 1: They granted manufacturing rights for CD players to other manufacturers.
Speaker 1: In other words, they gave competition the right to make
Speaker 1: their own CD players because if they didn't, the fear
Speaker 1: was that these other manufacturers would try to create standards
Speaker 1: of their own and that would fracture the market. So
Speaker 1: just imagine that you're trying to buy music and there
Speaker 1: are five different formats out there, hard hard copy formats
Speaker 1: that are similar to c d s, but they aren't
Speaker 1: compatible with each other. So, in other words, you have
Speaker 1: a system at home, it will only play one version
Speaker 1: of the media. You have to go out there and
Speaker 1: hope that whatever album you want is available on media.
Speaker 1: You have advantage, you know, you can take advantage of.
Speaker 1: That's what Sony and Phillips wanted to avoid. They did
Speaker 1: not want that world to happen because consumers wouldn't be
Speaker 1: very happy. It would end up hurting all the parties involved.
Speaker 1: So that's why they granted the rights to other manufacturers
Speaker 1: to make things like CD players. In Phillips would change
Speaker 1: its name to Phillips Electronics Envy, which finally is pronounceable,
Speaker 1: so I thank them for that decision. They also introduced
Speaker 1: a console in the home video game market called the
Speaker 1: Phillips c d I c D DASH lowercase I that
Speaker 1: actually stood for Compact Disc Interactive and it was meant
Speaker 1: to combine the functionality of a CD player and a
Speaker 1: video game console while still being less expensive than a
Speaker 1: PC that had a CD ROM drive. In the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: Phillips increased the functionality of the c d I by
Speaker 1: introducing Internet connectivity and making it one of the first
Speaker 1: consoles capable of browsing the web or playing games online.
Speaker 1: In order to do that, you actually had to buy
Speaker 1: an expansion for the c d I, which caused something
Speaker 1: like a hundred and fifty bucks, which at the time
Speaker 1: was pretty expensive. I mean it's expensive now, but you
Speaker 1: have to adjust for inflation because that was the mid
Speaker 1: nineties with a d fifty dollars on top of the
Speaker 1: price of the c d I by itself. Now, what
Speaker 1: was really interesting to me is that the c d
Speaker 1: I was able to do something that most video game
Speaker 1: consoles have not been able to do, at least non
Speaker 1: Nintendo video game consoles. They were able to license characters
Speaker 1: from Nintendo like Mario and Link and Zelda. They were
Speaker 1: able to license all of those characters and make games
Speaker 1: featuring those characters for a non Nintendo video game system.
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Well, the the reason is that
Speaker 1: originally Nintendo was looking into building a CD ROM add
Speaker 1: on to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and so Nintendo
Speaker 1: and Phillips were going to partner together, Phillips was going
Speaker 1: to build the hardware, the CD ROM hardware that would
Speaker 1: connect to the Nintendo console, and that would give Nintendo
Speaker 1: the ability to increase its its range by adding CD
Speaker 1: capability to the Nintendo Entertainment System or Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
Speaker 1: But other CD based video game consoles were not doing
Speaker 1: so well in the market, so Nintendo changed its mind.
Speaker 1: The company said, you know, maybe we were a little hasty.
Speaker 1: To me. It looks like this is not the right
Speaker 1: path for us to take right now, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: back off. We're gonna cancel this arrangement. But as sort
Speaker 1: of a consolation prize to Phillips for having to cancel
Speaker 1: this agreed upon partnership, Nintendo said, when you make your
Speaker 1: video game console, you can use these properties for certain
Speaker 1: number of video games, and that's where we got things
Speaker 1: like Hotel Mario Fat A lot of good it did Phillips,
Speaker 1: though the video games were widely considered to be pretty awful,
Speaker 1: so they were not enough to save the system and
Speaker 1: push it to popularity. In fact, a lot of publications
Speaker 1: out there will list the Phillips c d I as
Speaker 1: one of the worst consoles ever in the history of Ever,
Speaker 1: it was considered to be that bad, largely not because
Speaker 1: of the hardware, but because of the lackluster games that
Speaker 1: were developed for it. It's a very forward thinking kind
Speaker 1: of console, it just didn't execute well and didn't have
Speaker 1: the support as far as software is concerned. Now, in
Speaker 1: the mid nine nineties, Phillips and Sony would join forces again,
Speaker 1: but this time they also had Teshiba and Panasonic with
Speaker 1: them to develop what was called the Digital Versatile Disc
Speaker 1: or DVD. Now. The reason for that alliance was again
Speaker 1: to avoid another home media format war like that VHS
Speaker 1: Beta Max battle. Before the DVD, there were two primary
Speaker 1: formats that were racing to become the standard. One of
Speaker 1: those formats was backed by Sony and Phillips and was
Speaker 1: called the Multimedia Compact Disc or m m c D.
Speaker 1: The other was called the Super Density Disc or s D,
Speaker 1: and it was supported by companies like Pioneer, Toshiba, and JVC.
Speaker 1: The alliance actually allowed these various parties to collaborate together
Speaker 1: and incorporate some of the technology they had developed separately
Speaker 1: into a single format, which became the new standard DVD,
Speaker 1: and it also headed off that format war in the process.
Speaker 1: While that strategy worked. It seems that Toshiba kind of
Speaker 1: forgot all about the importance of it a few years
Speaker 1: later when it tried to pit its HD DVD standard
Speaker 1: against Blue Ray. So Phillips was part of the Blu
Speaker 1: Ray Disc Association or b d A, and other companies
Speaker 1: in the b d A included Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, whole
Speaker 1: bunch of others, essentially everyone who wasn't Ta Shiba, And
Speaker 1: so you had this this fight between Blu Ray and
Speaker 1: HD DVD, and for a while it looked like h
Speaker 1: D DVD might even win, but ultimately they had to
Speaker 1: pull out of the race. Blue Ray obviously one you
Speaker 1: don't see h D DVD sets out there these days.
Speaker 1: I actually got to see the results of this battle
Speaker 1: in person, because when I went to c e S
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, there was a big empty spot
Speaker 1: on the show floor where h D DVD was supposed
Speaker 1: to be. And that is unusual. Usually every square foot
Speaker 1: of c E S has some sort of booth attached
Speaker 1: to it. If it's not a booth, it's a pathway
Speaker 1: between booths. So to have a big area that had
Speaker 1: nothing in it was pretty conspicuous. It was made even
Speaker 1: more conspicuous by the fact that Blu Ray that year
Speaker 1: had designed their booth to look like an enormous pirate
Speaker 1: ship that was modeled after the Pirates of the Caribbean movies,
Speaker 1: So it was very obvious that h D DVD was
Speaker 1: the ship that sunk in that particular battle. In two thousand,
Speaker 1: Phillips closed a chapter in its history by transforming the
Speaker 1: NAT Lab that's the research and development facility I talked
Speaker 1: about in Part one. They changed it into the High
Speaker 1: Tech Campus Eindhoven, which is an open research facility that
Speaker 1: has multiple participating organizations. Phillips is one of them, but
Speaker 1: it's not the only one anymore. This followed nearly three
Speaker 1: decades of decline in that lab. It's actually kind of
Speaker 1: a sad story. So Phillips during these restructuring UH processes
Speaker 1: where they kept on having to reorganize and and and
Speaker 1: kind of leaned down. One of the things that was
Speaker 1: happening was that they were pulling resources away from research
Speaker 1: and development. In the process UH, they started to de
Speaker 1: emphasize the importance of pure scientific research and really looked
Speaker 1: at the NAT lab is more of a standard R
Speaker 1: and D lab rather than pushing the envelope of science exploration,
Speaker 1: and then finally they just opened it up to other organizations,
Speaker 1: so now it's no longer a Phillips based organ It's
Speaker 1: Phillips is still involved, but it's no longer the parent
Speaker 1: of that particular facility. Recently, Phillips has also introduced interesting
Speaker 1: systems and healthcare. They've been involved in healthcare since the
Speaker 1: twenties when they were working with X rays, but now
Speaker 1: you can find stuff like the Bent Experience. That's what
Speaker 1: it's actually called. UH. It's an integrated solution that incorporates
Speaker 1: dynamic lighting, sound, and architecture to improve patient care and
Speaker 1: hospital efficiency. So kind of a hospital that responds to
Speaker 1: the needs of the doctors and patients who are who
Speaker 1: are there, which is kind of cool, a neat idea.
Speaker 1: Phillips also launched a three D scanner in two thousand
Speaker 1: six that is used to create high quality CT scans,
Speaker 1: and the company continue to invest in X ray development,
Speaker 1: creating new systems that use lower dosages of X ray
Speaker 1: radiation to really limit that exposure both to patients and
Speaker 1: to healthcare professionals and UH and reduce the risk of
Speaker 1: of causing damage with that radiation. But Phillips has also
Speaker 1: pulled back from a few industries in an effort to
Speaker 1: simplify and focus its efforts. I've already mentioned that Phillips
Speaker 1: is you know, they no longer manufacture their own branded televisions,
Speaker 1: but they've also pulled out of semiconductor operations. They did
Speaker 1: that back into the thousand and five two thousand six,
Speaker 1: and there have been some other troubles as well. In
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, the European Union find Phillips, along with
Speaker 1: several other companies, with a charge of fixing prices for
Speaker 1: TV cathode ray tubes. Essentially, they said that these companies
Speaker 1: all colluded to fix cathode ray tube prices rather than
Speaker 1: compete against one another. In two thousand thirteen, the company
Speaker 1: renamed itself again. This time they called themselves Royal Phillips,
Speaker 1: which is the current name of the company, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, the company announced it would split into
Speaker 1: two separate entities. So one company would be a lighting
Speaker 1: business and the other company would be consumer lifestyle and healthcare.
Speaker 1: So Royal Phillips would become the Consumer Lifestyle and healthcare
Speaker 1: business and the new company, which will launch with an
Speaker 1: I P O sometime in two thousand sixteen, at least,
Speaker 1: that's the belief as I record this podcast, will become
Speaker 1: UH Phillips Lighting, So you'll have two different Phillips companies
Speaker 1: at that time, independent one of the other. UH. So
Speaker 1: you have Royal Phillips and Phillips Lighting. So let's let's
Speaker 1: bring this whole story back full circle. We started the
Speaker 1: discussion about Phillips by talking about carbon filaments for lightbulbs.
Speaker 1: I thought it would conclude by talking about one of
Speaker 1: the products Phillips has introduced over the last few years,
Speaker 1: Phillips Hugh, which is a special kind of light bulb.
Speaker 1: It's sort of the fitting end to the series. So
Speaker 1: we're talking about LED light bulbs that are capable of
Speaker 1: displaying light in various light temperatures. In other words, that
Speaker 1: can change color. UM it's networked, so it actually connects
Speaker 1: to your wireless network at home, and you can control
Speaker 1: the lightbulbs using something like a tablet or a smartphone.
Speaker 1: You can set it so that they're different colors or
Speaker 1: even change colors over time. You can even there's certain
Speaker 1: UM television pro rams that have been designed so that
Speaker 1: if you have a huge system at home and you
Speaker 1: haven't connected, so that you're television viewing and your hue
Speaker 1: lighting are all integrated with each other. The huge lightbulbs
Speaker 1: will change color in reaction to what you are watching.
Speaker 1: In other words, it becomes this coordinated immersive experience. So,
Speaker 1: as an example, if there were an explosion on the
Speaker 1: television show you're watching, the lights might quickly flash a
Speaker 1: certain color to create that explosion effect. So it's even
Speaker 1: more immersive in your home, which I think is kind
Speaker 1: of neat. It's also pretty dorky, but I'm also extremely dorky,
Speaker 1: thus pretty neat. Also, it's really expensive, you know, to
Speaker 1: to buy these these bulbs. You first have to have
Speaker 1: a bridge to connect the bulbs to your WiFi system,
Speaker 1: and I think your typical kit comes with a bridge
Speaker 1: and three lightbulbs, and it's still pretty hefty price. And
Speaker 1: then you have to add more light bulbs if you
Speaker 1: want to have you know, a greater amount of lighting
Speaker 1: in your house. So it gets more and more expensive
Speaker 1: the more light bulbs you add, and you have a
Speaker 1: certain number that you can add up to the to
Speaker 1: a point, and then after that the bridge can't handle anymore.
Speaker 1: So it's not necessarily a practical solution. It might be
Speaker 1: considered more of a toy for people who really like
Speaker 1: electronics and lighting effects. I personally have not purchased Phillips
Speaker 1: HU lightbulbs. I've thought about it a few times, just
Speaker 1: haven't made the plunge yet, but maybe I will. We'll see,
Speaker 1: because I do think it's a cool idea and I
Speaker 1: think it's neat to see how a company that was
Speaker 1: founded on creating lightbulbs is still innovating in that space.
Speaker 1: Although of course now there are competing products on the market.
Speaker 1: They're similar to Phillips Hu, so obviously more innovation will
Speaker 1: be required in order to remain relevant. But that wraps
Speaker 1: up the Phillips story. There's obviously a whole lot more
Speaker 1: I could talk about when I really dive into this company.
Speaker 1: Entire books have been written about the Phillips company, the founders,
Speaker 1: the influence they had on electronics, in science and physics
Speaker 1: in the European market. It's there's a library worth of
Speaker 1: information out there. But I need to set my sites
Speaker 1: on a different topic. So next week we'll be covering
Speaker 1: something totally different. And remember, if you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: tech stuff, topics or I guess you think should be
Speaker 1: on the show, or someone I should have as a
Speaker 1: as a co host for an episode. Let me know.
Speaker 1: Send me an email. My address is tech stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, or drop me a line
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler at text stuff h s
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is that
Speaker 1: how stock works dot com.