WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Philips Story: Part Two 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.280 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.120 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.960 and how the tech are you? It is time for 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.760 a classic episode. We are going to conclude the two 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.320 parter that we started last Friday. So if you didn't 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.120 listen to last Friday's classic episode, I recommend you go 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:31.720 listen to that first because this is the Phillips Story, 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:38.200 Part two, and this originally published on January two, thousand sixteen. Now, 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.960 clearly we could do an update because it has been 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.879 quite a few years since I did these episodes, so 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.600 maybe I will do that in the future, But first 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:52.040 let's listen to this classic episode from We'll begin this 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.480 episode with a discussion about what happened to Anton's son, 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.520 Fritz Phillips as much of the world was plunged into 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.240 the con flick known as World War Two. So if 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.240 you remember from our last episode, Anton and his son 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:12.760 in law Franston or Franz Aughton, fled the Netherlands. They 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.160 went to North America. They had established a North American 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.679 base of operations to work from during the course of 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.880 World War two. Much of Phillip's management followed suit, but 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:28.920 but Fritz Phillips stayed behind in the Netherlands, and Fritz 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:34.240 really tried to protect the interests of the company as 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.959 well as the company's employees during the entire Nazi occupation. 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:44.600 Now from nineteen forty until nineteen forty three, Fritz kept 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.720 things running at Phillips, even resisting the moves by the 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:53.400 Nazis to switch the operations to more warlike efforts to 0:01:53.480 --> 0:02:00.280 support Germany's UH operations. And Fritz really was all to 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:06.760 resist that fairly effectively. But in April nineteen forty three, 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:12.239 things took a very dark turn for Fritz, and obviously 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:17.360 was a terrible time for much of Europe because in 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:24.200 April nineteen forty three, the Nazis made a declaration that 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:28.360 was pretty much the doom for Fritz Phillips at least 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:32.320 for the next two years. So when Germany invaded the 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:37.280 Netherlands back in nineteen forty, the three thousand members of 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.760 the Dutch Army had been essentially captured but then released 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:47.400 after the Netherlands officially surrendered to Germany. So the three 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:53.120 thousand members of the Dutch army were under German supervision 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.280 for a while and then allowed to go back and 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:03.919 rejoin Dutch society under the Nazi occupation. But in ninety three, 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.840 Germany declared that those three hundred thousand soldiers would be 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:12.600 conscripted and forced into labor on behalf of Germany, so 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:17.680 they'd become, you know, essentially slave labor to the Nazis, 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.440 and the Phillips employees decided to go on strike to 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:26.600 protest this move. It wasn't and move against Fritz Phillips, 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.200 it was a move against the Nazis. But Germany held 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.960 Fritz Phillips personally responsible and captured him and put him 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:39.040 in a concentration camp and essentially was trying to use 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:44.360 him as leverage to force Phillips employees back to work. Meanwhile, 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.640 while in captivity, Fritz was put in charge of a 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.600 camp workshop in that concentration camp, and it was staffed 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:55.960 by Jewish prisoners. So again he did his best to 0:03:56.000 --> 0:04:00.720 protect his workers in the concentration camp, trying to make 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:05.240 sure that he he made it clear that each one 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:07.640 of them was necessary for him to do the work 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:13.840 that the Nazis were demanding. Tragically, uh he started with 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.960 four hundred sixty nine Jewish employees. Only two of them 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.000 survived to the end of the war. Um and I 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:25.400 say only three two because it's just a tragedy for 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:30.800 any of those lives to be lost. Obviously, however, it's 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.839 almost I can't even say it's a silver lining, but 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.159 he did manage to protect quite a few of those people. 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:41.320 In fact, if you compare those numbers with the Dutch 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:47.040 Jewish population, overall, almost all the Jews in the Netherlands 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:52.599 had been completely eliminated eradicated. So Fritz Phillips actually did 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:56.640 succeed in saving lives, and I'm sure that he would 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.240 have wish that he could have saved all of them 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.600 for his efforts. Israel actually decorated Fritz Phillips with the 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.919 Yad Vashiam Medal in nineteen and he was alive to 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:14.120 accept that that honor. Fritz survived the war, as I 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.920 just indicated. After his release, he dedicated the next several 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:23.880 years to rebuilding the Phillips presence in the Netherlands because 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.560 during the course of World War Two, Phillips factories were 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.560 hit hard. They had been bombed by the Allies twice 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:35.000 and then once by the Germans. When the Germans were withdrawing. 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:41.000 During their retreat, they also bombed the Phillips manufacturing factories. 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.560 He would eventually become the president of Phillips in nineteen 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:48.640 sixty one. He retired in nineteen seventy one, and he 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.760 passed away in two thousand five at the age of 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:56.600 one hundred years old. But going back to just after 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:01.000 World War Two, during that era, uh, you know, it 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:05.800 was it was a period of rebuilding and by most 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:12.320 of the facilities had recovered. Meanwhile, Phillips research focused on 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:16.640 things like transistors and integrated circuits. Over the next couple 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.880 of decades. Really the nineteen fifties was the era of 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.760 the integrated circuit and the transistor. Uh that work was 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.960 really being pioneered at places like Bell Labs. But Phillips were, 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:30.960 you know, the companies like Phelips were able to jump 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.400 on that bandwagon, as it were, and add their own 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:41.840 expertise in advancing the technology of integrated circuits and building 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:47.440 a foundation for future work in electronics. In nineteen forty nine, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:53.000 Phillips introduced the syncro cyclotron, which sounds like a really 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:57.360 wicked amusement park ride, but the syncros cyclotron was actually 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:02.160 a particle accelerator. Now that might sound unusual. You're talking 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.320 about a company that's largely known for its work in 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.360 electronics and stuff, so that's fairly simple things like radios 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.560 and lamps, and a little bit in the medical field 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.440 with X ray technology. But this was another example of 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:21.680 how Phillips was really valuing pure scientific research. Not only 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.400 was Phillips looking to join and create new markets and electronics, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.120 but also push our understanding of the fundamental nature of 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:32.600 the universe. Uh. There was a physicist, a famous physicist 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:36.120 named Kasimir who worked on this project, and Kasimir was 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.760 a notable scientist. His name was actually used to describe 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.520 a certain physical force that results from a quantized field. 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.280 It's called the Casimir effect. That research would later become 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:51.640 important for micro electro mechanical systems known as mems. So 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:56.600 there's another good example of how some fundamental understanding of 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.040 science can end up being a huge benefit further on 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.400 the line, something that you could not possibly have anticipated 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:07.280 when you first set out to study it. I know 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.800 I'm beating a dead horse here, but I really do 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:15.800 believe deeply in this philosophy that pure science has value, 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:20.000 and often it has value that we cannot anticipate when 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:25.040 we set out to answer questions. And so if you 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.760 happen to ever be in a position where you can 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.600 help fund pure science, I urge you to do it, 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:36.400 even if you don't have an immediate return on what 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.080 that investment will mean, because you never know what's going 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.480 to turn into in the future. All right, let your over, 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:45.640 let's get back to it. In ninete, skipping ahead quite 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:51.400 a bit, Phillips introduced the compact audio cassette. This is 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.440 what we in the eighties called a cassette tape. Cassette 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.480 tape is essentially a little plastic cartridge, inside of which 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.960 is a real that has a ribbon of magnetic tape 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.600 upon which you can record audio. So magnetic tape was 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.760 not a brand new medium. It's not like Phillips invented 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.920 magnetic tape. Previous versions were already in existence and had 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.880 been used for both commercial and home uses. But the 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:22.160 home use was pretty limited because really, the predecessor to 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:27.640 the cassette tape was real to real audio. Some people 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.640 had real to real audio sets, but they were pretty expensive. 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.320 So it was one of those things that only people 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.160 with a lot of money and a lot of interest 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.520 in technology actually owned. The average person didn't have a 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.599 real to real tape player, and the cassette tape was 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.960 kind of uh an effort to bring this sort of 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:51.079 technology into the realm of the consumer market, creating a 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:57.840 brand new space. UH. The Phillips innovation meant that you 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.240 had a compact, portable, and eventually an expensive alternative to 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.000 real to real tape, and that was great. They debuted 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:10.240 the cassette tape at the nineteen sixty three Berlin Radio Show. 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.920 It would be introduced to the United States the following year, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.680 in nineteen sixty four. Other companies were also attempting to 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.360 establish a standard for personal audio at the same time. 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.640 So that raises a question, how did Phillips end up 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:29.080 making its design the cassette tape the standard. Why? Why 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.880 is that the standard and not something else that was 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.040 being developed at the same time by another company? And 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:39.880 the answer is mostly due to a strategy that was 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:45.280 forced on Phillips. Phillips ended up licensing the design for 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:50.800 free to Sony. The design of the cassette tape to Sony. 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.679 Sony had really been pressuring Phillips to do this. At 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:59.439 that time. Japanese companies were really on the rise, they 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:04.200 were hapidly overtaking other companies in other parts of the world, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.920 and so Phillips the writing was on the wall. If 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:13.160 Phillips did not do this, than some other company stood 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.720 to gain the most by becoming the standard in home 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:23.520 audio formats. So they agreed, and as Sony adopted that 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.920 Phillips form factor for cassette tapes, the standard was set, 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.800 and and that is how we have cassette tapes and 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.840 not some other format format. But it wouldn't be until 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.920 the late nineteen seventies that the cassette form factor really 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.440 became popular among consumers. So it was more than a 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:44.760 decade later that people actually started to buy cassette tapes 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.400 in large amounts. And the big reason for that was 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.440 because the quality just wasn't there early on, but for 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:58.280 both playback and for recording, and vinyl records had much 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:02.120 higher fidelity. The sound was better from a vinyl record. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:03.840 If you bought a cassette tape and try to listen 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:05.720 to the same music that you can get on vinyl, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.800 you'd be disappointed in the noise that would be present 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:14.440 on the recording. So cassette tapes originally could not really 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.040 compete with the fidelity of records, but as soon as 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:21.440 that quality reached a good enough standard, cassettes began to 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:25.880 overtake vinyl. So this is an example of a format 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:30.280 that you could argue is of an inferior quality. There 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.640 are people who will argue to their deathbed that vinyl 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.880 records are the highest fidelity you can possibly achieve um 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.640 because it's a very true representation of the sound that 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:46.800 was generated at the time of recording. But you could 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:50.280 also argue that ultimately that doesn't matter to the consumer. 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.160 You just have to make the quality good enough and 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.600 make it super convenient, and if it's more convenient than 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:02.840 the alternative and it's not prohibitively expensive, people will switch 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.959 to that format. That's what happened with cassette tapes. They 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:09.920 weren't superior in quality to vinyl records, but you could 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.360 carry them around with you much easier than you could 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.800 with records. You could even install something like a tape 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:18.600 deck in your car and listen to him on the go. 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.000 Couldn't really do that with vinyl, at least not without 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.000 taking the smoothest roads possible, because any bump would totally 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:31.839 ruin your record collection, and it didn't matter that the 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:36.200 quality wasn't as good because the convenience was there. We'll 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.680 be back with more about the Philips story after this 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:51.720 quick break. You might wonder how does magnetic tape work? 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:53.959 And I thought it might be cool to just quickly 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:58.800 cover the basics to explain what magnetic tape is actually doing. So, 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.160 the tape itself is a plastic base, So the ribbons 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:06.199 is plastic, and it has a coating of feric oxide 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:11.920 powder which is ferro magnetic um, and it's usually paired 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.560 with some sort of binding agent so it sticks to 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:19.360 the plastic film properly. Now, if you expose that feric 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:23.800 oxide to a magnetic field, the magnetic field will cause 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:28.200 the particles to align in a particular way. So if 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:34.400 you move a ribbon coated with feric oxide powder through 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:38.040 a varying magnetic field, so you're changing the magnetic field 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:42.800 over time as the ribbon passes through it. The ribbon 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:47.120 actually becomes a record of the changes in that magnetic field. 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:52.840 Like in other words, if you were to visually represent 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.240 the changes of that magnetic field across the ribbon, it 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:00.440 would be like a timeline your reconstruction, reconstructing the time 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.120 from the beginning to the end of how that magnetic 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:10.480 field changed. Now that magnetic field represents music or or sound, 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.880 you get an electric current, you put it through an 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:20.360 electro magnet. The changing current in the electromagnet creates this 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:26.280 variable magnetic field that gets recorded onto this tape. You 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.480 play the tape back through a playback device. Moving this 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.320 ribbon with the magnetic material past an electro magnet that's 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.920 not turned on will expose the electro magnet to a 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:41.640 changing magnetic field that ends up inducing electric current to 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.480 flow in the electro magnet, which then can be sent 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.800 to an amplifier, which then can be sent to speakers, 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:52.280 and then you get your sound. It's really amazing, like 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.680 it's it's actually pretty simple when you think about it. 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:00.080 It's it's translating one type of energy into another and 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:05.160 then using magnetic field to record it. But there's something 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:10.320 in my mind that refuses to dismiss the possibility that 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.800 all of this is magic. I understand on a physical 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.960 level what's happening, but it's so phenomenal to me that 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:18.760 you might as well have a wand in your hand 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.640 and be speaking faux Latin at any rate. That's how 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:27.320 magnetic tape works. So let's get back to Phillips. They 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.560 had set the standard for home audio with the cassette tape, 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:36.520 and as a result they they managed to change the 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.240 world of home media, but it took more than a 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.520 decade for that to really take hold. The nine seventies 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.880 were really challenging for Phillips. I mentioned that Fritz Phillips 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.000 had retired in nineteen seventy one as president after a 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.680 really prosperous decade. The sixties were pretty good, but the 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:56.920 seventies were getting tough. Uh. The replacement was Hank fun 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.280 reems Ditch. That's my best s at how to pronounce 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.760 his last name, and he became the new president, but 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.560 he was facing some pretty hefty challenges. Those Japanese companies 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:14.000 were becoming increasingly powerful and competitive, and that really forced 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:18.080 another round of reorganization over at Phillips. So one of 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.479 the things that reems Ditch did was shut down some 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:25.280 of the smaller factories that were owned by Phillips because 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:30.040 these smaller companies, these smaller factories weren't as efficient as 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:34.399 larger operations. So the smaller ones got shuttered and the 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:40.320 larger ones were prioritized. In nineteen seventy two, Phillips introduced 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.919 the first successful consumer home video cassette recorder system. The 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:50.840 company called it Video Cassette Recording or vc R, but 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:56.400 you shouldn't confuse this with the VHS or Beta Max formats. 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.879 It was a different style of cassette tape. The v 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.719 see our cassettes were actually kind of these chunky squares 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:07.000 rather than rectangles, and they housed two coaxial reels of 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:10.760 magnetic tape. They were available in three different varieties. You 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.679 could get them in thirty minute, forty five minute, or 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:18.400 sixty minute versions, although supposedly the sixty minute ones were 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:24.520 particularly tricky. They could snag and and foul pretty easily, 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:29.040 so they were not reliable. Uh and unless you're from Europe, 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.640 you're probably not terribly familiar with the format. Because Phillips 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.920 never sold the devices in any other regions. They were 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.840 looking at getting into North America, and in fact it 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.760 even started marketing campaigns in North America to try and 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:48.400 introduce the VCR, but before they could, the VHS debuted 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:54.240 in America and became adopted as the standard um and 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.480 that pretty much foiled the plans of Phillips. During the 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.520 late nineteen seventies to to bring the v CR to 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.760 the US. In nineteen seventy four, Phillips purchased another company 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:09.640 called Magnavox. Magnavox was an American electronics company that started 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.840 all the way back in nineteen seventeen, and it produced 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.200 a lot of different types of devices, but my favorite 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.160 was the Magnavox Odyssey, which was the first home video 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.840 game console. Now Phillips purchased it, and in the nineteen 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:27.040 eighties they would combine Magnavox with a couple of other 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:31.520 acquisitions that the company had made, phil COO and Sylvania, 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.720 so you had Magnavox, Philco, and Sylvania all combined into 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:39.479 one division underneath the Phillips brand by the mid nineteen eighties. 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:45.600 The president, Reems ditch Uh, stepped down in nineteen seventy seven. 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.840 He was replaced with a man named Nico Rawdenburg, and 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.520 the next few years saw an increase in sales, but 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.840 revenue didn't really go anywhere. So even though they were 0:19:55.840 --> 0:20:01.200 selling more products, revenues were m meaning kind of static. 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:09.080 And in Visa Decker became president and chairman of the 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.280 board of Phillips and he restructured the company again so 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.800 you could almost argue that the history of Phillips is 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:23.480 a series of restructuring and reorganizing to try and uh 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:27.560 get more focus. It seemed like the company would pare down, 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.719 then build up again, and then the next regime, if 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.160 you will, would come in and pare down all over 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:37.520 again in order to try and get some some laser 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:42.080 like focus for this company. Well, Decker's plan ended up 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.359 closing more than a quarter of all the plants located 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.560 in Europe, and so this leanard company was able to 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:51.760 turn things around and increase revenues once again. But Decker 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:55.879 also started making some big acquisitions, including buying a lighting 0:20:55.920 --> 0:21:01.520 division from Westinghouse. So again an example of paring down 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.280 but building back up again. Over the next several years, 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:06.720 Phillips would have a few different presidents, so I thought 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:10.520 I would lump them all together in this section rather 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.440 than peppering them throughout the rest of the podcast. So 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:15.760 I'm gonna just tell you all the people who have 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:22.920 led Phillips from Decker to present day, so and keep 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.639 in mind restructuring was pretty much a a go to 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:30.919 strategy with each person. There was a Cornelis van der Kut, 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:35.440 who led the company in nineteen six. Jan Tremor came 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:40.639 on board in nineteen nine, Core Boonstra in nine six, 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:45.520 Gerard Cloister Lee in two thousand eleven, and the current 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:49.840 CEO is Franz von Houghton. So I decided to just 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:52.000 sum them up all now so that we could get 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:57.960 back into the technology. So Phillips the company partnered with 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.520 m c A to develop a new product called the 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:05.840 Laser Disc that originally was marketed in the United States 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:08.639 under the name of the m c A Disco Vision, 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.640 which I think is a phenomenal product name I wish 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:15.920 Disco Vision had been its name forever. Uh. The first 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:20.120 place it went on sale was actually Atlanta, Georgia in ninet. 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:24.800 It went on sale there before it appeared anywhere else 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.879 in the United States, so shout out to my hometown 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:32.280 of Atlanta, Georgia. Now, both m c A and Phillips 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:38.320 have been working on an optical video technology separately optical 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:42.440 meaning that you're using some form of light to record 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:46.360 and read the information off a disk in order for 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:49.600 you to get the video and audio that has been 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.600 put on that disc. And both m c A and 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.159 Phillips have been working on this at the same time, 0:22:55.920 --> 0:23:01.720 but They both also noted there had just been this 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:10.200 massive war of formats between VHS and Beta Max and 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:13.080 m c A, and Phillips came to the conclusion that 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:16.040 it made more sense for them to join together and 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.600 to combine their knowledge and come out with a united 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:24.600 product rather than try and have another format war which 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:29.119 could hurt both companies. So they entered a partnership and 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:33.760 created LaserDisc, which never really met with widespread success here 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:35.800 in the United States. There are other markets like in 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:38.320 Asia where it did quite well, but in the US 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:43.520 there was a passionate market, but it was very small. 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:47.600 So there were some home theater enthusiasts, again mostly people 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:51.119 who had a decent amount of money at their disposal 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:55.879 who adopted LaserDisc technology, but for the most part it 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:58.520 was kind of an afterthought. Part of that was because 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:01.399 you couldn't use it to right stuff to the discs. 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:07.280 Now you're you're consumer products. They were read only, so 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:09.560 you could buy movies and watch them, but you couldn't 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:14.000 record anything. VHS had an advantage there you could record 0:24:14.119 --> 0:24:18.320 stuff from television onto tape and keep it forever. So 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:23.080 even though LaserDisc quality was better than VHS quality at 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:27.800 least initially. Again, it didn't matter that the quality was better. 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:31.720 It wasn't It wasn't practical and convenient enough for people 0:24:31.720 --> 0:24:37.399 who wanted to have that home theater experience. So ultimately 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:42.480 it didn't really take off here in the US, and uh, 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:45.480 it still was a very interesting story, but it did 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:48.840 lead to another partnership. This time it was a partnership 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:53.679 between Phillips and Sony. They decided to work together to 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:58.080 develop a digital audio disc. The two companies poured time, money, 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:01.800 and other resources into research into element and the result 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:07.240 was the Compact Disc, which became a worldwide standard. And 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:10.040 there are a lot of interesting stories about the history 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:13.680 of the Compact disc, including things like how did they 0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:16.919 come to decide what were the standards for things like 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:20.919 bit rate that you record to on a disk. Maybe 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:23.320 one day I will do a full episode just about 0:25:23.440 --> 0:25:26.720 the Compact disc and why compact discs are the way 0:25:26.720 --> 0:25:29.280 they are because those were decisions that were made. It's 0:25:29.320 --> 0:25:31.760 not like it it was just the magical properties of 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:35.280 the CD. But in order to make sure that this 0:25:35.400 --> 0:25:39.880 standard survived the test of time, Sony and Phillips decided 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:42.840 to do something similar to what Phillips had done with 0:25:43.119 --> 0:25:47.280 cassette tapes. They granted manufacturing rights for CD players to 0:25:47.400 --> 0:25:51.160 other manufacturers. In other words, they gave competition the right 0:25:51.200 --> 0:25:55.840 to make their own CD players because if they didn't, 0:25:55.840 --> 0:25:58.879 the fear was that these other manufacturers would try to 0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:02.399 create standards of their own and that would fracture the market. 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:05.679 So just imagine that you're trying to buy music and 0:26:05.720 --> 0:26:10.479 there are five different formats out there, hard hard copy 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:13.640 formats that are similar to c d s, but they 0:26:13.640 --> 0:26:16.840 aren't compatible with each other. So, in other words, you 0:26:16.880 --> 0:26:19.320 have a system at home, it will only play one 0:26:19.560 --> 0:26:23.760 version of the media. You have to go out there 0:26:23.800 --> 0:26:26.679 and hope that whatever album you want is available on 0:26:26.720 --> 0:26:28.760 the media. You have advantage, you know, you can take 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:32.600 advantage of. That's what Sony and Phillips wanted to avoid. 0:26:32.640 --> 0:26:35.600 They did not want that world to happen because consumers 0:26:35.600 --> 0:26:39.040 wouldn't be very happy. It would end up hurting all 0:26:39.080 --> 0:26:42.240 the parties involved. So that's why they granted the rights 0:26:42.280 --> 0:26:46.399 to other manufacturers to make things like CD players. We 0:26:46.440 --> 0:26:51.200 will conclude the Phillips story to parter. At least as 0:26:51.240 --> 0:27:06.440 of two thousand sixteen. After these messages in, Phillips would 0:27:06.480 --> 0:27:11.960 change its name to Phillips Electronics Envy, which finally is pronounceable, 0:27:12.400 --> 0:27:16.000 so I thank them for that decision. They also introduced 0:27:16.000 --> 0:27:19.080 a console in the home video game market called the 0:27:19.119 --> 0:27:24.240 Phillips c d I c D DASH lowercase I that 0:27:24.280 --> 0:27:28.120 actually stood for Compact Disc Interactive and it was meant 0:27:28.160 --> 0:27:30.920 to combine the functionality of a CD player and a 0:27:31.040 --> 0:27:34.199 video game console while still being less expensive than a 0:27:34.320 --> 0:27:38.880 PC that had a CD ROM drive. In the mid nineties, 0:27:38.920 --> 0:27:42.200 Phillips increased the functionality of the c d I by 0:27:42.240 --> 0:27:45.840 introducing Internet connectivity and making it one of the first 0:27:45.880 --> 0:27:49.560