Packard Bell: Тарихы мен даму жолы

Dutch based computer manufacturing subsidiary of Acer
the Packard Bell company active from the 1920s to 1968

Packard Bell Electronics, Inc. was an American computer company independently active from 1986 to 1996, now a Dutch registered computer manufacturing brand and subsidiary of Acer Inc. The company was founded in 1986, after Israeli American investors bought the trademark rights to the Packard Bell Corporation from Teledyne. The investors wanted to name their newly formed personal computer manufacturing company producing discount computers in the North American markets. In the late 1990s, Packard Bell became a subsidiary of Japanese electronics conglomerate NEC, Packard Bell NEC. In 1999, NEC stopped its North American operations and focused squarely the division on the European market, where it continued to sell PC and laptop under the Packard Bell name. In 2006, NEC divested Packard Bell, and in 2008, the brand was acquired by the Taiwanese consumer electronic firm Acer, in the aftermath of their takeover of Gateway, Inc.

The Packard Bell computer company was incorporated in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, in 1986 by Beny Alagem, Jason Barzilay, and Alex Sandel, three Israeli born United States businessmen based in California. Packard Bell was previously the namesake of an American consumer electronics company founded in the 1920s, Packard Bell Electronics. The latter made a name for itself for its radios before branching out to television sets in the 1950s. In the 1960s, as with many American consumer electronics companies, Packard Bell encountered difficulty in the marketplace due to increasing competition from Japanese companies like Sony, Sanyo, and Panasonic. In 1968, Packard Bell was acquired by Teledyne Technologies, an electronics conglomerate. Teledyne let the Packard Bell trademark languish in the following years; by the mid 1970s, it was all but retired. Alagem, fascinated by Packard Bell's history as a once beloved consumer electronics brand, bartered Teledyne for the rights to the trademark for just under $100,000. Alagem later found that brand recognition for Packard Bell was at 70 percent, among a random sampling of adults in the United States. Alagem and Barzilay met in the 1970s after the former had graduated from Cal Poly. Together, they founded a semiconductor distribution company. In 1983, they merged with another electronics supplier owned by Sandel to form Cal Circuit Abco, Inc., in Woodland Hills, California. Cal Circuit Abco sold computer peripherals on top of semiconductor and had generated over $500 million in annual revenues by 1985. Seeing the increasing commodification of the IBM Personal Computer standard by way of clone makers, or companies that manufactured systems which were plug and software compatible with the IBM PC architecture, the three businessmen decided they wanted in and reincorporated Cal Circuit Abco as Packard Bell Electronics in 1986, after Alagem had bought the Packard Bell name from Teledyne. The three leveraged their business connections with Asian electronics companies formed through Cal Circuit Abco to contract the production of an IBM PC clone. They settled on several companies, most prominently Samsung Electronics of Korea and Tatung Company of Taiwan—the former designing and manufacturing the desktop chassis and motherboards and the latter supplying their monitors. As the hardware was largely bare bones and derivative, the company could not market the computer based on technical merit, nor could they stand to profit from royalties on patents. Instead, the founders were forced to rely on a low price tag for the system, as well as the founders' shared knowledge of marketing and merchandising learned from their electronics vending businesses. In selling the computer they developed three core strategies: equipping their computer systems with various value adds while selling the complete bundle at a low cost, leaning on the history of the Packard Bell name, and vending the computers at mass retailers. Instrumental to Packard Bell's early success was their decision to distribute their systems to mass market retailers such as Sears, as well as wholesale clubs and consumer electronics stores. While the established name brand PC vendors were reluctant to sell their systems at these types of retailers in favor of cultivating lucrative service contracts with their customers, the percentage of PCs sold through mass market retailers rose threefold between 1987 and 1992—from 4 percent to 12 percent—with Packard Bell dominating within this niche. Within less than three years of the company's incorporation, Packard Bell saw an annual sales figure of US$600 million in 1989. Sales were helped along by Packard Bell's penetration into new markets—such as local area network systems for enterprises and CPU cards for power users—as well as the company's extensive customer support package for all customers, offering live technical support over the phone, toll free and around the clock. Packard Bell dubbed their customer support system Infinitech, which provided prerecorded troubleshooting tips in addition to a line to staffed technical support. The company also provided Infinitech through their bulletin board systems hosted on CompuServe and Prodigy. It was eventually postponed altogether, Packard Bell remaining a private company throughout the rest of its existence. Packard Bell's growing adoption rates into the mid 1990s were helped along by a new industrial design language and user friendly software. In 1993, the company introduced Navigator, a shell replacement for Windows 3.1 intended for novice computer users that provides simple screens of large icons to launch their commonly used application software. In 1994, they released Navigator 2, replacing the icons with a hyper skeuomorphic house metaphor, in which every screen of icons is within a prerendered 3D CGI room in a house. Packard Bell acquired the software firm responsible for Navigator, Ark Interface of Seattle, Washington, in May 1994. That same year, Packard Bell acquired Active Imagination, Inc., of Westlake Village, California, a developer of edutainment video games for children. With this acquisition, Packard Bell made the shift toward providing standalone software packages in retail outlets for the first time. Also in 1994, Packard Bell hired industrial design firm Frog Design, known for their work with Apple and NeXT, to redesign Packard Bell's personal computer line. With these redesigned cases, Packard Bell was the first company to use a color coding system for the external connectors on the rear of the computer, corresponding with the color of the shroud of the plugs on the devices that Packard Bell provided with their computers (e. g., purple for keyboards, teal for mice). This innovation was intended to make installation of peripherals easier and predated the PC System Design Guide standard for color coding connectors, introduced in 1999. Packard Bell's Chatsworth headquarters were seriously damaged in the January 1994 Northridge earthquake—the epicenter of which was located just a few blocks from their six building complex—putting a halt to operations and putting 1,500 employees temporarily out of work. Buckling racks destroyed factory equipment and inventory, The company later relocated its operations to a new headquarter complex in Sacramento, in summer 1995. Its customer service team meanwhile was relocated to an out of state office in Utah. In April 1995, Compaq launched a lawsuit against Packard Bell for not disclosing that Packard Bell computers incorporated used parts, claiming that this practice of refurbishment without disclosure allowed Packard Bell to unfairly undercut their competition. This practice was, in fact, widespread in the computer industry, including Compaq itself. However, unlike its rival companies, Packard Bell was judged not to have advertised the practice sufficiently in its warranties—Compaq, for instance, placed numerous stickers on boxes of their refurbished hardware indicating this status. Attorneys general across 12 states launched investigations into Packard Bell in June 1995; the following month, Packard Bell settled nine class action suits in three states, including California, providing reimbursement in the form of $50 worth of repairs for free in the short term, establishing a $1 million fund for monetary reimbursement in the long term, and changing its warranty policy. Packard Bell eventually paid $5 million to 22 states to settle the issue in September 1996. Packard Bell countersued Compaq in October 1995, citing "unfair competition and defamation". They settled out of court in February 1996, after Compaq themselves were facing heat from multiple states for their own refurbishment practices. In early 1996, Packard Bell acquired Zenith Data Systems from Groupe Bull of France, in a three way deal which saw Groupe Bull and Japanese electronics conglomerate NEC increasing their existing stakes in Packard Bell. Shortly after, in June 1996, NEC announced that they would acquire Packard Bell, merging it with NEC's global personal computer operations. The merger was finalized in July 1996; the resulting division became known as Packard Bell NEC, selling computer systems under both NEC and Packard Bell faceplates. it was also the third largest PC vendor in the world in terms of sales at the end of 1996. However, Compaq overtook the number one spot from Packard Bell NEC in early 1997, at which point the latter fell behind Apple in retail sales to the number three spot. Between 1997 and 1998, Packard Bell posted losses totaling more than $1 billion. In the United States, price pressure from Compaq and, later, eMachines, along with continued poor showings in consumer satisfaction surveys made it difficult for the company to remain profitable and led to Alagem's departure in 1998. In 1999, NEC began withdrawing the Packard Bell name from the American market, while keeping it in Europe, where the brand was untainted by allegations of substandard quality. By 2003, Packard Bell had offices in 24 countries—none in the United States. The deal was finalized between January and February 2008, Hui receiving $48.5 million in cash. Acer later arranged their marketing strategy so that Gateway products were sold in the Americas and Asia, while Packard Bell products were sold in Africa, Europe and the Middle East; Acer branded products meanwhile were sold worldwide.