Posted on 12/09/2009 7:34:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
NO SPACE FOR COMPLETE EXPLANATION, CAN ONLY POST EXCERPTS. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE BY CLICKING ABOVE LINK :
Potentially fatal flaws come in many forms. But three crop up the most when you talk to experts: excessive debt, superior competitors and the inability to keep up with technological change.
1. Palm
With the Treo, Palm (PALM, news, msgs) was an early pioneer of the move to smart phones. So it doesn't seem right that stronger competitors such as Apple (AAPL, news, msgs) and Research In Motion (RIMM, news, msgs) are now going to crush it. But that seems to be Palm's fate.
2. Sears
Sears remains one of the great mysteries in retail: It's not clear why it still exists. Yes, we know consumers love Craftsman tools, DieHard batteries and Kenmore appliances. But there's a fuddy-duddy aspect to its stores that makes it a wonder Sears has survived the current decade.
3. Blockbuster
Video rental icon Blockbuster is a great example of how technological change can crush winners that fail to keep up.
4. Eastman Kodak
The company that brought us Kodachrome spent most of its life as a near monopoly. Back in the good old days, it only had to face down Fujifilm.
5. Borders
Like Blockbuster, Borders (BGP, news, msgs) is getting hit by technological changes that leave it dazed and confused.
6. Magellan
Once a novelty, GPS -- the technology that plots your location via satellite -- is now ubiquitous. Besides dashboard GPS devices in cars, consumers can now get GPS access in smart phones and even cameras.
7. McClatchy
Technology has been particularly hard on the news business, as content has moved online but advertising dollars have been slow to follow. For smaller, undiversified newspaper companies burdened with huge debt loads, time is running out.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.moneycentral.msn.com ...
Kodak seems to have figured out the mistake the railroads made.
Kodak, who discontinued kodachrome, has moved into the “picture business” and not the “film for camera” business.
It remains to be seen if this will work.
Blockbuster is a ripoff. Haven’t used them in over 20 years. Last time I did use them, I had asked the brother in law of my then roommate/bf to drop it off on his way to work. He said he did. Blockbuster said it was not returned. Next thing I knew, they had turned it over to a collection agency and charged me about $160 for the tape. I was in a quandry since I couldn’t prove that it was returned. While on the phone with the manager of that Blockbuster, somebody else at Blockbuster called and said they’d found the tape in the ‘damaged’ bin. I told the manager to remove my name from their computer and consider me and anyone I knew as a ‘lost customer’.
Some of the companies that will fail deserve to fail.
“There’s room for one legacy fuddy duddy in retail. By the way, if people “love” Craftsman and Kenmore, and you can only get them from Sears and partner K-Mart, isn’t that enough reason to exist?
Fuddy duddy might not be bad with an aging population.”
Except you don’t need the “Sears” store to get Kenmore and Craftsman now. Since Sears picked up Orchard Supply Hardware, they carry those items, also. I think the smaller places like OSH are what is keeping the Sears holding co. alive. They could probably eventually shut down their large stores and survive it. If they went back to their original mail-order model, updated for the Internet, they could prosper. Their stores are somewhat old and outdated, and not kept up well, which looks bad for them. A lot of the Sears retail stores are also in not-so-great neighborhoods now, too.
Sears will probably make it. Not in their current form, perhaps, but they survived the Great Depression.
Kodak? looks bad for them, might just get picked up by someone else, eventually.
Palm? Dead. Murdered by the iPhone/iPod touch. That’s the way of high-tech, someone comes along with something a LOT better, and you’re toast unless you can beat them.
Borders.. kind of a shame to see them go, I like hanging out at their stores. The whole business model for the book/magazine/media sales business is undergoing a shakeout right now. B&N has them beat in some ways, but their future is questionable,also.
Blockbuster? Dead by Netflix.
McClatchy...I really really hope they die die die die die. They suck mighty. The death of this band of statists couldnt come soon enough for me. The Bee, the Anchorage Daily News, etc. have been in a death spiral for a while.
I will not only dance on their grave, but it might even get a nice dousing.
Netflix does things right. I get a two-day turnaround, then I get a "When did you receive this?" followup. I get a "We received this and are sending the next-in-queue today. You should get it by xxx". If the next-in-queue is out locally, they send it fron across the country, and while you're waiting they'll send your next available choice. It goes on and on. I dread the day some Corporation buys them out and goes Bottom-Line Happy.
I know, and actually I meant Lowrance, not Loran (my bad). I was looking at these companies from a general consumer perspective, not any specialized or technical field. In the general consumer field, neither of those companies has the name recognition that Garmin and Magellan do, and therefore they wouldn’t be as likely to survive (in that market). In their niche market, I have no doubt they would continue on with no problems.
Oh this is not so good ... we will have a whole bunch of geocachers wandering around in the woods bumping into each other! ;)
...around by Wal-Mart just to keep the anti-trust Feds off their back.
In a month or so, we will know if we can add all the private health care companies. The little ones without enough diversification into other non-health insurance concerns will go the first. Maybe a company like Assurant health. Then the big boys, Wellpoint, UHC, Aetna, Humana etc.
I don’t know about Lowrance’s ground units but thier marine stuff is quite impressive. The new HD sonar w/ side scan is sweet, and you can link in a radar dome, onboard fuel / engine diagnostics, it even picks up XM/Sirius sat. radio too. Probably a little more than your typical ground based Geo-cacher would use. If I had a bigger boat I’d look at Furuno products too.
Then we’ll navigate using cell towers. Of course, if you’re in a rural area, it’s better to have a good map, or a pleasing smile to request the help of locals.
Yeah, I expected the entire list to be newspapers. I see one newspaper group made the list, but why not the NY Times on the list?
If things keep going the way they are and there is no opposition to our socialist road capitalism will be long dead by 2020.. No companies will exist by then..
That is the Loran model. Works until you go more than 10 miles off shore, IIRC. Loran is best for litoral ops. Inertial gyros were what we used on the Prowler, years back before adopting a better 3-ring gyro system and eventually GPS because the inertial system always crapped itself when launched from a cat.
We could start installing cell towers on floating platforms...
Of course, if you’re in a rural area, it’s better to have a good map, or a pleasing smile to request the help of locals.
Best method on the planet! Especially if they have jars of sweet tea brewing on the porch.
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