[Collins] WAS KWM-2 THEN black beauty NOW Management Style of Companies

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer]

Sometimes Collins did let innovators produce products. He trashed more
though. The 30L1 is one product he didn't know about until there was a
working prototype. When I was in Cedar Rapids, there were several
drawings and schematics of the radios to follow the S-line but Art
preferred something made of solid silver and gold to make it exclusive
and wanted it remote controlled over a serial cable.

The HP/Harrison supplies did perform well, but were excessively complex
so that when they failed they were extremely difficult to fix. They were
essentially a power op amp made of discrete parts and the closed loop
with all that gain made it very difficult to trace faults.

Making profitable products requires innovators to create them, and
marketers to sell them, and those marketers often serve to identify
market voids to inspire the innovators. Really great innovators have far
more new ideas per day than a company can do products in a year.

Or to put it another way, the innovators' greatest widget is not of much
value if too few will or can afford to buy it.

73, Jerry, K0CQ
-- 
Entire content copyright Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer.
Reproduction by permission only.