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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting
QCOM 166.63+2.0%1:34 PM EST
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To: engineer who wrote (44992)3/10/2005 3:29:49 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer  Read Replies (1) of 196742
 
Regarding succession, I would add that Xerox is a good example of what happens when a finance type replaces an engineer. When Xerox was just starting its copier business, it was headed by a very capable engineer, and the whole company was oriented to solving the engineering problems in office copiers.

As the company grew, the engineering orientation of the old guard was replaced by finance types with fancy business school degrees. They believed that Xerox should pay more attention to financing its copier sales and leases and directed a great deal of their energies to areas such as insurance, which they believed would generate the cash flow necessary for the copier business. They even changed their head office location from Rochester, NY to Connecticut, in order to be closer to financial centers. It turned out to be a disastrous move because in the process, Xerox lost its technology edge, and worse, it took several years for Xerox to come up with anything as good as Canon and others in smaller desktop or home office machines.

Lately Xerox has again emphasized engineering, but most of its efforts go into the high end machines, some of which are designed to replace traditional offset printing. They are doing better, but they still have a long way to go.

I'm happy that QUALCOMM chooses to emphasize its technology research and development--a strategy that hopefully will keep companies like Texas Instruments continually playing catch up.

Art
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