Comment by ddingus

Sure the scope did change, and Tek made those moves as they should have.

There was a great argument for trading some capability to continue to build new products on now current processes, with the same rapid feedback loop in place.

That should have happened rather than the very aggressive tear down and brain drain we actually saw.

The key point being ongoing and regular investment in the company and people would have yielded more and better products that would compete just fine, not just be the cheapest.

That organization would be smaller, but still potent and a lot more nimble, able to continue supporting technical engineering across many fields.

And as I have mentioned up thread, couple that with returns from smart spin-off investments and an ongoing innovation culture rather than just a cost cutting one and we would have seen more than we did.

I would also argue the big push to apply software was sexy, and took the air right out of hardware efforts. Lack of investment there was not about the lack of returns, and it still is not about that. They are just a different kind and over a longer time.

Ignoring those has bled the region of a lot of capability. It is much harder to make things and here we are trying to understand how the next generation makes it on hair, laundry and food.

Making things is important. And it is not the cheapest way of course. Having a large percentage of people unable to build lives is and will continue to be very expensive. Crime, need for government services and more abound.

Early on, the promise of new tech and automation was a reduced need to work as much and or at the least maintaining respectable standards of living.

Put simply, it was supposed to cost less to live and for the most part these things did not happen.

Something needs to.