Three Tech Companies That Started Something Great (And Then Went Bankrupt)

TECH COMPANIES THAT STARTED SOMETHING GREAT > (And Then Went Bankrupt) < WANG LABORATORIES, NAPSTER AND 3DFX MAY SOUND FAMILIAR. Or you may never have heard of them. Each company changed the way we use computers. But not all fairy tales have happy endings-each fell victim to bankruptcy in the end. + 366236.32 WANG LABORATORIES STARTED IN 1951 by Chinese immigrant An Wang, Wang Laboratories began as a calculator business, 1 THEY WENT PUBLIC IN 1967 at $12.50 a share. The first day of trading closed with Wang Laboratories at $40.50 a share. (21 THE COMPANY LED THE CHARGE IN OFFICE WORD PROCESSING, debuting the 3300 computer in March of 1971. 31 TO EXPAND THE COMPANY, Wang took out millions in loans, as many other businessmen did in the 1970s and '80s. 121 THE 3300 could support 2-16 users and had a 4K memory drive. WANG LABORATORIES X) FAILED AFTER YEARS OF JOB CUTS to keep up in an ever-growing, ever-changing industry. AND PROFIT LOSSES, company revenue hit $3 billion in 1988. 21 AN WANG FIRED HIS SON AS PRESIDENT and named Richard Miller to lead the company in restructuring after a $424 million loss. [2) WANG LABORATORIES TEAMED UP WITH IBM, one of their largest competitors, in 1991. The company lost $386 million in the partnership. 121 ON AUG. 18, 1992, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They announced $550 million in debt. MODERN APPLE WORD PROCESSING HP IBM MICROSOFT > NAPSTER < THEN-COLLEGE STUDENT Shawn Fanning was struck by inspiration in HE FEVERISHLY CODED the first-ever music file-sharing program, Napster, despite everyone he mentioned it to saying it would never catch on, (41 mid-1999. NAPSTER REENGINEERED how people share files (specifically music) IN LESS THAN A YEAR of operation, Napster exceeded online. 25 million users. USERSHIP surpassed 70 million in 2001. (51 WHAT HAD ONCE BEEN a minor irritation to the music and movie industry became a huge problem. BY JULY OF 200, Napster was shut down by an injunction filed by the Recording Industry Association of America. METALLICA AND DR.DRE both filed copyright infringement lawsuits in early 2000, 15) THE NINTH U.S. COURT OF APPEALS stayed that injunction. NAPSTER PARTNERED UP with Bertelsmann AG IN 2001, the Appeals court ordered a stop of sharing, but allowed Napster to remain in business. to develop a payment system for artists. LAYOFFS ENSUED. ON JUNE 3, 2002, Napster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. BERTELSMANN AG Their assets amounted to $7.9 million in cash and $101 million in liabilities. bought the company for $8 million and forgave Napster's $91 million debt. KAZAA ANY P2P FILE SHARING SITE MORPHEUS LIMEWIRE BEARSHARE GNUTELLA 3DFX INTERACTIVE < STARTED IN 1994, 3dfx pioneered the industry in graphic chip developments. l6] THEIR GRAPHICS CHIPS -Voodoo especially-became the darling of gamers everywhere and the new industry standard. 7) THE CHIPS were the first generation of | modern-day graphics, accelerating game speeds and rendering. AS ONE MIT HARDWARE (ee REVIEWER PUT IT, DELAYED PRODUCTS *Blood has never looked and lackluster reviews crippled this good." sales, prompting layoffs. [®l IN LATE 2000, rival Nvidia bought out the patents, brand names, and graphics chip inventories for $70 million and 1 million shares of common stock or a combination of up to $25 million in cash and fewer sharesl®) 3DFX FILED FOR CHAPTER 11 in October of 2002. [6] MODERN COMPUTER 3D RENDERING OF GRAPHICS AS COMPLEX MODELS WE KNOW THEM. ADVANCED DETAILED IN REAL TIME. SHADING. LIGHTING EFFECTS. REALISTIC TEXTURE RENDERING. SOURCES< [1] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920823&slug=1508984 [2] http://articles.latimes.com/1992-08-19/business/fi-5728_1_wang-laboratories [3] http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/d-wangcustom.html [4] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/09171,998068-1,00.html [5] http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Napster-files-for-bankruptcy-2813933.php [6] http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp? privcapld=24110 [7] http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N49/threedfx.49a.html [8] http://news.cnet.com/2110-1040-256103.html Ttotal bankruptcy