Philips

Koninklijke Philips N.V. (literally Royal Philips, commonly shortened to Philips, stylized in its logo as PHILIPS) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is still in Eindhoven. Philips was formerly one of the largest electronics companies in the world, currently focused in the area of health technology, with other divisions being divested.

It was founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik, with their first products being light bulbs. It currently employs around 74,000 people across 100 countries. The company gained its royal honorary title in 1998 and dropped the "Electronics" in its name in 2013, due to its refocusing from consumer electronics to healthcare technology.

Philips is organized into three main divisions: Personal Health (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Connected Care, and Diagnosis & Treatment (formerly Philips Medical Systems).^[5] The lighting division was spun off as a separate company, Signify N.V. (formerly Philips Lighting prior to 2018). The company started making electric shavers in 1939 under the Philishave brand, and post-war they developed the Compact Cassette format and co-developed the Compact Disc format with Sony, as well as numerous other technologies. As of 2012, Philips was the largest manufacturer of lighting in the world as measured by applicable revenues.

Philips has a primary listing on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange and is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Acquisitions include that of Signetics and Magnavox. They also have had a sports club since 1913 called PSV Eindhoven.

Philips Logo

History

Gerard Philips

The Philips Company was founded in 1891, by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik Philips. Frederik, a banker based in Zaltbommel, financed the purchase and setup of an empty factory building in Eindhoven, where the company started the production of carbon-filament lamps and other electro-technical products in 1892. This first factory has since been adapted and is used as a museum.

In 1895, after a difficult first few years and near bankruptcy, the Philipses brought in Anton, Gerard's younger brother by sixteen years. Though he had earned a degree in engineering, Anton started work as a sales representative; soon, however, he began to contribute many important business ideas. With Anton's arrival, the family business began to expand rapidly, resulting in the founding of Philips Metaalgloeilampfabriek N.V. (Philips Metal Filament Lamp Factory Ltd.) in Eindhoven in 1908, followed in 1912, by the foundation of Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken N.V. (Philips Lightbulb Factories Ltd.). After Gerard and Anton Philips changed their family business by founding the Philips corporation, they laid the foundations for the later electronics multinational.

In the 1920s, the company started to manufacture other products, such as vacuum tubes. In 1939, they introduced their electric razor, the Philishave (marketed in the US using the Norelco brand name). The "Chapel" is a radio with built-in loudspeaker, which was designed during the early 1930s.

Stirling Engine

Philips was instrumental in the revival of the Stirling engine when, in the early 1930s, the management decided that offering a low-power portable generator would assist in expanding sales of its radios into parts of the world where mains electricity was unavailable and the supply of batteries uncertain. Engineers at the company's research lab carried out a systematic comparison of various power sources and determined that the almost forgotten Stirling engine would be most suitable, citing its quiet operation (both audibly and in terms of radio interference) and ability to run on a variety of heat sources (common lamp oil – "cheap and available everywhere" – was favored).^[8] They were also aware that, unlike steam and internal combustion engines, virtually no serious development work had been carried out on the Stirling engine for many years and asserted that modern materials and know-how should enable great improvements.

Encouraged by their first experimental engine, which produced 16 W of shaft power from a bore and stroke of 30 mm × 25 mm, various development models were produced in a program which continued throughout World War II. By the late 1940s, the 'Type 10' was ready to be handed over to Philips's subsidiary Johan de Witt in Dordrecht to be produced and incorporated into a generator set as originally planned. The result, rated at 180/200 W electrical output from a bore and stroke of 55 mm × 27 mm, was designated MP1002CA (known as the "Bungalow set"). Production of an initial batch of 250 began in 1951, but it became clear that they could not be made at a competitive price, besides with the advent of transistor radios with their much lower power requirements meant that the original rationale for the set was disappearing. Approximately 150 of these sets were eventually produced.

Stirling Engine

In parallel with the generator set, Philips developed experimental Stirling engines for a wide variety of applications and continued to work in the field until the late 1970s, though the only commercial success was the 'reversed Stirling engine' cryocooler. However, they filed a large number of patents and amassed a wealth of information, which they later licensed to other companies.

Shavers

The first Philips shaver was introduced in the 1930s, and was simply called Philishave. In the US, it was called Norelco. The Philishave has remained part of the Philips product line-up until the present.

1986 Philishave Tracer

1958 Philips philishave SC7910

World War II

On 9 May 1940, the Philips directors learned that the German invasion of the Netherlands was to take place the following day. Having prepared for this, Anton Philips and his son in law Frans Otten, as well as other Philips family members, fled to the United States, taking a large amount of the company capital with them. Operating from the US as the North American Philips Company, they managed to run the company throughout the war. At the same time, the company was moved (on paper) to the Netherlands Antilles to keep it out of German hands.

On 6 December 1942, the British No. 2 Group RAF undertook Operation Oyster, which heavily damaged the Philips Radio factory in Eindhoven with few casualties among the Dutch workers and civilians. The Philips works in Eindhoven was bombed again by the RAF on 30 March 1943.

Frits Philips, the son of Anton, was the only Philips family member to stay in the Netherlands. He saved the lives of 382 Jews by convincing the Nazis that they were indispensable for the production process at Philips. In 1943, he was held at the internment camp for political prisoners at Vught for several months because a strike at his factory reduced production. For his actions in saving the hundreds of Jews, he was recognized by Yad Vashem in 1995 as a "Righteous Among the Nations".

1944 - 1999

After the war, the company was moved back to the Netherlands, with their headquarters in Eindhoven.

In 1949, the company began selling television sets. In 1950, it formed Philips Records, which eventually formed part of PolyGram in 1962.

Philips introduced the audio Compact Audio Cassette tape in 1963, and it was wildly successful. Compact cassettes were initially used for dictation machines for office typing stenographers and professional journalists. As their sound quality improved, cassettes would also be used to record sound and became the second mass media alongside vinyl records used to sell recorded music.

Philips introduced the first combination portable radio and cassette recorder, which was marketed as the "radiorecorder", and is now better known as the boom-box. Later, the cassette was used in telephone answering machines, including a special form of cassette where the tape was wound on an endless loop. The C-cassette was used as the first mass storage device for early personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s. Philips reduced the cassette size for professional needs with the Mini-Cassette, although it would not be as successful as the Olympus Microcassette. This became the predominant dictation medium up to the advent of fully digital dictation machines.Philips continued with computers through the early 1990s.

Philips Record

1979 Philips Introduces the Compact Disc

In 1972, Philips launched the world's first home video cassette recorder, in the UK, the N1500. Its relatively bulky video cassettes could record 30 minutes or 45 minutes. Later one-hour tapes were also offered. As competition came from Sony's Betamax and the VHS group of manufacturers, Philips introduced the N1700 system which allowed double-length recording. For the first time, a 2-hour movie could fit onto one video cassette. In 1977, the company unveiled a special promotional film for this system in the UK, featuring comedy writer and presenter Denis Norden. The concept was quickly copied by the Japanese makers, whose tapes were significantly cheaper. Philips made one last attempt at a new standard for video recorders with the Video 2000 system, with tapes that could be used on both sides and had 8 hours of total recording time. As Philips only sold its systems on the PAL standard and in Europe, and the Japanese makers sold globally, the scale advantages of the Japanese proved insurmountable and Philips withdrew the V2000 system and joined the VHS Coalition.

Philips had developed a LaserDisc early on for selling movies, but delayed its commercial launch for fear of cannibalizing its video recorder sales. Later Philips joined with MCA to launch the first commercial LaserDisc standard and players. In 1982, Philips teamed with Sony to launch the Compact Disc; this format evolved into the CD-R, CD-RW, DVD and later Blu-ray, which Philips launched with Sony in 1997 and 2006 respectively.

In 1984, the Dutch Philips Group bought out nearly a one-third share and took over the management of German company Grundig.

In 1984, Philips split off its activities on the field of photolithographic integrated circuit production equipment, the so-called wafer steppers, into a joint venture with ASM international, located in Veldhoven under the name ASML. Over the years, this new company has evolved into the world's leading manufacturer of chip production machines at the expense of competitors like Nikon and Canon.

Philips partnered with Sony again later to develop a new "interactive" disc format called CD-i, described by them as a "new way of interacting with a television set". Philips created the majority of CD-i compatible players. After low sales, Philips repositioned the format as a video game console, but it was soon discontinued after being heavily criticized amongst the gaming community.

In the 1980s, Philips's profit margin dropped below 1 percent, and in 1990 the company lost more than US$2 billion (biggest corporate loss in Dutch history). Troubles for the company continued into the 1990s as its status as a leading electronics company was swiftly lost.

In 1991, the company's name was changed from N.V. Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken to Philips Electronics N.V. At the same time, North American Philips was formally dissolved, and a new corporate division was formed in the US with the name Philips Electronics North America Corp.

In 1997, the company officers decided to move the headquarters from Eindhoven to Amsterdam along with the corporate name change to Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., the latter of which was finalized on 16 March 1998.

The very first Walkman, Philips EL-3302 cassette recorder / player

In 1998, looking to spur innovation, Philips created an Emerging Businesses group for its Semiconductors unit, based in Silicon Valley. The group was designed to be an incubator where promising technologies and products could be developed.

Referenced website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philips