Not what they seem

When small companies turn into a corporation, they often unite many directions at once. Therefore, it often happens that the company has become famous for only products and services, but has long been engaged in others. Everyone thinks that Philips makes ironing, and IBM is computers, but it wasn’t there.

Philips - TVs or medical equipment?

The International company Royal Philips Electronics is known in Russia mainly as a manufacturer of household appliances. Everyone knows the irons of this brand or televisions with Ambilight lighting, changing color depending on the image on the screen. Philips - the owner of about 60,000 patents for inventions in the field of household electronics. For example, Philips released the first electric shoes, and on the wave of scientific and technological progress of the 40s, the company's research department invented rotating heads that led to the emergence of the Philishave electric brow. Even a compact audio cassette is the invention of Philips. At the same time, household electronics are not the main thing what the company does.

Two other areas of Philips - the release of medical equipment and lighting, and the results of this activity are no less impressive. Already 115 years ago, the company entered into a contract with the imperial court for lighting the Winter Palace using 50,000 coal lamps. Today, Philips lighting up the Eiffel Tower, the London Eye Ferris Wheel, the Reichstag, or, for example, media facades on the New Arbat. As for the medical direction, Philips is one of the leaders in this market and produces equipment for the diagnosis of cancer and heart disease, which are in many Russian hospitals.

CAT - tractors or boots?

Everyone knows what the indispensable American Cat boots look like. But few people know that Caterpillar producing them is actually a world leader in the production of construction and mining equipment, diesel engines and industrial gas turbines. Founded in 1925, the company rapidly grew, selling tractors and equipment for mines in more than 150 countries of the world, including tsarist Russia and later the Soviet Union. Half a century later, a caterpillar empire, uniting hundreds of thousands of workers on all continents, began the release of working shoes. So the Caterpillar Footwear Co. brand was born.

Heavy boots with a powerful sole with protective steel noses outwardly resembled their caterpillar parents. The evolution of the Cat brand began in 1994, when Caterpillar Footwear became part of the Wolverine World Wide Corporation, which is engaged in the production of tourist, sports and everyday shoes. High demand for the long -term boots of Cat born at the construction site secured the image of the company as a manufacturer of shoes.

Virgin - sound recording or space tourism?

When the founder of Virgin - the most informal conglomerate of companies in the world - Richard Branson graduated from school at school, the director advised him: “Congratulations, Richard! I think that either you will go to jail, or become a millionaire. ” Today, the Virgin multibrand, which once began with the mailing of music records by mail and became known thanks to the success of the recording studio, unites many subsidiaries under one roof.

This is not only a network of music stores and a recording studio, as many people think, but also fitness centers, airlines, publishing house, clothing for newlyweds, drinking, computer games, financial services, radio station, high-speed trains and many other products and services. To the question "Are there any limits of expansion of the Virgin brand?" Branson replies that until the brand integrity is at risk, he stretches to infinity. Today, the thoughts of the shocking billionaire and, accordingly, the fixed assets of Virgin are aimed at building a new company, Virgin Galactic, which will soon send tourists into space for a moderate fee.

IBM - computers or consulting?

IBM does not make money at all on the sale of computers, as we used to think, but on consulting. The name of IMB is deciphered as International Business Machines. Throughout the century, the Blue Giant has been engaged in the production of counting machines, computers and software. One after another, IBM inventions surprised and conquered the world. Starting from the first American Mark I computer, the size of the room, and ending with the Fortran programming language and the hard drive. Five Nobel laureates in physics received their bonuses for openings made in the walls of IBM. However, in the nineties, the first-handral company in the computers market began to lose its position.

The fall in sales of the main profitable product and failure in the network of network technologies caused the largest corporate loss in the history of the United States. In 1992, IBM lost $ 8.1 billion. To correct the company's affairs, IMB President Luis Gestner decided to focus on providing consulting services and developing software. In 2002, IBM acquired the consulting company PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and at the same time sold its Hitachi hard drive unit.

Canon - cameras or office equipment?

Do you think Canon are cameras and video cameras? Yes, but only 20.4% of the total sales. The company receives the main profit (67.3%) from the sale of printers, copying devices and computer periphery. The history of Canon began in 1933, when a couple of young Tokyo engineers, the city of Joshid and Saburo Uchida, began to create a camera, not inferior to the best world samples. To do this, the engineers dismantled the German models, which at that time in the Japanese market, carefully studied and improved them. So the pride of Japanese photographic equipment was born - a camera named after the Buddhist goddess of mercy Kwanon, later renamed the more concise Canon.

Thirty years later, struggling with competitors, the company's management decided to create a new product that would simultaneously produce equipment for transmitting images and material for this transmission, that is, a copy apparatus. Thus, Canon copiers appeared, created by the Xerox patents based on the original electrographic system, working on ordinary paper instead of a photo film.

Yamaha - motorcycles or royula?

Yamaha produces first-class musical instruments: keyboards, shock, ovens, guitars, synthesizers, tone generators and samplers, so beloved by connoisseurs of classical and electronic music. But it earns much more in the production of racing and sports motorcycles. How did it happen? The corporation, which was originally called Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd., was founded in Japan in 1887 and began its activities with the production of the reeds. The organs were followed by piano, labial harmonics and other tools. And in 1921, the Japanese government decided to use experience in woodworking, which was famous for Yamaha, to create aviation propeller.

A decade later, the company was redesigned to the production of metal propeller, and the developed metal processing technology has used scope for piano and production of wind instruments to cast. The same technology later allowed to launch the first Yamaha Ya-1 motorcycle. Motorocycles and Motorollers of the Yamaha are not inferior as drum installations and other brand products of the same name. Today, Yamaha Corporation has more than a hundred subsidiaries and representative offices around the world.