Comment on Hundreds of Millions of Audio Devices Need a Patch to Prevent Wireless Hacking and Tracking
rollin@piefed.social 1 day agoPhillips is another one not on that list. European company that AFAIK have mostly resisted the enshittification urge.
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Haven’t Philips enshittified almost entirely outside of healthcare products? Everything else is licensing the brand.
rollin@piefed.social 1 day ago
my information might be out of date yeah! I’ve just skimmed their wikipedia which hasn’t helped clear things up! Seems they did have difficulties around 2011 - “After two decades in decline, Philips went through a major restructuring, shifting its focus from electronics to healthcare.”
Then, “On 29 January 2013, it was announced that Philips had agreed to sell its audio and video operations to the Japan-based Funai Electric for €150 million [..] Funai was to pay a regular licensing fee to Philips for the use of the Philips brand.[59] The purchase agreement was terminated by Philips in October because of breach of contract[61] and the consumer electronics operations remained under Philips”
It’s a long wiki article with a hell of a lot of transfers and acquisitions, and it’s not clear how up to date some sections are. So I’m not sure what the current situation is.
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 1 day ago
A Dutch guy mentioned it to me a few years back how far the brand has fallen, reminds me a bit of GE in the US. It’s kinda sad. The really crazy thing is a few of the investments they made and dumped have gone on to be key players in tech, like ASML.