Philips History

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Philips Electronics Inc.), most commonly known as Philips, (Euronext: PHIA, NYSE: PHG) is a multinational Dutch electronics corporation.

Philips is one of the largest electronics companies in the world. In 2010, its sales were €25.42 billion. The company employs 119,000 people in more than 60 countries.^[1]

Philips is organized in a number of sectors: Philips Consumer Lifestyle (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Philips Lighting and Philips Healthcare (formerly Philips Medical Systems).

The company was founded in 1891 by Anton and Gerard Philips, a maternal cousin of Karl Marx, in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Its first products were carbon-filament lamps and other electro-technical equipment. Its first factory survives as a Museum devoted to light sculpture.^[2] In the 1920s, the company started to manufacture other products, such as vacuum tubes (also known worldwide as 'valves'). In 1939 they introduced their electric razor, the Philishave (marketed in the USA using the Norelco brand name).

Philips was also instrumental in the revival of the Stirling engine.

Philips Radio

On 11 March 1927 Philips went on the air with shortwave radio station PCJJ (later PCJ)which was joined in 1929 by sister station PHI. PHI broadcast in Dutch to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) while PCJJ broadcast in English, Spanish and German to the rest of the world.

The international program on Sundays commenced in 1928 with host Eddie Startz hosting the Happy Station show which became the world's longest running shortwave program.

Broadcasts from the Netherlands were interrupted by the German invasion in May 1940. The transmitters in Huizen were commandeered by the Germans and used for pro-Nazi broadcasts, some originating from Germany, others concerts from Dutch broadcasters under German control.

Philips Radio did not resume after Liberation. Instead the two shortwave stations were nationalised and became Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the Dutch International Service in 1946 though PCJ programs such as Happy Station continued on the new station.

World War II

On 9 May 1940, the Philips directors were informed about the German invasion of the Netherlands to take place the following day. They decided to leave the country and flee 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 itself was moved to the Netherlands Antilles (just on paper) to keep it out of American hands.

It is also believed that Philips—both before and during the war—supplied enormous amounts of electric equipment to the German occupation forces, which has led some people to think that the company collaborated with the Nazis, like many other firms in their day. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Philips itself or its management ever sympathized with the Nazis or their ideologies. The only Philips family member who did not leave the country, Frits Philips, saved the lives of 382 Jews by indicating to the Nazis that they were indispensable for the production process at Philips,^[3] for which he was awarded recognition as a "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem in 1995.^[4] There is little Philips could have done to prevent the Germans from abusing their production facilities and forcing their employees to perform slave labour during the occupation. The production facility in Eindhoven was the only Dutch industrial target that was deliberately bombed by the allied forces during the war.^{[citation needed]}

 Postwar era

After the war the company was moved back to the Netherlands, with their headquarters in Eindhoven. Many secret research facilities had been locked and successfully hidden from the invaders, which allowed the company to get up to speed again quickly after the war.^{[citation needed]}

In 1950, Philips formed Philips Records.

Philips introduced the audio Compact Audio Cassette tape in 1963 and 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 to sell recorded music alongside vinyl records. Philips introduced the first combination portable radio and cassette recorder which is marketed as the "radiorecorder" and which 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 found itself also as the first mass storage device for early personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s. Philips would also reduce the cassette size for the professional needs with the Mini Cassette, although it would not be as successful as the Olympus microcassette which was the predominant dictation media up to the advent of fully digital dictation machines.

In 1972 Philips launched the world's first home video cassette recorder, in England, the N1500 with bulky video cassettes that 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 and for the first time would fit a 2 hour movie onto one video cassette; in 1977, the company unveiled a special promotional film for this system in the UK featuring comedic personality Denis Norden.^[5] This idea was soon 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 thus 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 early developments of a laser disk for selling movies but delayed its commercial launch for fear of cannibalizing its video recorder sales. Later Philips would join with MCA to launch the first commercial laser disk standard and players. In 1982, Philips would team with Sony to launch Compact Disc and optical telecommunication systems. These formats evolved to the present day DVD and Blu-Ray, which Philips launched with Sony in 1997 and 2006 respectively.

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 U.S. with the name Philips Electronics North America Corp.

In 1997 the decision was made to move the headquarters from Eindhoven to Amsterdam along with the corporate name change to Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. The move was completed in 2001. Initially, the company was housed in the Rembrandt Tower, but in 2002 they moved again, this time to the Breitner Tower. In a sense, the move to Amsterdam can be considered a return to the company's roots, because Gerard Philips lived in Amsterdam when he came up with the idea of building a light bulb factory. He also conducted his first experiments in the field of mass production of light bulbs there, together with Jan Reesse. Philips Lighting, Philips Research, Philips Semiconductors (spun off as NXP in September 2006) and Philips Design, are still based in Eindhoven. Philips Healthcare is headquartered in both Best, Netherlands (just outside Eindhoven) and Andover, Massachusetts, United States (near Boston).

The Philips physical labaratory has scaled down and as of 2010 the company does not try to be innovative anymore in consumer electronics through fundamental research.^[6]