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EARLY TRANSISTOR HISTORY AT MOTOROLA “FLUB-A-DUB” by Ralph Greenburg |
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When I was finished, the Chief Engineer arose and thanked us for all of the information we had given to himself and his staff. Then he said there was one small problem. Their washing machines didn’t use an agitator but rather a paddle connected to an offset shaft that flipped the clothing from side to side as it rotated. He said, “ We call it the “Wobulator”.
Well you can imagine the Post Mortem regarding that meeting! Salesmen were yelled at for not knowing the attributes of the customer’s products; Market Development people were accused of not doing in depth research, and you, Ralph Greenburg “How come you didn’t know. Aren’t Application Engineers supposed to know every thing?” There was enough egg to smear on all of our faces.
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Of course we did not give up and we worked with several manufactures that hadn’t yet discovered the wonders of the “Wobulator”. However they felt that the only selling point to the consumer regarding the “Flub-a-Dub” was the fact that there was no belt to wear out. And they also considered that consumers buy on price and/or operational features but not something buried in the innards of the machine, so the industry passed up on solid state at that time.
Oh, one other thing, Tom Connors was present at that meeting in his position as Marketing Director. After Tom left Motorola I never saw him for over twenty years. I was pleasantly surprised a couple of years ago when Tom showed up at a ROMEO (Retired Old Men Eating Out) luncheon. When he saw me the first words out his mouth were “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Flub-a-Dub”. He then smiled and said that he often used the “Flub-a-Dub” fiasco as a lesson in how not to do Market Research.
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A Transistor Museum™ History of Transistors Publication COPYRIGHT © 2008 by Jack Ward. All Rights Reserved. http://www.transistormuseum.com/ PAGE 4 |