Many of the younger sales people have not clue of what Toshiba did in 1987.
Thus, if you find yourself out priced by Toshiba, (which I hear that is happening quite often these days) then you may want to pull out the Toshiba card. Especially if you are trying to win DOD business and or maybe dealing with a military veteran.
Below is a cut n paste from an article from 1987 from the LA Times:
Toshiba Corp. of Japan, whose machine tool subsidiary provided the Soviet Union with secret submarine technology, lost a potentially lucrative bid Tuesday to sell 90,000 portable computers to the Pentagon.
The U.S. Air Force announced that it would buy its laptop computers, along with related software and services for U.S. defense agencies worldwide, from a unit of Zenith Electronics Corp. for $104.5 million.
Before the submarine technology scandal became a political issue, Toshiba was reported to be the favored bidder on the contract. The giant manufacturing company makes a popular line of laptop computers. It recently began producing the machines at its plant in Irvine, partly in response to import sanctions imposed by the Reagan Administration on some Japanese electronics products.
Senior defense officials have said the Pentagon is observing a temporary ban on new business with Toshiba as a result of the submarine controversy. But Air Force officials said Tuesday that Toshiba was allowed to bid on the contract and that its failure to win did not mean the firm was being singled out for punishment.
Now, the only way I would use this information is at a last resort, however, if you now in advance that your competition is Toshiba, and the DM is a veteran and or a DOD contractor. You just may want to ask them this, "I was curious, since you're a DOD contractor (or veteran), what do you remember about the Toshiba incident from the eighties"? Which will probably enable this response, "I don't remember, what are you referring to". Which will then lead you into the talk track of the Toshiba selling the components to the USSR.
My personal feeling, at least in the NY metro area, is that I'm seeing Toshiba dump their systems at incredible prices. Prices that I can't even touch, nor come close to.
Here's some history on Toshiba:
Early Company History:
Toshiba was formed in 1939 by the merger of Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura Engineering Works) and the Tokyo Electric Company. Shibaura was the older of the two companies and was formed by Hisashige Tanaka, known as the 'Edison of Japan.' Tanaka employed the strategy of building a technological foundation by purchasing the designs to technology developed by western powers in the late 1800's. This allowed Shibaura Engineering Works to expand rapidly and begin to develop their own technology base. The isolation from the supply of foreign materials during WWI forced Japanese companies, including Shibaura and Tokyo Electric Company, which had been established in the 1890's, to develop a degree of self-sufficiency and cooperation among the major companies to deliver products. Once the merger between Shibaura Engineering Works and the Tokyo Electric Company was complete, they changed their name to Tokyo Shibaura Electric Company, but became known as Toshiba. The name Toshiba was not officially adopted until much later, in 1978.
Here's another cool link about Toshiba:
http://www.fundinguniverse.com...corporation-history/
