Why did heath die?

[Barry A. Watzman]

What caused Heath to die ?

As someone who was there during the critical period (although not at the end), I could write a book.  But you are only going to read a few summary paragraphs.

In my opinion, Zenith was a major, but not the only, culprit (and in particular some specific individuals who I will not name).  Zenith bought Heath only the computer business and did not care about the non-computer kit business.  But major mistakes were made in the computer business as well, and both Heath and ZDS suffered.  Heath should have become Dell or Gateway.  It goes without saying that it didn't.  Everything was there except the vision, knowledge, direction and foresight at the top.  Plus some stereotypes about marketing that Dell and Gateway proved were wrong.

Two other major factors [impacting Heath, but not the computer business] were changes in the electronics business and changes in society.

The simple fact is that you can't make state of the art electronics using equipment available to hobbyists.  State of the art products requires surface mount soldering and chip packages that can only be soldered by VERY high tech equipment.  This kind of kills the non-computer business that Heath was in, for the most part.  Sure, you can make LED flashers, radar jammers and similar kits like we see in plastic bags at hamfests, but you can't make high-end state of the art TV's, audio equipment or test equipment that competes with factory built equipment this way.  The necessary assembly tools just are not available to the customer base.

Another factor is that the type of hobbyist who event wants to assemble a product, or to learn about how things work vs. how to work them is dwindling.  This is a bigger problem than Heath, but it impacted Heath over a period of more than a decade.

The comment was made that "I know that there are apparently successful kit companies that are selling all sorts of kits
as we speak".  This is not really true.  Yes, as mentioned, there are fairly trivial kits.  But try to find a 100 MHz dual trace scope, or a high-end AV receiver with Dolby Pro Logic or AC-3, or even a high-end ham rig.  They don't exist.  Other factors, besides those cited, include the cost of creating manuals, and the cost of customer service [which is a hundred-fold greater with a kit than with the exact same product factory assembled].

Put these all together and you have Death.

So that's my book in a few paragraphs.

Barry Watzman

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From:  Don [SMTP:bjmcpher at USIT.NET]
Sent:  Tuesday, April 20, 1999 5:24 PM
To:  HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV
Subject:  Why did heath die?

I am wondering what actually caused heath to die. I have only seen some
broad brush references on the reflector, and not really any details of
the downfall and demise of the company. I know there are people on the
list that worked at the firm during its death. I know that there are
apparently succesfull kit companies that are selling all sorts of kits
as we speak. How did heath come to its death, and how did it manage to
hang on to the educational line of products? Who were the main players
in the company now and then , and, just what happened, and why?

Don

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