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Tektronix
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Tektronix, Inc. is a North American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. As of November 2007, Tektronix is a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation.
Several charities are or were associated with Tektronix, including the Tektronix Foundation and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington.
The company was honored at the 2008 Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for development of monitoring systems for ATSC & DVB transport streams.
company traces its roots to the electronics revolution that immediately followed World War II.
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Encyclopedia
Tektronix, Inc. is a North American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. As of November 2007, Tektronix is a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation.
Several charities are or were associated with Tektronix, including the Tektronix Foundation and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington.
The company was honored at the 2008 Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for development of monitoring systems for ATSC & DVB transport streams.
History
The company traces its roots to the electronics revolution that immediately followed World War II. The company’s founders C. Howard Vollum and Melvin J. "Jack" Murdock invented the world’s first triggered oscilloscope in 1946, a significant technological breakthrough. Tektronix was incorporated in 1946 with its headquarters at SE Foster Road and SE 59th Street in Portland, Oregon. In 1947 there were 12 employees, and 250 in 1951. By 1950 the company began building a manufacturing facility in Washington County, Oregon at Barnes Road and the Sunset Highway and expanded the facility by 1956 to . The company then moved its headquarters to this site following an employee vote.
In 1956 a large piece of property in nearby Beaverton became available with the closing of the Bernard Airport, and the company’s employee retirement trust purchased the land and leased it back to the company. Construction began in 1957 and on May 1,1959 Tektronix moved into its new Beaverton headquarters campus. Its IPO, when it publicly sold its first shares of stock, was on September 11, 1963. In 1974 the company acquired in Wilsonville, Oregon where they built a facility for their imaging group. By 1976 the company employed nearly 10,000, and was the state’s largest employer.
For many years, Tektronix was the major electronics manufacturer in Oregon, and in 1981 U.S. payroll peaked at over 24,000 employees. Tektronix also had operations in Europe, South America and Asia. European factories were located in St. Peter Port on the island of Guernsey (then in the European Free Trade Association), Hoddesdon (North London, UK) and Heerenveen, The Netherlands (then in the European Common Market).
For many years, Tektronix operated in Japan as Sony-Tektronix, a 50-50 joint venture of Sony Corporation and Tektronix, Inc; this was due to Japanese trade restrictions at the time. Since then, Tektronix has bought out Sony's share and is now the sole owner of the Japanese operation.
Some former Tektronix employees left to create other successful Silicon Forest companies. Spin-offs include Mentor Graphics, Planar Systems, Floating Point Systems, Merix Corporation, and Anthro Corporation. Even some of the spin-offs have created spin-offs, such as InFocus.
Tektronix instruments have enjoyed a leading position in the test and measurement market for decades, basically beginning with the firm's first cathode ray oscilloscopes. Much like Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix had a company policy of designing equipment of the very highest quality. Their equipment was quite expensive, but usually unmatched in performance, quality, and stability. Most test equipment manufacturers built their oscilloscopes with off-the-shelf, generally available components. But Tektronix, in order to get an extra measure of performance, used many custom-designed or specially-selected components. They even had their own factory for making ultra-bright and sharp CRT tubes. Later on they built their own integrated circuit manufacturing facility in order to make ICs of their own design with many times the performance of generally available components.
Tektronix instruments contributed significantly to the development of computers and communications equipment and to the advancement of research and development in the high-technology electronics industry generally.
On November 21,2007, Tektronix was acquired by Danaher Corporation for $2.85 billion. Prior to the acquisition, Tektronix traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TEK, the nickname by which Tektronix is known to its employees, customers, and neighbors. On October 15,2007, Danaher Corporation tendered an offer to acquire Tektronix for $38 cash a share, which equated to a valuation of approximately $2.8 billion. The deal closed five and a half weeks later, with 90 percent of TEK shares being sold in the tender offer.
Also, as part of its acquisition by Danaher, the Communications Business division of Tektronix was spun off into a separate business entity under Danaher, Tektronix Communications.
Employee relations
The early Tektronix was often described as exemplary in its employee relations practices. Rules were played down and trust and reliance on each individual's judgment were emphasized. Vacation and health benefits were unusually liberal, and a generous profit sharing plan returned 35% of corporate pretax profits to employees. This worked well for Tektronix employees during the years that profits were substantial.
'Non test' products
Some important non-test equipment Tektronix created and sold include:
Slump
In the 1980s, Tektronix found itself distracted with too many divisions in too many markets. This led to decreasing earnings in almost every quarter. A period of layoffs, top management changes and sell-offs followed. In 1994, Tektronix spun off its printed circuit board manufacturing operation as a separate company, Merix Corp., headquartered in Forest Grove, Oregon.
Eventually, Tektronix was left with its original test and measurement equipment. Upon his promotion in 2000, the current CEO, Richard H. "Rick" Wills, carefully limited corporate spending in the face of the collapsing high-tech bubble. This led the way for Tektronix to emerge as one of the largest companies in its product niche, with a market capitalization of $3 billion as of April, 2006.
Notable employees
The following notable individuals currently work for Tektronix, or have previously worked for Tektronix in some capacity. This list includes persons who are notable for reasons unrelated to their Tektronix careers.
See also
Further reading
- Winning with People: The First 40 Years of Tektronix by Marshall M. Lee. Published by Tektronix, Inc., October, 1986.
External links
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