They used to make cassette tapes, too.
That was my brother’s line the two times I asked. He has since offered to tell me more, but I told him I was originally only asking to be polite.
Does **Lexxus-Nexus **(or however it’s spelled) sell upper end automobiles? Methinks not.
Afflelou is advertised at the French Open tennis tourney, and I find myself muttering the name over and over because it’s quite catchy, but I have no idea what they do.
I think** Aldi** is a supermarket, but it’s not like their name gives you any indication.
Honeywell was actually bought out by AlliedSignal in 1999 or 2000, who were huge in automotive world (Bendix brakes, Garrett turbochargers, etc. etc.) They thought the Honeywell name had better “branding” so they went with that, even though AlliedSignal had been much larger than Honeywell. AlliedSignal was run for many years by Larry Bossidy (sp?)who came up through the Jack Welch/GE “Buy everything” school of business.
BASF, that is. SAP, probably not so much.
hijack
One bit I loved was SCTV’s parody of the Dick Cavett Show which would end with “this program was brought to you by a Chubb from the Grant Corporation.”
/hijack
Somewhat back on topic, there used to be a company called Universal Cyclops.
As far as I know, they had nothing to do with mythological monsters, but made steel. They had a plant near my boyhood home. One winter the plant had an emission that turned the snow green. It looked nice next to the orange water in the nearby creek.
Bri2k
I saw what you did there Mr. Gibson
IBM.
I know they don’t make PCs anymore (the PC division got sold to Lenovo). Do they still make mainframes (or whatever the modern equivalent is)? Or are they just a consulting company now, and if so, what does that mean exactly?
I know now what PricewaterhouseCoopers do, but the first time they sent a letter to our office was a bit confusing. Their logo doesn’t provide much of a hint, either: http://thinkspalondon.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/PWC-1024x219.jpg
We were talking about this at dinner yesterday.
Gruman used to make airplanes, but I think they make trucks for the Post Office now.
Oakley makes thermonuclear protection, but otherwise I have no idea.
Hewitt-Packard is in the news, I thought they made my high school movie projector.
Auther Danials Midland must have been convicted of something 'cause they’re all over PBS
It actually does: it’s short for Albrecht Discount (why yes, Germans like to use English words in weird ways), Albrecht being the family name of the two brothers that founded the company (I believe they’re like #15 and 16 on the Forbes Top 100 list).
This naming convention is mirrored in many other German company names: Haribo is Hans Riegel, Bonn (the founding city), Adidas is Adi (short for Adolf) Dassler.
Wow. For some inexplicable reason I always thought Haribo was Danish. Weird.
I have little to no meaningful understanding of global economics. Therefore, whenever I hear about all the massive, globe-spanning financial companies (things like Lehman Brothers), I don’t understand what they do. Smart people have tried to explain, but it’s like teaching quantum mechanics to a muskrat.
All I get is a vague concept that they deal in money, but not in the way that most people understand money, and that they’re comprehensively screwing us all over, but not in any way that makes sense.
I keep seeing commercials with the line “People who know . . . know B.D.O.”
Apparently, I’m not one of the “people who know.” It seems to have something to do with business people needing to fix a sticky situation. Or something like that.
We’re Beatrice!
I loved my Honeywell Pentax with the Honeywell Strobonar.
This is one on a smaller scale- when my parents immigrated to the US, they had little English and few skills (think post WWII refugees). My dad saw signs for (as he pronounced it) OO-SAID Cars all over the place and thought they must be a huge company and it would a good one to work for.
Needless to say… it was USED CARS.
Price fixing or something. They were the agro company featured in the film The Informant.
It’s a Big-4 accounting and consulting firm. So in other words they don’t “do” anything.
I recently had an interview with IBM. I always think of IBM as a computer company, but apparently it is the largest management consulting firm in the world.
Management consulting firms (of which I have worked at several, including PwC), are basically people who get paid a lot of money to tell management at large companies about ideas they heard from somewhere else. it combines aspects of getting paid very well, not having to actually be responsible for anything and actually looking like you know what you are talking about.
Accenture.
I once lived near an Accenture building and I never had a clear idea of what they actually do.
They still make mini’s (trust me, stay AWAY from the IBM Blades)