RadioShack filed for bankruptcy

RadioShack , which owns one of the oldest international electronics franchises, filed for bankruptcy . Half of the almost 4,000 stores around the world will be closed, the rest - sold. In the US, Sprint, a local telecommunications provider, will buy the premises. As a result, 27,500 people will lose their jobs.

The company's problems began in the 2000s, when it experienced a change of several managing directors and a fall in the value of shares. Over the past 15 years, the company has gradually turned radio electronics stores into stores selling electronic devices and mobile phones, the range of goods has decreased, and with it the interest of buyers has decreased. Since 2011, the company has been unprofitable.

The company has existed for almost 100 years, since 1921, when its first store was opened by the Deutschman brothers in Boston. They decided to sell components for amateur radio, which was then a technical wonder. In 1939, the company released the first catalog and entered the market for high-quality audio. In the 1960s, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, but Charles Tandy , a Texas millionaire who made a fortune in the leather goods business, spotted potential at the company and bought it for $ 300,000.
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After this, the company, which was renamed Tandy Radio Shack & Leather, went up the hill. In 1977, RadioShack released the TRS-80 ("Tandy / Radio Shack, Z-80 microprocessor"), one of the first personal computers that became a sales hit.



The people who had immediately witnessed the rise and fall of the company recall with nostalgia the 70s and 80s, the boom of the first personal computers, and how RadioShack was the place for the get-together of the geeks of that time. Subsequently, she slipped to the simple sales of mobile electronics, and that caused a particular outrage among some buyers, to paid catalogs of their products.

“This is what happens when people stop building or repairing something with their own hands. Throw it away, buy a new one, ”a user with the nickname“ Anonymous Coward ”complains.

"I remember how in the early 80s the owner of RadioShack in my city allowed me to mess with the computers of that time, how my grandfather bought me my first Radio Shack MC-10 computer for 10 years, and how I read the instructions for it from cover to cover times four. On this computer, I learned to program - he had a memory of 4Kb and an extension of up to 16Kb. But this store has long been in the past - now people who barely cope with the reading of an advertising brochure, sell music centers and mobile phones there, ”sighs“ MightyMartian ”sadly.

“I had fun with the TRS-80 Model 1, and then changed it to the TRS-80 Model II, because the first one is outdated! And geeks love everything new! It's a shame that we live at a time when children are no longer playing with electronics or sets of a young chemist, but they see that another Kardashian was thrown out there, and retweet this nonsense to each other - because, for Christmas trees, winders, mathematics is very difficult for them. ” - indignant the_skywise.

Jon Bois wrote a whole article on how he worked at RadioShack in the 2000s, and how badly they treated employees - they forced him to work overtime at no extra charge, delayed payments, and so on.

It is difficult to say whether bad management caused the company to fail, or the greatly changed interests of society - but RadioShack will not be anymore.