You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Mavic are hardly a major player in electronic shifting though are they?
Oh - another one - Levis
Dunlop.
I said that in the first post 🙂
Mavic are hardly a major player in electronic shifting though are they?
nope, but they would be a valid entry for aluminium rims.
Lockheed Martin must have a few
kcal - Member
Good place to start searching -- http://www.greatachievements.org/
I'm probably a nerd but I think it's always more fun to try and do it without the Internet...
duPont?
Switzerland - The Cuckoo Clock
hm, I wondered about Xerox but they bought the rights - not invenmted in house - and - I assume they still produce equipment but it's an assumption..
They invented the GUI we know today, windows and pointing device and all that jazz.
Intel is a good one - first microprocessor (the 4004).
Invented the WIMP (and a lot else besides) I accept for PARC - did they get a stake in Apple or something so I suppose they have benefited, but indirectly.
La Spirotechnique, now aqua - lung was sort of started by cousteau and gagnan who developed the modern scuba diving regulator.
Dia Compe/Cane Creek didn't invent the aheadset...some dude did and showed it off and a build-your-bike show thing where it was spotted and bought...then mass produced...
Doesn't matter if they aren't players in electronic shifting...they invented it and Mavic are still a big player in components/accessories...
McDonalds - fast food
I'm pretty sure that they were the first to have a restaurant where all the food
a) needed no table service
b) didn't need any plates or cutlery
c) could be prepared quickly as the orders came in
Apple - smartphone
Shermer not even close.
Shermer not even close.
must be in jest ....
How about Kellogs ( fortified cereal based breakfast) ?
Slightly specialist, and I don't like giving them publicity, but Xaar invented a method of making ink jet print heads, and still sell (and license) 1000's.
Ford?
Every modern factory ever.
Ford don't produce factories though. The factory is not a product they still continue to sell successfully in a competitive market.
Kelloggs is a good one though.
iPhone was an evolution of something that'd been sold for years previously. As was the iPod. It was a big step forward, but you cannot claim Apple invented the Smartphone. Or the personal computer, or the MP3 player.
Apple - smartphone
they might well have a claim to being inventors of the PDA with the Newton. I can't offhand think of an earlier incarnation, that was back in the late 80s IIC.
Arguably also, the modern tablet with the iPad. They certainly popularised it if not invented it.
Ferodo - brake linings (Now Federal Mogul) still based in Chapel En Le Frith
Siemens. Though what they orginally invented is now obsolete they are still a major player.
Mackem - Member
Threadless headset (Aheadset) - Cane Creek.
Oooohh, all of a sudden you're an expert now? 😆
Wacker - the vibrating footplate compactor
Doesn't matter if they aren't players in electronic shifting...they invented it and Mavic are still a big player in components/accessories...
Mavic (1992) never invented it, Suntour got there 2 years before (1990) with the BEAST (Browning Electronic AccuShift Transmission) electric shifting
Fender?
Marshall stack?
Didn't Massey Ferguson invent (or at least highly commercialise) the agricultural tractor?
[i]Ford don't produce factories though. The factory is not a product they still continue to sell successfully in a competitive market.[/i]
yes, but his cars were, and they were the first things to be built like that, and it made Henry and Ford into major players that forced every other car manufacturer to catch up and most (in that era) didn't. It's still how every car is built today, and essentially IS the modern car.
John Deere - the plough that turned the Great Plains from grassland to farmland.
everyone - Member
Didn't Massey Ferguson invent (or at least highly commercialise) the agricultural tractor?
3 point linkage that stopped tractors tipping backwards and squishing the driver. But they're hardly big players now?
It is often difficult to attribute inventions to the people we assume. Often someone else invented an item but was made viable by someone else. Although he did not invent it, Samuel Colt effectively made the revolver practical.
There must be a few cases in the world of firearms.
[quote=joshvegas ]3 point linkage that stopped tractors tipping backwards and squishing the driver. But they're hardly big players now?
According to wiki:
Today the company exists as a brand name used by AGCO and remains a major seller around the world.
So enough brand recognition and loyalty to still be used as a brand name (much like Perkins etc.)
And dunlop
As already stated. Rockshox. I remember riding a bike equipped with the first RS forks imported into the UK - they were fairly crap - and they are still innovating pretty well.
Moog electrohydraulic servovalves.
Kalashnikov. 😕
Sikorsky - the Helicopter.
Sikorsky - the Helicopter.
from wiki...
(though Sikorsky did not invent the helicopter itself)
Fender? Surely Gibson?
convert - Member
Sikorsky - the Helicopter.
from wiki...
(though Sikorsky did not invent the helicopter)
Ah, a Wiki warrior.
Semantics. Sikorsky invented the conventional helicopter layout with a single tail rotor for antitorque and also developed the first commercial helicopter. Without Sikorsky, there would be no helicopters.
If you want who invented it, then technically, that might be Leonardo DaVinci. Whilst helicopters are technically derivatives of autogyros, the FW is a closer by far to an AG than the VS300.
Massey Ferguson
massey OR ferguson, maybe. since it was a merger of 1 companies.
but then so many of those companies above are all now merely a brand owned by another holding co., or had so many restructures, mergers, demergers, etc. that the name and what it was known for is now attached to a totally different part of the business (eg Motorola).
I don't think drawing a sketch of something that wouldn't work constitutes 'inventing' something.
I agree with razorrazoo - IBM is a fascinating company - when you think about it, 100-odd years for a modern IT company is incredible.
And Watson is incredible, it makes Skynet from T2 seem plausible.
Teflon
Teflon
eh? That's a trade name of DuPont.
Bahco - invented the plumbers wrench and adjustable spanner, now a part of Snap-On Europe.
Saunders - started by the inventor of the Saunders valve, now a part of the crane group.
Facebook didn't invent anything.
Virgin didn't invent anything.
iPad was just a refinement.
Kalashnikov didn't start a company. Or really invent anything.
(My old employer) Napp Pharmaceuticals who invented a slow release tablet design, using lots of layers of active ingredient then wax over and over again. They used a strong analgesic (morphine sulphate) to make MST and it is still a leading treatment for oncological pain many years outside patent.
Rachel
Mr Dewalt invented the Radial Arm Saw
Mafell invented the first portable electric woodworking tool (no namby pamby drill drivers they went dove straight in with a chain morticer)
Didn't know that about Suntour and their BEAST.
When was the Psion Organiser introduced? I think about similar time to that Apple Newton thing...
Henry Walker, a butcher in Leicester, invented the potato crisp in the 1940's to cope with war time rationing. His name liveth on as Walkers Crisps... but now owned by part of the pepsi cola group.
Noah Ark, inventor of mass ship-borne transport.
Did ODI create the first lock on grip?
Zildjian.... 400 years and still going strong..
MARMITE!!!!!!!!
Marmite isn't an invention, "it is just a by product of the brewing industry, like vomit and violence"
Heinz?
Dont think they've been mentioned..
Sony...
Xerox are probably indirectly responsible for most of the Personal Computer stuff IMHO - There parc people came up wiv mice/gui's laser printers ethernet.
I amazed they aren't as big a player in it as they should be.
What made the IBM Pc sucessfull was the DOS operating system 'bought' by Bill.
It was reverse engineering of the BIOS which allowed other companys to produce the clones. IBM thought the money was in Hardware (oops)
The Apple II had most of the features of the IBM PC - modular bus that you could stick cards in but no one ever got sacked for buying IBM.. They legitimised the pc market for corporate type 🙂
We're mixing our drinks here. some of these examples are not inventions, but application of existing technologies to different situations - example Rockshox. Though they've been very innovative, they didn't invent anything, they just applied existing tech to a different application. I'm sure they have created Intellectual Property along the way, but IP is not necessarily an invention. Again i'd argue that things like smartphones and PC's are not inventions as such, but application of lots of different technologies, packaged up to create a novel product - the constituent elements of a PC had already been invented, IBM just packaged it up to create a Personal Computer as a product.
Yes. People are suggesting companies who've innovated.. but I wanted examples more along what Cougar suggested ie companies that were either formed to market a big invention, or companies/individuals that pioneered something big. Like Mr Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre for example.
Struggling to think of any more.
Kleenex maybe.. for the Western invention of the tissue. Likewise the guy who invented cotton wool buds formed the company that makes q-tips.
Unfortunatly Dunlop are no longer a major player as a company, and although are very expensive tyre's they are owned and mearly rebranded goodyears nowadays.
Mathmos... Must be a contender for the rules as set out my molgrips....
Yeah, that's a good one 🙂
I suspected this one and had to google, but Tarmac probably counted - until recently, it got broken up but the name is still around it seems.
novo nordisk - insulin from pigs?
Kodak........the digital camera. Oops they thought it had no future and are now bust.
Hurts too much to put down my former employer's name 🙁
GWPharma - to market cannabinoid based medication like Sativex.
Alternately, created so that other companies could hide behind that company name in case such a market became a PR disaster area. Seems like a lot of effort when you could just stick it in yer pipe and smoke it 🙂
I suspected this one and had to google, but Tarmac probably counted - until recently, it got broken up but the name is still around it seems.
Sent to landfill? 🙂
Air Products springs to mind. Set up in the 1940s so sell oxygen generators, still doing the same kind of thing only on a massive scale. big company now, employ around 20000 folk.
renthal,1st mx/trials bars to be made of aluminium started by rosenthal and renshaw.
What about Durex then ?
Wasnt there that one guy who died recently and who had made his riches basically out of inventing for want of a better word, ferrero rocher and nutella, So I'm going to say Ferrero
^ Mr. Pietro Ferrero
Air Products sell us Nitrogen. At least it may be them or a sub-contract of BOC sub-sub-contracted by Air Liquide and sub-sub-sub-contracted by Air Products or however that incestuous industry works...
ninfan - Member
"Mavic are hardly a major player in electronic shifting though are they?"
nope, but they would be a valid entry for aluminium rims.
Not really. Sunbeam were using Roman brand aluminium rims in the early 1900s, and there also were Constrictor rims later .
Sturmey-Archer for hub gears. (There is some precedence there, but like IBM did with the PC they came to be seen as the originator).
JCB?