What Happened to Packard Bell? Part 2 - The Decline and Exit

The rise and fall of Packard Bell - the concluding part. We talk through the history of why Packard Bell left the US market in 1999 after a spectacular rise to become one of the big consumer PC brands.

I centre on the thin margins and unfortunate branding which I think were the core reasons why the brand could not make profits. I dwell too deeply on the actual hardware which could be a topic for another video (or series of videos) - for example the integrated Sound and Modem card some models produced were tricky to get working with some games and so on.

Here's links to other youtubers if you want to watch and listen to those glorious tv spots:

Packard Bell commercials:

Here's links to most of my sources for these two videos :) It's awesome that a few of the newspapers still keep their archived stories available over a decade and a half later!

1992

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1994

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1996

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1999

[cbw]

Excellent video!! I am one of those 90's kids that holds on fondly to the memories of Packard Bell... thank you so much for taking the time to create this!!

[SILSKY]

My first internet pc was a Packard Bell. My parents gave it to me as a Christmas gift in 1995. Windows 95, AOL dial-up internet, lots of features and fun programs. It was actually a great pc for its time. I took it to college with me that year. Most students in 1995 didn't have access to their own pc so my dorm room was a popular place when friends needed to print papers, research the internet or just play games. I wish I still had that pc just for the sake of nostalgia.

[steinravnik]

Good video. As someone that worked on PC's at the time, PB also cut a ton of corners. I worked on one that had an 80 watt power supply (at a time when 250 watts was the standard). This caused numerous power supply failures, many times right after the warranty was up. They also had a complete lack of expansion slots. They integrated the modem and sound card onto the same card. If both went out like in a lightning storm, you had to choose which one to replace. The proprietary riser card design made it so that you could never upgrade to a newer motherboard (common practice at the time). Because of all this, they were a major PITA to work on, and I got to the point I would refuse to do so. To be fair, Compaq and others did some of this stuff too, but PB seemed to be the worst at cost cutting.

[kdcwg]

I remember working on these. You could have 2 of the same model side by side, and the soundcard/modem combo would be different

[MacCrafter]

I worked at Packard Bell NEC during their shutdown. Was very sad. As a web developer, I ended up selling the stock at the company store that had opened up to the public. I worked at the Armory in Sacramento, starting out in the monitor refurbishing department and ending up in the web services selling to colleges.

[MrRobarino]

In 1995 Packard Bell spent a significant amount of time and money moving their main manufacturing facility from Southern California to an old army depot in Sacramento, CA. That could explain where their profits went that year. Their southern California facility was damaged by an earth-quake which forced them to move. They also did a merger with NEC and Group Bull around that same time and all three had different manufacturing and engineering processes that had to be blended together.

After moving into the Army Depot, Packard Bell ended up with a very huge but inefficient manufacturing process and they used a quota system for many of the employees. Technicians and assembly line workers on the production line were given daily quotas they had to meet, so it became all about quantity and not quality.

[vibeuk]

My first computer was a Packard Bell... Brings back memories... BUT! They were terrible and would constantly break down every now and then. PC World in the U.K. would push these at you in their stores. My last Packard Bell was returned for a compact PC- which worked like a charm- and then I moved to Macs about 12 years ago and haven't looked back since

[RediscoveringRetro]

Mate, I thoroughly enjoyed these. The editing was great. I didn't realise they operated on such tight margins, it's a risky strategy if there's nothing else to rely on. Loved seeing the adverts and specs, brought back memories of being in the computer shop as a kid when we bought our first PC. I think the advertising back then really created a sense of awe and wonder, although the tech being something we'd never seen before probably helped with that. Awesome job buddy!

[shaunt]

Nice video on a classic. My first time going to the buisness section of PC World with my father and we bought top line executive multi media with TV and FM tuner card with record function. Its was something like £3000. Remember flight sim, C&C and worms. Also force feed back sidewinder and the free game where you fight off aliens and control tanks. Classic days of PCs, thank you for the memories.

[geraldscott]

My first computer was a Packard Bell, bought from Circuit City, in 1995. I certainly did not consider it cheap. It had to be bought in 2 parts. The computer, keyboard, and mouse came together, then I had to buy the monitor separately. The monitor was a different brand. Altogether it was $1300, plus another $130 in sales tax. A lot of money in 1995. And the most expensive computer I've ever bought. There wasn't much to it, but it did have a CD drive, called "multimedia" back then. It had a 210MB hard drive, a 33 Mhz processor, and a 3 1/2" floppy drive. It came with Windows 3.1 and DOS. No modem, there was no internet in 1995, and I kind of wish it had stayed that way. I did not have any problems with it that I remember, considering what it was. It came with a chess game on CD which I was never able to beat, even though I was a pretty decent player. It also has a Mavis Beacon typing class on a CD. I had taken typing in high school, and was fairly good at it, but had to get used to the flat keyboard. I don't remember the constant errors and glitches of every computer I've had since. It has become obvious that the more complex computers get, the less reliable they are. Windows 3.1 was light years ahead of Windows 10 as far as reliability went. I don't know if it is newer more complex hardware or software (or both) that is responsible for the almost complete lack of reliability with todays computers. My current computer freezes up several times a day, and takes forever to open most programs, while that old Packard Bell never had those problems.

[bloqk]

When *Byte Size Thoughts* mentioned about the 1990s being a time when technology was innovative and changing *"at a ridiculously rapid pace, "* _that was phrasing it very well!_ I worked for a civil engineering (CE) company during that decade and was well-acquainted with the IT department in that organization; where they were periodically obtaining new desktop PCs, and phasing-out year-old units, because of the rising advances made with Intel CPU speeds and the affordability of RAM; as well as CE software apps constantly being upgraded, placing more demands on the desktop PCs performance.
Before I left the company I bought a company discarded desktop PC for less than $100; where 18 months prior the company bought that newly built unit from a PC builder for $2.5K; as in that year-and-a-half, the CPU speed had gotten too slow and outdated for current CE work.

[MakateRapulana]

my first computer .. i still use a Packard Bell

[alessandrol]

Great video, no I should say mini documentary.
I was one of the workers of PB in the Netherlands, on my first work experience :-) so I have seen the rise and fall of what, sad to say was a series of bad management decisions .. of course at the time we (the workers, or at least young employers) we did not see the big picture.
I have learned a lot from it and I still have good memories.. to bad it ended badly as it did.. laid off also in Europe.

[someguy]

I used to have a Packard Bell as my first pc back in 2011 if i remember correctly.

Good days of Battlefield :)

[cosmickatamari]

I always wondered what happened to them. I had a PB Multimedia from 1996 and used it until the time I started building my own PCs.

[stevenj]

I looked down on newbies who went for Packard Bell. Or later on, went online with AOL.
PCs were new to me as well until 'fall 1994, bought an IBM Thinkpad 500 subnotebook last sale and was given a home-assembled middling PC as first 'desktop.

I was jealous of friends with computers and not not wanting to be left out went all-in hard to to learn about DOS, Windows, hardware and anything I could install to boost performance. And get online at the end of 1994 downloading what I needed to connect with Win 3.1 and 3.11, with ProComm plus comms software to get on a BBS and various Unix ish terminal services, before there was Win 95.

[Martin_Skywatcher]

Hewlett Packard also dissapeared from the home pc market at some point. I tried googling it but I could not make out as the why and when exactly. You might not have the time or interest to cover HP's personal computers, but I would be very much interested. I had a NEC pc at some point too by the way. 😄

[JackRusselMan]

Compaq computes is what I grew up on we had 2 and if they still was made by Compaq I would still be buying those.

[mjk]

I've found a couple of interesting USA Packard Bell models that have MPEG (1) video decoder chips build right on the motherboard.
These were Pre MMX Pentium systems and they are quite capable of running Video CD's or Phillips CD-i movie CD's full screen. One model is a Packard Bell Platinum 65 (Pentium @ 166 Mhz) which also has a TV Tuner card built into it.
I have a few CD-i movies which are quite interesting to view as they predate the much better quality DVD standard.
The movies that I have are some Star Wars and Star Trek movies and some James Bond Movies with Sean Connery portraying James Bond.
I purchased them used at eBay

[kevinwillett]

Why doesn’t this have a million views?