Comments by "AQuietNight" (@AQuietNight) on "Holograms, Lasers u0026 Boredom; the CED's march towards eventual invention (CED Part 4)" video.

Robert Sarnoff was everything his dad was not. The CED failure was probably not as bad as the failure of the computer division. David Sarnoff was happy to let the computer division grow slow but steady and RCA developed a base of customers pleased with the computers RCA produced. This approach allowed RCA to compete with IBM. Robert Sarnoff came from the go-go generation of businessman where things had to happen fast and he wanted RCA's future tied into computers (more glamorous) and put the division into high gear, selling more computers faster than the company could support. The end result was unhappy customers and a tarnished image. David Sarnoff was a technology guy and loved the business. Robert Sarnoff was just another business type where being Chairman of a business was more important than the work being done. When the CED was released the view was nice. Not thrilling, but nice. It worked fairly decently, was priced reasonably but wasn't seen as some exciting new technology. Few had to have a CED player. With the failure of the CED system RCA was never really seen as a leader in consumer electronics again. Many products became "Me too". You want a VHS machine? Yea, we have one. You want a radio? We got one of those too. You want a stereo? Yea, we got one. No product showed any leadership, just more of the same rebranded Japanese stuff. RCA still did show incredible leadership in industrial electronics and many devices and designs they pioneered are still in use today. But to the general public, RCA sort of disappeared.
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