SAITEK FOR SALE FOR £25 MILLION

[mephisto]

The Saitek Group, have announced that it had appointed an adviser to oversee a potential sale
"This is an exciting time," said David Inwood, chief strategy officer at Saitek Group. "The Saitek brand has international resonance" With the computer games market growing rapidly and now estimated to be worth $30bn (£15.1bn) the demand for peripherals such as joysticks is increasing. Saitek has expanded, and the last financial year proved to be its best on record with sales reaching £30m.
Interest in the company increased after Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard announced that they were keen to expand their computer game peripherals businesses. That led to a number of approaches, which have, in turn, convinced Saitek's owner, Swiss-born technologist Eric Winkler, to cash in after 28 years.
Mr Winkler is expected to demand an asking price of about £25m, though some analysts have suggested the company may command a higher figure from buyers wanting to get hold of its lucrative distribution deals.
Saitek started out in 1979 by selling handheld electronic chess games from Hong Kong. Since then it has acquired 130 staff and has offices in the Britain, France, Germany, the US and Asia.

[Steve B]

Interesting post Bryan thanks

can you imagine though...we here know Saitek for their chess computers and at the end of the day its their "Joy Stick" division that makes all of their money

and i dont even own a Joy Stick ,never did and never will

just goes to show how inconsequential we all are in here

out of the few remaining companies that make chess computers nowadays they are the only ones who dont even attempt to release something even remotely new
they are still selling their Exclusive Senator from almost 10 years ago already

in addition they would not even allow Ruud Martin to produce more then a very small amount of Resurrection modules each year and they would not agree to take on his project
so they effectively restrained this computer from being sold at a much cheaper price if it could have been produced in a larger scale

so as far as i am concerned they can take that JOY Rod and

Stick it Regards
Steve

[Larry]

Steve, they are business people, not *chess* people. They don't
give a rotund rodent's rear end about chess, it's the bottom line
they look at. If the new owners decide not to include chess in their
inventory, then that leaves Novag and Excalibur, basically. This could
mean, from a collector's viewpoint, selected Saitek machines could
command good prices on ebay in the years ahead, just as some
Fidelity machines do now.
On the other hand, the new owners maybe have an interest in
chess and decide to put the stillborn Turbostar 2600 into production.

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... ostar_2600

hopeful regards
Larry

[mclane]

microsoft buys Saitek.

Bruce Moreland gets a telephone call by "the boss" and gets the job to produce the first microsoft chess computer.
finally ferret gets released .

[Steve B]

Steve, they are business people, not *chess* people. They don't
give a rotund rodent's rear end about chess, it's the bottom line
they look at. If the new owners decide not to include chess in their
inventory, then that leaves Novag and Excalibur, basically. This could
mean, from a collector's viewpoint, selected Saitek machines could
command good prices on ebay in the years ahead, just as some
Fidelity machines do now.
On the other hand, the new owners maybe have an interest in
chess and decide to put the stillborn Turbostar 2600 into production.

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... ostar_2600

hopeful regards
Larry

yes i know they couldn't care about chess computers now,,but it was those same computers that gave them their start 25 years ago
my gripe is...why prohibit Ruud from making more Resurrection modules if they dont care?
are they concerned that his little corner of the market would interfere in their sales of chess computers?
seems to me they just denied him the right for no other reason then.. they could..


yes there are several computers listed in Wiki that never saw the light of day

my favorite:

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... aster_2400


this computer was fully developed and all set for distribution just at the moment when Mephisto bought out Fidelity and then Mephisto just scuttled it

Gone With The Wind Regards
Steve

[mclane]

yes.
but it was not only that H+G bought Fidelity and went bancrott. the whole thing was spiced with a crime.
as you maybe remember ONE guy in H+G took the money and run away.
(as far as i remember. i forgot his name [good for him]).

i do still believe dedicated chess computer HAVE a market.
only they do castrate themselves by selling the nice ideas with a weak chess program. this is the MAIN reason they do not sell as good anymore.

if they would put a strong chess program into their units, the dedicated chess computer market would increase. nobody is interested to buy a WEAK dedicated unit for 200-250$.

But we ALL would buy a dedicated unit with a STRONG chess program in it,
such as Star Diamond.

Tasc sold the R30, lend the hardware to Mephisto and as a result we got the Risc1 and 2.
And the Saitek Risc 2500.

i still do not understand why TASC went bancrott. they had anything.

[Terry McCracken]

Steve, they are business people, not *chess* people. They don't
give a rotund rodent's rear end about chess, it's the bottom line
they look at. If the new owners decide not to include chess in their
inventory, then that leaves Novag and Excalibur, basically. This could
mean, from a collector's viewpoint, selected Saitek machines could
command good prices on ebay in the years ahead, just as some
Fidelity machines do now.
On the other hand, the new owners maybe have an interest in
chess and decide to put the stillborn Turbostar 2600 into production.

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... ostar_2600

hopeful regards
Larry

yes i know they couldn't care about chess computers now,,but it was those same computers that gave them their start 25 years ago
my gripe is...why prohibit Ruud from making more Resurrection modules if they dont care?
are they concerned that his little corner of the market would interfere in their sales of chess computers?
seems to me they just denied him the right for no other reason then.. they could..


yes there are several computers listed in Wiki that never saw the light of day

my favorite:

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... aster_2400


this computer was fully developed and all set for distribution just at the moment when Mephisto bought out Fidelity and then Mephisto just scuttled it

Gone With The Wind Regards
Steve

Actually Hegner and Glasser bought out Fidelity Electronics in Sept. 1989.

A few years later they just dropped Fidelity altogether, and Fidelity became (Quantum America), which died shortly thereafter and the Master was suppose to have a Motorola 68040 processor running at 25mgh like their ver. 10.

South of FUBAR Regards,
Terry

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Steve, they are business people, not *chess* people. They don't
give a rotund rodent's rear end about chess, it's the bottom line
they look at. If the new owners decide not to include chess in their
inventory, then that leaves Novag and Excalibur, basically. This could
mean, from a collector's viewpoint, selected Saitek machines could
command good prices on ebay in the years ahead, just as some
Fidelity machines do now.
On the other hand, the new owners maybe have an interest in
chess and decide to put the stillborn Turbostar 2600 into production.

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... ostar_2600

hopeful regards
Larry

yes i know they couldn't care about chess computers now,,but it was those same computers that gave them their start 25 years ago
my gripe is...why prohibit Ruud from making more Resurrection modules if they dont care?
are they concerned that his little corner of the market would interfere in their sales of chess computers?
seems to me they just denied him the right for no other reason then.. they could..


yes there are several computers listed in Wiki that never saw the light of day

my favorite:

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... aster_2400


this computer was fully developed and all set for distribution just at the moment when Mephisto bought out Fidelity and then Mephisto just scuttled it

Gone With The Wind Regards
Steve

Actually Hegner and Glasser bought out Fidelity Electronics in Sept. 1989.

A few years later they just dropped Fidelity altogether, and Fidelity became (Quantum America), which died shortly thereafter and the Master was suppose to have a Motorola 68040 processor running at 25mgh like their ver. 10.

South of FUBAR Regards,
Terry

Wow,I didn't know that you're so deep in this business Terry,I thought that this field is dominated by Steve B

[Terry McCracken]

Steve, they are business people, not *chess* people. They don't
give a rotund rodent's rear end about chess, it's the bottom line
they look at. If the new owners decide not to include chess in their
inventory, then that leaves Novag and Excalibur, basically. This could
mean, from a collector's viewpoint, selected Saitek machines could
command good prices on ebay in the years ahead, just as some
Fidelity machines do now.
On the other hand, the new owners maybe have an interest in
chess and decide to put the stillborn Turbostar 2600 into production.

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... ostar_2600

hopeful regards
Larry

yes i know they couldn't care about chess computers now,,but it was those same computers that gave them their start 25 years ago
my gripe is...why prohibit Ruud from making more Resurrection modules if they dont care?
are they concerned that his little corner of the market would interfere in their sales of chess computers?
seems to me they just denied him the right for no other reason then.. they could..


yes there are several computers listed in Wiki that never saw the light of day

my favorite:

http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... aster_2400


this computer was fully developed and all set for distribution just at the moment when Mephisto bought out Fidelity and then Mephisto just scuttled it

Gone With The Wind Regards
Steve

Actually Hegner and Glasser bought out Fidelity Electronics in Sept. 1989.

A few years later they just dropped Fidelity altogether, and Fidelity became (Quantum America), which died shortly thereafter and the Master was suppose to have a Motorola 68040 processor running at 25mgh like their ver. 10.

South of FUBAR Regards,
Terry

Wow,I didn't know that you're so deep in this business Terry,I thought that this field is dominated by Steve B

[Steve B]

The problem with the Tasc co. were regarding their Smart Boards
it turned out they did not have the legal right to copy the piece recognition scheme and were forced legally to stop making the boards for use with their R30 units

soon after this they went out of business

Steve S posted alot about this issue when these boards were first created in 1997-1998

Patent Infringement Regards
Steve