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Old 04-06-2011, 09:47 AM
enalnitram enalnitram is offline
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Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan
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From Hoover's. I don't know why but when I click on the profile for Taylor today, it gives me an error.

Quote:
Although it trails top guitar maker Fender, Gibson builds instruments that are held in unparalleled esteem by many guitarists, including top professional musicians. The company's most popular guitar is the legendary Les Paul. Gibson also makes guitars under such brands as Epiphone, Kramer, and Steinberger. In addition to guitars, the company manufactures pianos through its Baldwin unit, Slingerland drums, Tobias bass, Wurlitzer vending machines and jukeboxes, and Echoplex amplifiers, as well as many accessory items. Company namesake Orville Gibson began making mandolins in the late 1890s. Gibson Guitar is owned by executives Henry Juszkiewicz and David Berryman.

Gibson's core business continues to focus on challenging such rivals as Fender, Martin, and Taylor for a greater share of the guitar market. Video games, such as Guitar Hero, have increased awareness of guitar-playing as a social endeavor among young and old gamers alike. To get the word out about its products and to attract customers, the company has traditionally relied on word-of-mouth between players and endorsement deals with top-selling musicians. Moving beyond this strategy, Gibson maintains a marketing deal with Universal Studios, having acquired the naming rights to the 33-year-old Universal Amphitheatre at the company's Southern California theme park. The deal, worth about $14 million and extending through 2015, not only gives the instrument maker brand visibility in an important market but also opens the door to product placement in TV and film projects.

The music instruments maker focuses on its namesake Gibson brand and on injecting the latest in its robot technologies into its product development. To this end, Gibson in 2010 launched its Gibson Dusk Tiger guitar. It boasts third-generation Robot Tuning technology with 18 programmable alternate tunings. The firm's also extending its reach into the consumer market with its Wurlitzer Digital Lyra Jukebox, which debuted alongside the Dusk Tiger in early 2010.

Gibson's growth also has expanded the business globally from its Nashville roots. The guitar maker has gained a foothold in Europe and is looking to extend its reach in China and India. It entered Germany in 2008 and nearly doubled its business there by the end of 2009. Besides Europe, Gibson is banking on boosting sales in China as its middle class grows. In India, where Gibson established a division there in 2010, the company is tapping the country's affinity for music and its affluent customer base. Gibson operates a manufacturing plant in China to make Epiphone guitars and it has a majority stake in Baldwin Zhongshan China, a joint venture with Zhongshan Yue Hua Piano and Musical Instruments. To strengthen its foothold in China and significantly expand its manufacturing capacity there, Gibson acquired a major player in China's piano market -- Dongbei Piano Co., Ltd. Gibson renamed the firm Baldwin-Dongbei Piano & Musical Instruments Co., Ltd. The deal followed several other previous purchases, such as Gibson Med, a key European distributor based in Milan, Italy, and Deutsche Wurlitzer.

The company's long-range sights are set on top musical instruments maker Yamaha. Through its acquisition of famous brand names, from Baldwin to Wurlitzer, and its reintroduction of others, such as Epiphone, Gibson has expanded its product lines beyond the core guitar market and continues to develop new products. Juszkiewicz, chairman and CEO, sees potential in using technology to update designs that have not significantly changed since the 1950s. To this end, the firm is looking to build on its earlier successes. It developed a digital guitar that looks and feels like a conventional electric guitar but converts string vibrations into a data stream using Gibson's proprietary MaGIC (media-accelerated global information carrier) technology. The company also hopes to license MaGIC to manufacturers for use in consumer electronics.

Juszkiewicz and Berryman bought Gibson for $5 million in 1986.


HISTORY:

In the 1880s shoe-store clerk Orville Gibson bought a small workshop and began making mandolins based on his own innovative design. He was soon making arch-top acoustic guitars, banjos, and lutes, and by the turn of the century demand outpaced supply. Gibson and a group of financiers established the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company in 1902. Gibson was given $2,500 for the right to use his surname; he died in 1918.

Gibson capitalized on the popularity of banjos in the 1920s and guitars in the 1930s. In 1941 guitarist and inventor Les Paul showed the company his new baby: an electric guitar. Gibson execs rejected the innovation immediately. During WWII the company made parts for the war effort, and in 1944 Chicago Musical Instruments (CMI) bought Gibson in preparation for the pent-up demand for guitars that would follow the war's end. In the meantime, Leo Fender had introduced the first commercially successful electric guitar: the Fender Telecaster. In response, Gibson Musical Instruments introduced the Les Paul model in 1952.

The rise of guitar-oriented rock 'n' roll during the 1950s and 1960s created unprecedented demand for guitars. In 1969 CMI and another company merged to form Norlin, whose lack of attention to manufacturing quality tarnished Gibson's good name. In 1986 Gibson guitar enthusiast (and Harvard MBA) Henry Juszkiewicz and his partner David Berryman bought the company for $5 million.

The two immediately replaced top management and began retooling Gibson's factories. From 1986 to 1996 the company grew a rock-solid 30% a year and acquired a slew of musical instrument makers, including Tobias Guitars in 1989. In 1996 it opened its first music cafe, originally called Henry's Coffeehouse and later named Gibson Cafe and Guitar Gallery, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Gibson continued making acquisitions in 1998, buying Opcode Systems (music production hardware and software) and Trace Elliot (amplifiers). After failing to meet expectations, it closed the Tobias division in 1998 (though it still produces guitars under the Tobias name). Also that year the company acquired another music cafe, Caffe Milano, in Nashville, but Gibson closed both of its cafes in 2000 after failing to make them profitable. That same year, however, the company opened music venue Gibson Bluegrass Showcase at Opry Mills shopping mall in Nashville.

In 2001 Gibson bought the assets of Baldwin Piano & Organ (the largest seller of acoustic pianos in the US), which was under bankruptcy protection. Gibson made it a subsidiary and changed its name to Baldwin Piano. The next year the company's technology division, Gibson Labs, introduced plans for the first digital electric guitar (introduced in 2004) along with technology partners 3Com, Xilinx, and AMD.

In 2003 the company formed its Gibson Audio division to create convergent products involving traditional electronics and digital technology. The group's first product, the Wurlitzer digital jukebox, was launched late that year.

Les Paul, the namesake for one of the company's top products, died at the age of 94 in August 2009.
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