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Magna International

Magna International – Manufacturing Vehicle Parts For Renowned Automakers.

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Magna International is the largest manufacturer of original equipment vehicle parts in North America. It creates automobile systems, components, modules, and assemblies that are sold to a variety of automakers, including General Motors, Ford Motor Company, FCA, Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, Tesla, Toyota, and Tata Motors.

About The Company

Magna International is a Candian company that produces automobile parts. In 2020 it was listed on the Forbes Global 2000 and is one of Canada’s biggest corporations. The company has appeared continuously in the Fortune Global 500 rankings for 20 years in a row since 2001. The company’s head office is in Ontario, Canada. Magna is controlled by a corporate charter that provides for the transfer of profits to the company’s shareholders and employees. Frank Stronach, the company’s founder, described the provisions of this agreement as a “fair enterprise system.”

History

Frank Stronach established Multimatic Investments Ltd. in a Toronto tool and die rental garage in 1957. In 1959, it signed its first deal with General Motors for metal solar interior brackets The company had eight plants operational by the late 1960s. Stronach merged aerospace, defense, and industrial components manufacturer Magna Electronics Corporation with Multimatic Investments to bring the company public in 1969. The combined company was renamed Magna International in 1973. Magna International divested its defense and aerospace operations in 1981 so it could concentrate on the automobile sector. The 1990s saw it spreading into Asia and decentralizing large systems into separate, publicly traded companies. In 2005, Magna started designing automobile rear-view cameras for Hummers on its assembly line in Michigan even though they were not yet mandated by the government. It was among the first companies to create rear view cameras for automotive manufacturers, and by 2007, it had a deal for 350,000 units. In August 2015, the company sold Grupo Antolin its interiors division, which included instrument and door panels, overhead systems, and freight management components. In 2018, the company collaborated with Lyft to provide high-tech kits that convert automobiles into self-driving cars.

Magna International

Acquisitions

Magna International declared in 2002 that it had signed a deal with DaimlerChrysler to buy the Austrian company’s Eurostar Automobilwerk division. In September 2004, Magna acquired eighty percent of New Venture Gear and consolidated it with Magna Powertrain. In 2007, it acquired complete ownership, and the business was shut down in August 2012. In November 2005, Magna acquired CTS Fahrzeug-Dachsysteme, a manufacturer of foldable roofs, from Porsche. Magna paid $1.9 billion in July 2015 to acquire Getrag, a German business that was among the biggest providers of automobile transmissions globally. The acquisition increased the Chinese market’s potential for growth. In 2018, the business purchased the German motion-based software developer Haptronik GmbH, the Italian automotive lighting maker OLSA S.p.A., and the Spanish automotive seating firm Viza Geca SL. It collaborated with Innoviz Technologies to make solid-state lidar for BMW Group’s autonomous vehicles. In January 2022, Boston-based firm Optimus Ride was acquired by Magna.

Technology

In the course of its history, Magna International has collaborated with automakers to advance vehicle safety and technology, developing advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), lane departure warning systems, blind-spot detection, as well as smart mobility seating systems like minivan seats that stow into the floor. The organization is the third-biggest auto parts supplier globally and the largest in North America. It creates tailored computing for fully automatic driving systems using mobility technologies. In 2018, it unveiled autonomous emergency braking technologies and an Icon radar system to assist automakers in achieving Level 5 autonomy.

Founder – Frank Stronach

One of the biggest providers of automobile systems and components worldwide, Magna International Inc., was founded by Frank Stronach. With its headquarters in Ontario, Magna employs over 158000 employees across 342 manufacturing facilities in 27 different nations.

CEO – Seetarama Kotagiri

Swamy Kotagiri is the sole representative of management on the board and the CEO of Magna. He provides vast experience and knowledge of the automotive business and has worked in the field for more than 30 years, including 21 years with Magna.

ITT corporation

ITT Corporation – Two Brothers Started With First Global Network Of Interconnected Telephone Lines.

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ITT Corporation is a diversified leader in producing highly engineered vital components and tailored technology solutions in the transportation, industrial, and energy markets.

About The Company

ITT Inc. is a Connecticut-based manufacturer with operations all over the world. The business manufactures specialized parts for the industrial, aerospace, transportation, and energy sectors. Motion Technologies, Connect and Control Technologies, and Industrial Process comprise ITT’s three primary operating segments. The company’s 10,000 team members work within these segments to provide customer service in roughly 125 different countries and serve as outstanding brand ambassadors for well-known and enduring product brands, including KONI shock absorbers, Goulds, and Bornemann pumps, Cannon connectors, and Enidine energy absorption components.

History Of The Company

The desire for its creators to develop phones is where the history of ITT begins. Two brothers named Hernand Behn and Sosthenes founded the initial International Telephone & Telegraph in 1920 with the goal of establishing the first global network of interconnected telephone lines. The Puerto Rico Telephone Company was the company’s first name, and it started out tiny before expanding swiftly through intelligent acquisitions and the acquisition of telephony patents. The company became a significant global vendor of telephone switching hardware and telecommunications services. ITT purchased more than 350 companies between 1960 and 1977, and its portfolio included well-known companies, including Continental Baking, which produces Wonder Bread, Avis Rent-A-Car, Hartford Insurance, and Sheraton hotels. ITT expanded throughout that time, going from a medium-sized company having $760 million in revenue to a worldwide corporation with $17 billion in sales. ITT started restructuring after the conglomerate era through tactical sales and purchases to divide the business into manageable pieces. The end result was the division of ITT into three distinct, independent businesses in 1995: ITT Corporation, which concentrated on the hospitality and gaming industries; ITT Hartford, which established itself as a stand-alone insurance company; and ITT Industries, which began as a group of manufacturing firms. TT Industries, Inc., the current business, was established in 1996 as an ITT spinoff. Later, in 2006, it adopted the name ITT Corporation. In 2011, ITT Corporation split into three distinct publicly traded corporations and spun off its defence and water-related businesses. ITT’s water tech business became Xylem Inc., and its defence business became Exelis. In 2016, ITT Corporation’s name was changed to ITT Inc.

ITT corporation
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Controversies

In 2007, ITT Corporation was the first significant defence contractor to be found guilty of breaking the US Arms Export Control Act. The penalties resulted from ITT’s outsourcing program, in which technicians in China, Singapore, and the UK received night vision goggles and sensitive knowledge about defences against laser weapons, such as light interference filters. The company was given the option of using half of the $100 million penalty to fund the development of improved night vision technology. The resultant intellectual property will belong to the United States government. The US Department of Justice also found throughout its inquiry and subsequent ruling that the corporation took great measures, including creating a front company, to avoid the export regulations.

Founder – Sosthenes Behn

American industrialist Sosthenes Behn founded ITT. He was earlier in the US Army, at the rank of lieutenant colonel. After his discharge from the military, he co-founded the Puerto Rico Telephone Company with Colonel Behn, which eventually gave rise to ITT.

CEO – Luca Savi

Luca Savi serves as the CEO and President of ITT. Luca formerly held the position of president and COO of ITT. He started working at ITT in 2011 as the division’s head of Motion Technologies. He has formerly held a number of significant executive positions with Comau, a division of the Fiat Group, in Italy, China, and the United States. He has also held important roles in the past at Honeywell International. He started as an engineer with Ferruzzi-Montedison Group and Royal Dutch Shell. Luca holds an MBA from London Business School.

Enphase Energy

Ehpase Energy – A Cutting-Edge Microinverter Manufacturer.

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Enphase Energy is an American company that revolutionized the solar business with its cutting-edge microinverter technologies that transform sunlight into a secure, dependable, robust, and sustainable energy source.

About The Company

Founded in 2006, Enphase Energy is a company that sells and manufactures solar microinverters, software for monitoring energy generation, and various energy storage solutions. Its products are mainly designed for residential clients. Headquartered in California, USA, the company’s business was the first to effectively commercialize the micro-inverter, which transforms the electricity produced by a solar panel i.e. direct current, into grid-compatible alternating current. It has installed over 45 million microinverters in more than 2 million homes in more than 135 countries, giving millions of people access to reliable, affordable, clean energy while also generating excellent jobs and a future less dependent on carbon emissions.

Enphase Energy
Image source: ornatesolar.com

History

The majority of solar energy systems require a central inverter to convert the direct current (DC) electricity generated by the panels into grid-compatible alternating current(AC). The panels are connected in a series to form a string. This method’s primary flaw is that the energy output from the panel that performs the worst limits the energy output of the entire string. By converting the DC into AC in a tiny inverter positioned at the back of an individual solar panel, solar micro-inverters solve this issue.

Martin Fornage, the founder of Enphase, became aware of this problem when he noticed the subpar operation of the central inverter of the solar panel on his property. He approached his fellow Current Corporation coworker, Raghu Belur, with the idea of building micro-inverters, and together they founded PVI Solutions. Paul Nahi was appointed s a CEO by the two in 2006, and in 2017 the group established Enphase Energy. In 2008, after successfully securing $6 million in private funding, Enphase introduced the M175, its first microinverter.

In 2020, Enphase held a market share of roughly 48% for residential home installations in the USA, accounting for 72% of the global micro-inverter market. Enphase purchased ClipperCreek, a producer of charging points, in November 2021.

Current Products

Enphase has been selling its “IQ” series micro-inverters since 2017. These devices feature a streamlined wiring arrangement with two conductors (instead of four), which does away with the necessity for a neutral line. The IQ6 was the first to be released, with the earlier M215, M250, and S280 staying in production but being modified to use the updated cabling system. The revised IQ7 series debuted in 2018, and the IQ8 followed in 2021. With the addition of the IQ8, electricity generation can continue during daytime grid disruptions without using batteries. In 2022, the company also launched the IQ Battery, which is a residential energy storage system/device.

CEO – Badri Kothandaraman

Badri Kothandaraman is the current CEO of Enphase Energy. He joined the company in 2017 as its COO and was later appointed as the CEO and President. He has over 21 years of experience in product development and management in the semiconductor sector. He has a B. Tech degree from IIT Madras and also a Master’s degree from U.C Berkeley. Badri’s expertise in his field is evident from the fact that he holds eight patents in the USA.

Founders – Raghu Belur, Martin Fornage

In 2006, Martin and Raghu Belur formed Enphase Energy together. Martin Fornage oversaw technology development at Enphase for the first microinverter system in history. From 2006 to 2019, Martin served as Enphase’s chief technology officer, leading a team that created the cutting-edge technologies essential for upcoming energy systems. On the other hand, Raghu Belur was instrumental in creating Enphase’s most advanced integrated energy system.

behringer

Behringer – Uli Behringer’s Story Of Creating A Successful Musical Business.

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Founded in 1989, Behringer is one of the most successful pro-audio companies in the world. The company’s founder is Uli Behringer, a Swiss engineer who hailed from a musical background. Behringer originally started its manufacturing unit in Willich, Germany and it has a worldwide network serving up to 130 countries. Currently, the musical products of this company are manufactured in China. Behringer’s parent company is Music Tribe, a holding company that the founder of Behringer chairs. The company has approximately 3,500 employees working from various parts of the world. Behringer is not only successful but one of the largest musical companies in the world and in 2017 it ranked 14th in terms of manufacturing capacity. 

The Musical Journey Of Uli Behringer

Uli Behringer is originally from Switzerland where he was born in a little town in 1961. His father was a nuclear physicist and a church organist while his mother was into music and played piano. Behringer’s journey into the musical world started with his mother teaching him to play piano at the age of four. His family had a rich musical background and his aunt and uncle were also into music. After a year of learning piano, Behringer’s father built him a church organ with 1000 pipes and it was integrated into the family home. At the age of sixteen, he constructed a synthesizer. 

behringer
Image source: behringer.com.my

Building A Musical Startup 

As Behringer started growing up, he showed interest in music as well as electronics. So, in 1982 he moved to Dusseldorf, Germany to study classical piano and sound engineering. In the late 1980s, psychoacoustics became a very hyped topic in the audio world as manufacturers were looking for solutions for processing compromised audio. It was Uli Behringer who decided to lift up the curtain between an affordable solution and the audience who are in need of it. So, in 1989 the company’s story actually began as Behringer started implementing his ideas in reality. He wanted to offer the solutions at a price that his audience (independent musicians or other studios) can easily purchase. With Behringer, a new home-recording market started that the world didn’t witness before. 

Manufacturing And Marketing

After Behringer was incorporated in 1989, the company started its production in Germany although some of the major components were shipped from mainland China. But it was only after a year that the company shifted its manufacturing process to China to reduce the entire production cost. As the company started manufacturing various musical equipment that was in demand, its main target was to produce the same at a lower price. So, in 1991, the company manufactured COMBINATOR MDX 8000 at a much lower price. 

After a year, the company manufactured COMPOSER MDX2000 which was not only advantageous from a lower price point but also bridged the gap between pro audio and consumer electronics. In 1996, the company rolled out several products and among them, EURODESK MX8000 became a big hit. Before the decade ended, it released two more products, PRO-MIXER DX1000 and ULTRA-GRAPH PRO GEQ3102. 

The New Era

Stepping into the new decade, the company acquired all the rights to CoolAudio technology from Intersil Corporation. It is a US-based that specialized in integrated circuits for audio applications. After the acquisition, the company also got licenses such as Alpine and Rowe. As the company was developing its manufacturing plants in China, in 2002, the construction was completed and named Behringer City. In 2010, the new logo of the company was born as it evolved much from the time it began. After a couple of years, the company also received the “Best in Show” award for “Companies to Watch.” As the company eventually went under the acquisition of MusicTribe, everything that the company launched is under the new brand name. 

Palm Inc

Palm Inc – Jeff Hawkins’ Tech Venture Whose Operations Revived Recently Through A Shelf Company. 

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Founded in 1992, the Palm brand is associated with manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs). The company became famous after designing PalmPilot, the first successfully marketed PDA in the world. Since its founding, the company has been through several mergers and acquisitions. For a period of time, the Palm brand almost evaporated from the tech industry but then in 2014 the operations again started after an acquisition. Palm Inc is also known for developing the Treo 600, one of the first smartphones, and several versions of Palm OS. HP acquired Palm in 2010 but after a year decided to discontinue the Palm brand. Again in 2014, HP sold the Palm trademark to TCL Corporation and the latter announced its plan to revive the brand. 

The Original Palm Brand

In 1992, Jeff Hawkins incorporated the Palm brand and shortly brought Donna Dubinsky and Ed Colligan into the team. These three people are the main brains behind the invention of PalmPilot. When Palm was born, it wrote software for a consumer PDA, Zoomer. Casio was the manufacturer of this PDA and the Zoomer devices were distributed by Casio and GRiD. Palm mainly played the role of offering the PIM software. Though in a few years, Zoomer became a huge turndown, Palm stayed in business by selling software for HP devices. In 1995, Palm was acquired by U.S. Robotics Corp and after a couple of years, the latter was acquired by 3Com. So, Palm became a subsidiary of 3Com and the original founders left the company. 

Splitting Of The Company 

In 2000, Palm became an independent publicly-traded company as 3Com decided to take it public. Palm’s IPO was filed during the dot-com bubble so within a year the price of shares dropped and lost 90% of their value. In June 2001, Palm became the worst performing PDA manufacturer that was listed on the NASDAQ. After a year, Palm established a wholly-owned subsidiary, PalmSource for developing and licensing Palm OS. PalmSource and Palm became two different companies but the Palm trademark was held by a jointly owned holding company. By the end of 2003, the hardware division of the business merged with Handspring, and the business was renamed as palmOne Inc. 

After a couple of years, palmOne purchased PalmSource’s share in the common trademark for $30 million. Thus, the brand name of palmOne was changed to Palm Inc, bringing back the old brand name. In the same year, PalmSource was acquired by a company called ACCESS. The new Palm Inc started a partnership with Verizon and Microsoft in 2006 to release Palm Treo 700w. The company entered into a strategic partnership with Elevation Partners who purchased a 25% equity stake in Palm.  In 2008, the CEO of the company announced that Palm would no longer develop any new handheld PDAs. In early 2009, the share price increased to the WebOS hype but again dropped after a year. 

Palm Inc
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Acquisition By HP

In April 2010, HP announced that it would be purchasing Palm for $1.2 billion and the deal was completed two months later. After a year, HP unfolded a new line of WebOS products but they were not under the brand name Palm. In 2011, HP also decided to discontinue the use of the Palm brand and after a few months ended the production of all Palm and WebOS services. After this decision, many Palm staff members started leaving HP. In 2014, the Palm brand name resurfaced again as HP sold the trademark to a shelf company, a regional president of TCL Corporation. In 2015, TCL confirmed the acquisition of the Palm brand and that Palm would be recreated by a team in Silicon Valley.

About Jeff Hawkins 

Jeff Hawkins is the founder of both Palm Inc and Handspring. He studied electrical engineering at Cornell University and started working for GRiD Systems in 1982. After founding Palm and Handspring, Jeff co-founded Numenta in 2005 along with Dubinsky and Dileep George. Jeff has also made contributions in the field of neuroscience and founded Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience in 2002. 

Veeco

Veeco – Leading Provider Of Smart Solutions In The Semiconductor Market.

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Veeco is a New York-based global equipment supplier that was originally founded in 1945. It is a leading provider of smart solutions in the semiconductor market, especially for nanoscale devices and smart packaging production. Some of its well-known advanced solutions are laser processing systems, lithography systems, dicing and lapping systems, and many more. Apart from semiconductors, it also offers various data storage products and scientific materials. Veeco has more than 1,100 employees who are working coherently to deliver services around the clock. The technologies that are offered by Veeco are used by various enterprises to enable AI, virtual and augmented reality, cloud storage, 5G wireless communication, etc. 

Back in the 1940s

Two scientists, Frank Raible and Al Nerken established Veeco in 1945. The company was founded as a business that specializes in leak detector equipment. Originally, the name of the company was Vacuum Electronic Equipment Company, and in short, it made the current name of the company “Veeco.” During the 1960s, the company decided to merge with another company, Lambda (a power supply manufacturing business) which was followed by the merged company’s acquisition by Unitech in the 1980s. 

In the late 1980s, discussions took place to split Veeco’s instrument business from Unitech. And, this was successfully acquired by Edward H. Braun, the then COO of Veeco, and a group of senior executives from the company. It was a management buyout and Braun became the new CEO of the independent company. The new company was named Veeco Instruments and it completed an initial public offering in 1994. Veeco Instruments raised $27.5 million from the IPO. After it went public, Veeco acquired a series of companies including Ion Tech Inc through which it entered the optical coating market. 

Veeco
Image source: amazonaws.com

Veeco in the 21st century

In the new decade, the company’s first acquisition was Applied EPI, which is the current-day Molecular Beam Epitaxy group. This group currently maintains a leadership position in MBE technology worldwide. In 2003, Veeco acquired Emcore which helped the company start a business in metal-organic chemical vapor deposition technologies. Thus, it entered the advanced LED, VCSEL, and photonics market. From 2007 to 2010, the company released several MOCVD and MBE compound semiconductor systems. The company also did heavy research in the ALD field for more than a decade and published several papers. 

In July 2007, Braun became the chairman of the board of Veeco whereas former president of JDSU’s Communications Test and Measurement Division, John Peeler joined the company as the new CEO. Next year, Veeco settled patent litigation that it brought against Asylum Research Corporation in 2003. In late 2010, Veeco decided to sell its metrology business to Bruker Corporation and the deal was settled for $229.4 million. After a couple of years, John Peeler became the new chairman of the company’s board. In 2014, Veeco acquired Solid State Equipment Co. which helped to expand its portfolio to solvent-based wet etch and clean technologies for semiconductors. In recent years, the company is focussing on the advanced packaging market, hence it decided to acquire Ultratech in 2017. Through this acquisition, it also acquired Cambridge Nanotech, a Boston-based company specializing in atomic layer deposition technology. 

Bill Miller – CEO of Veeco

Bill Miller is the present CEO of the company and has also served as the company’s President since 2016. He is associated with the company for a long time as he held several executive positions before becoming the CEO. Dr. Miller studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and thus he held various engineering and operations positions in other companies he worked for. Before joining Veeco, he worked at Advanced Energy and Exxon.