10 American Companies That Will Disappear in 2011

[Uther]

On the heels of my other post (10 great companies that lost their edge) I found this article.

10 American Companies That Will Disappear in 2011

Here are my observations:

Saab USA (Who cares? Putting the ignition switch in a different place does not mean you are driving a jet.)

Office Depot (I like them, but I've noticed that their variety is growing less and their PC area has been pretty bare for a long time now - I prefer Staples and have recently alo been impressed with Target's office supplies department).

Dean Foods (Uh, OK?)

Sara Lee (Hey, I eat their bagels, cheesecake and coffee cake!)

Borders (wow, you're kidding me? Of course it has been on the charts for years.)

Gateway (Good riddance.)

Dollar Thrifty (Long not been the choice of anyone renting a car.)

Answers Corp. (Who? There are other search engines out there apart from Google and Bing? Why?)

E*Trade (I guess talking babies ain't enough?)

Frontier Airlines (It amazes me how long a loss-making airline can stay alive - cough, cough AA)

[Common Sense Al]

Interesting... I didn't really care until I saw E*trade since that's who I signed up with years ago and still have my retirement accounts with them.

I do have an older Gateway notebook that I don't really use right now, but don't care much.

I also wonder how much time Borders has left.

[slider701]

JcPenney should be on the death watch also:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/JC-Penney ... 6.html?x=0

I was there the other day (against my will) and was shocked on how dead it was, and the amount of inventory they have. I can't see them lasting another 12 months.

[JKTex]

Wow, and I use eTrade daily.

[Brian]

Why isnt Best Buy on there? Maybe that will be 2012 list.

JCP doesnt suprise me. I would envision all the dept stores on that list very soon. Maybe except for a few of the high end stores like Nordstroms. But, Dillards, Macys will probably be in the same boat as JCP.

[JKTex]

I think the retial industry has changed so fast and drastic that even though JCP turned things around and were doing really well in recent years, it was such a small window before the industry changed requiring them to have needed to continue to change which I'm not sure a lot of them have. If they build a competitive online presence they have a chance, but they'll likely struggle managing all the real estate burdens because the cost to really compete online will mean smaller margins, unless they can get skinny enough.

[Common Sense Al]

Just read an article about how Nokia is struggling... not too long ago weren't they one of the "kings" of mobile phones? Now they are fading away... kind of like Palm did (remember the Palm PDA and all the "hot" news when a new Palm PDA was released?). Hard to imagine, but could something like this one day happen to the iPhone, iPad, and maybe even Facebook & Google? Don't forsee it happening to Facebook & Google anytime soon as they seem to be "on top of things".

[JKTex]

Nokia has been boring for a long time.

Palm had a great mobile OS but no good hardware and just no juice to make things happen. Hopefully with the new hardware just announced, HP will get "Palm" turned around. HP has scooped up a lot of key pieces of cloud computing and along with WebOS, they have the makings of a pretty exciting time ahead.

Maybe MS and Nokia can get something going, otherwise who knows who will scoop Nokia up before they fall into the history books.

[Uther]

For a "Wow!" read the memo that the Nokia CEO wrote to his staff. And note, he is an ex-Microsoft guy.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/noki ... st-burnin/

[Common Sense Al]

For a "Wow!" read the memo that the Nokia CEO wrote to his staff. And note, he is an ex-Microsoft guy.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/noki ... st-burnin/

Wow... pretty candid! It seems they see and understand what has happened to them and how much trouble they're in... that's a good start... now they need to turn it around. Can they?

Never was a big Apple fan, but have been enjoying my iPod touch more and more lately along with my son and wife. I also plan on buying an iPad 2 when it's available (I don't see any Windows 7 tablets beating the iPad on user experience anytime soon)... and have recommended my sister, who uses Verizon, to get an iPhone the next time she upgrades.

I had already forgotten about how big & important Nokia use to be until I read about their struggles and possibly using Windows Phone 7.

[Uther]

For a "Wow!" read the memo that the Nokia CEO wrote to his staff. And note, he is an ex-Microsoft guy.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/noki ... st-burnin/

Wow... pretty candid! It seems they see and understand what has happened to them and how much trouble they're in... that's a good start... now they need to turn it around. Can they?

Actually, I don't think "they" get it, if "they" refers to the rank-and-file. On Friday, when it was announced that Nokia would develop for WP7, more than 1,000 Nokia employees walked off the job or took flex leave for the day.

[Common Sense Al]

Actually, I don't think "they" get it, if "they" refers to the rank-and-file. On Friday, when it was announced that Nokia would develop for WP7, more than 1,000 Nokia employees walked off the job or took flex leave for the day.

Interesting. I didn't read about that but with that kind of attitude I doubt they'll make it... unless they have something really amazing up their sleeves.

[JKTex]

For a "Wow!" read the memo that the Nokia CEO wrote to his staff. And note, he is an ex-Microsoft guy.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/noki ... st-burnin/

Wow... pretty candid! It seems they see and understand what has happened to them and how much trouble they're in... that's a good start... now they need to turn it around. Can they?

Actually, I don't think "they" get it, if "they" refers to the rank-and-file. On Friday, when it was announced that Nokia would develop for WP7, more than 1,000 Nokia employees walked off the job or took flex leave for the day.

Cool, headline nest week, "Nokia holds job fair to fill 1000 positions".

I know someone that works there, I'll have to ask her what's happening behind the walls.

[Uther]

Actually, I don't think "they" get it, if "they" refers to the rank-and-file. On Friday, when it was announced that Nokia would develop for WP7, more than 1,000 Nokia employees walked off the job or took flex leave for the day.

Interesting. I didn't read about that but with that kind of attitude I doubt they'll make it... unless they have something really amazing up their sleeves.

Here: http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/nok ... -20110211/

[Common Sense Al]

Here: http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/nok ... -20110211/

I guess it makes a lot more sense if those workers worked on Symbian or Symbian based software... they know they're in trouble if they're going to bring in another OS to compete with or replace Symbian, so why would they support something that could cause the loss of their jobs?

I remember driving by a building with "NOKIA" on it years ago (Irving?), and thinking how nice it must be to work for such a well-known and respected company... but things can change quickly now more than ever. I guess that's why there's no such thing as "job security" anymore or working for a company for decades and getting a pension (well, at least no where near what it was before).