Subject:
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Re: Forbes article: Toy Story
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general, lugnet.games
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Date:
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Tue, 13 Jun 2000 21:13:12 GMT
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Viewed:
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2371 times
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In lugnet.general, Ka-On Lee writes:
> http://www.forbes.com/forbes/00/0612/6514140a.htm
> A little bit about "Allen unloaded Zowie on the venerable Danish toymaker
> LEGO" on page 3.
Thanks for the link Ka-On Lee! A VERY amusing and informative article to be
sure.
TLC's aquisition of Zowie may still turn out to be a fiasco, but in fairness
there are reasons as to why they may have taken this step (although if you
look at Zowie's toy output its a little hard to imagine what they needed from
this company).
The first thing to consider is the fact that TLC is a producer of a
traditional toy -- building blocks (albeit their own unique strain of
blocks). But do also note that they are often perceived as one of the
greatest toy Brands of all time, and Lego blocks often rank high as a favorite
toy. I guess kids love to build and adults often remember building with
fondness.
The computer connected system Mindstorms was apparently wildly popular and a
great success for TLC. Basically, even if a kid wants to blow off
the "programming" part of the toy, s/he has lots of technic stuff to build
with and you're back to your basic block toy simplicity (or very nearly). If
the kid decides that s/he wants to build a robotic device, there are lots of
simple tutorials available via the cd-rom. Let's face it, for a toy of its
kind Mindstorms is quite brilliantly designed. Its versatile and modular even
in the manner in which one might to choose to play with it.
So TLC may not have gone totally mad when it acquired Zowie -- there may yet
be method to their seeming madness. I remain aloof, but maybe TLC has a trump
card up their sleeve yet -- probably the Joker.
-- Richard
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Forbes article: Toy Story
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| (URL) about the movie, but about traditional toy makers' mistakes in making interactive toys. A little bit about "Allen unloaded Zowie on the venerable Danish toymaker LEGO" on page 3. (24 years ago, 13-Jun-00, to lugnet.general, lugnet.games)
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