Agilent to spin off electronic measurement business
reuters.com/article/2013/09/19/agilent-spinof...
reuters.comPosted Sep 20, 2013, 1:36 PM UTC
4618
reuters.comAgain?
8
What else does it have?
5
hit their web page, look under the "life sciences & chemical analysis" section, then "instruments & systems": gas chromatographs, liquid chromatographs, mass spectrometers, etc, etc.
they also sell all the consumables to go with all of that equipment. which maybe helps its profitability compared to T&M stuff which doesn't have as many consumables?
3
Healthcare. Apparently they also make a lot of cardiac monitors, EEGs, etc.
2
Yeah, the life sciences division makes much more than their (former) Test & Measurement division. The latter just has far more exposure due to its more commercial nature.
Which makes it seem odd to me that they'd keep the name "Agilent" with the less recognizable life sciences company, but so it goes.
3
the chemistry/biology/whatever folks are much more easily confused & traumatized by name changes than EEs, in my experience.
1
Wasn't the medical stuff sold to Philips round about the time HP spun Agilent out?
2
You're absolutely right. Looking at their home page, the article is wrong and it's more life sciences, genomics/proteomics, food testing and similar laboratory equipment.
2
Defense contracts
1
I was kind of wondering about that. I found it odd that they got rid of most of their sales department not too long ago (now they use distributors) and got rid of some of their divisions (their IP testing group was sold to JDSU).
3
And the cesium clocks (HP5071) were sold to Symmetricom.
4
noooooooo.... Hewlett and Packard spinning in their graves again....
dammit, Agilent oscopes are still my favorite.
3
Really? Over LeCroy?
1
Yes really. I've reviewed LeCroy scopes every 5 years or so just to make sure I'm not missing something good, and they always seem to have the most bizarre user interface of the Big 3 (Tek, Agilent, Lecroy).
I would agree that if it weren't for the user interface, LeCroy is probably better value for the money. I can't comment on analog noise levels (Agilent beats Tek handsdown for the moderate-cost scopes e.g. MSOX3000 in Agilent, MSO3000/4000 in Tek) for LeCroy, never got around to testing that.
I've written up some more detailed comments in a blog entry.
2
We had them here last year and they demoed the WaveRunner, WavePro, and WaveAce. I found the interface quite slick. Especially with network attached storage for waveforms and scripts/results.
I just skimmed your blog entry, but if you're looking for "Hi-Res" mode, all the LeCroy are 12 bit scopes and show an increase in waveform resolution. They also have built in matlab support (I know you're not a fan, but...), complex triggering (the usual "A then B" stuff and also serial protocol "trigger on I2C write to address 0x51). Also if you get that little module shown in the picture on your blog you get a logic analyzer and some DIO (can't remember if analog I/O too).
1
New company called "Hayeech Pea".
2
Sadly it's not merely defense spending and telecom causing declining revenues. It's also continuing impacts from the HP split that haven't led to product portfolio adjustments to meet revenue levels. This has also caused a flight of talent and a screwed up set of strategies that are diametrically opposed to accomplishing what the company really needs to innovate.
I'd all very sad but the hand-writing has been on the wall for a while. Honestly I do NOT expect this T&M company to thrive. It's already being run into the ground by financial management outlook rather than an engineering/entrepreneurial outlook.
I'm still glad I left over a decade ago. This is pretty much what I predicted would happen back in 2000. Everything pretty much on schedule and as expected. By 2020-2025, neither HP nor the T&M company will exist as separate companies. The brands might survive as a subsidiary of another company at best.
I was an intern at Agilent, and they made it pretty clear that Agilent splintered from HP because consumer electronics was a much more profitable area and the T&M didn't really fit in anymore.
Then Bill Sullivan came out and talked to us (the interns) one day, and everything he had to say was about how life sciences was the future of the company. So I asked him if he foresaw another company split, this time between EMG and LSG/CAG. In so many words, he responded "no," but the question really seemed to fluster him. That was two years ago, so this idea must have been under serious consideration when I asked him.