[Ipg-smz] The Fry’s Era - Monday Note

[Rob Reilly]

On our belated honeymoon trip to Silicon Valley, around 1993, my wife
and I visited the Sunnyvale store. She puzzled over the snack/tooth
paste/hygiene products aisle until I focused her attention on some of
the rather "unique" customers walking around in the store. She got a big
kick out of it. Of course, I just shook my head and humbly reminded
myself that I too had noticed the 3-foot tall resistors and ceramic
capacitors, stationed around the store. Geek, nerd, techie, hacker.

MC flew me up to their Duluth (Atlanta) location, a few months ago to
check out the DIY/Maker section of the store, for a possible gig. They
seem to be doing well. The store manager was current on various tech and
they had a nice inventory of parts, 3D printers, filament, notebooks and
other geeky stuff.

Turns out they needed somebody who was a hacker/maker/DIY and also
fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Don't know if they ever found anybody. I
didn't get the gig. I wish them well.

Sad to see other tech institutions biting the dust. Seeing an early 90's
Byte mention the tourist buses stopping at the Sunnyvale store, was way
cool back in the day. Well, I thought it was, anyway.

Tech still has the same hold on me even today. 3D printing, Freecad,
Raspberry Pi 4's, steampunk, Linux, etc. It's all good and full of
opportunity.

And, I get to write and speak about it. Awesome.

Best time in history to be in tech.

drtorq


On 9/5/19 5:10 PM, Andy Patrizio via Ipg-smz wrote:
> Belated response...
>
> I wrote to JLG about this and he kindly responded. We both agree Fry's brought this on itself. It had an abysmal reputation among my system builder friends for terrible quality control, putting broken gear back on the shelves for sale. I heard horror stories of buying the same parts two and three times to find one that worked. And their staff was notoriously incompetent and lackadaisical.
>
> I'm not surprised the Palo Alto store is closing, it was the smallest with poor parking. Sunnyvale was my favorite when I lived up there, followed by Fremont (which is just massive). I'm curious how the others are doing, and how its major competitor Micro Center is doing. I know the one in Sunnyale near Yahoo closed but the others appear to be doing fine, especially the one down here in the OC. MC has embraced the online market far better than Fry's and I'd love to do a contrast of the two companies' fortunes, if someone wants to hire me. <hint> <hint>
>
> One area where I disagreed with JLG is the online effect. He said Amazon was is undoing but I say NewEgg did more damage. It really catered to hobbyists and they reciprocated.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ipg-smz <ipg-smz-bounces at netpress.org> On Behalf Of Gabe Goldberg via Ipg-smz
> Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2019 8:21 AM
> To: undisclosed-recipients:
> Cc: Gabe Goldberg <gabe at gabegold.com>
> Subject: [Ipg-smz] The Fry’s Era - Monday Note
>
> by Jean-Louis Gassée
> Throughout the 90’s and aughts, Fry’s Electronics was a Silicon Valley institution, a truly aboriginal techie bazaar where geeks could find everything they needed to live in autarky, from logic boards to voltmeters, dried noodles to “nice” clothes for a job interview, magazines, energy bars, mini-fridges… A quarter-century later, Fry’s stores have become sad, pale shadows of their glorious past.
>
> https://mondaynote.com/the-frys-era-8709a7e602eb
>
-- 
--------------------------
Rob "drtorq" Reilly
doc at drtorq.com
407-718-3274
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