Why did Whistler Cancel the TRX-100 and TRX-200 ?
On March 29, 2019, Whistler announced the end of development for the long awaited TRX-100 and TRX-200.
What happened to this product, why did it fail to launch, and what does this mean for Whistler?
I have a few ideas why this might have happened and I share my thoughts on today’s podcast.
Links and Sources from this session:
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What you need to know
ON March 29, 2019, Whistler Wendy, took to Radio Reference to announce the death of the long awaited successor to the TRX-1 and TRX-2 scanners, the TRX-100 and TRX-200.
Whistler Group purchased the scanner radio assets from GRE in 2017. GRE closed shop in 2014 and in 2017, GRE America shut it’s doors.
While Whistler released the TRX-1 and TRX-2 since acquiring the GRE assets, we have been waiting for a new and fresh update to the Whistler line.
It looked like we were going to get our chance to see something new late 2018, but we now know that is no longer the case.
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Podcast Transcription:
(Coming Soon)
Listened with interest, your take on the cancelation of the TRX100 & 200. As I have already posted my opinion I won’t duplicate it here. But it agrees with your understanding of the situation which is essentially loss of market share… but for differing reasons.
One additional item that occurred to me after listening to your podcast was this: I now wonder if Uniden’s SDS100, with its issues didn’t cause people to lay back when the SDS200 was introduced. The cost of the SDS200 was also a definite concern. I imagine there are those who were sitting on the fence, waiting to see if the newsgroup postings would be more favorable than the SDS100. And seeing a drastic drop in SDS200 postings when compared to the ADS100, decided that a lot of interest was lost… I wonder if the expectation of the two Whistler models didn’t also cause people to remain sitting on that fence?
Now that Whistler has canceled these two models, maybe those still on the fence will jump down on Uniden’s side. As you said, Uniden (at least currently) is the only game in town.
Whistler says it’s got stuff in the pipeline… maybe another question for Scanner School would be “What innovative ideas might Whistler be relating to that they’ve got in their pipeline? They’ve already (extensively) listed what they hoped to add to the two canceled models, so, what’s left?
Bill
The PSR-900 that never was became the Whistler WS-1095…. I have one.
Some direct hits, some near misses. Story of GRE’s demise is almost entirely incorrect, but only a few insiders know the real story. Your blog reflects the official account, but the problems were very different and started when the founder retired and turned the business over to his son. Can’t say more, here.
Until about 2005, Uniden and GRE split the RadioShack branded business. Due to some personnel changes, around that time RS decided to go to a single source and selected GRE, since GRE did not have a competing street brand. Later (near the end), they did bring Uniden back in under the Uniden brand. When RS went belly up, several things resulted:
1) The total scanner market shrank dramatically.
2) Whistler lost a huge amount of market share (as you noted).
3) Whistler had >$1M in product shipped that RS had not yet paid for (according to public court documents). That had to hurt.
Because we took great care with the financial arrangements with RS, Uniden’s loss when RS stopped paying bills nearly nothing.
I’ve never needed GRE or Whistler around to have a reason to come out with new, improved models. Technology and innovation drives my product development timelines. Whistler has never been a factor in what or when we come out with a new model. Not because of a lack of respect, but because we have reason enough for new models without considering their share.
Some have promoted the idea of just copying a competitor’s product as a way to reduce their competitor’s market share. I have a different philosophy on this that can be summed up as “You never win a race by trying to tie.”
As to why Whistler announced, then dropped (nearly a year later) the TRX-100 and TRX-200, I have my thoughts…which I’ll keep to myself. It is a shame for the market, though. New models drive attention to the category and even if the model isn’t ours, we do benefit from the increased attention.