<HTML>In a message dated 10/31/01 3:38:26 PM Pacific Standard Time, grandrestorations@yahoo.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I guess it's another story a lot like Kimball... too little too late...  </BLOCKQUOTE> Actually it is exactly the opposite. Kimball showed that you *can* take a mediocre piano and with excellent management and marketing skills build a fortune 500 billion dollar plus a year international company from it, and sell more pianos than nearly anyone else in the process. Kimball hardly withered away. They simply looked at the numbers, and decided they could turn far more profit from their factories if they built something else in them instead of trying to continue building pianos in a shrinking marketplace. Piano building is a cash cow type business - if you do much volume you have to have millions of dollars in materials just sitting outdoors that you can't even use right away for example. I remember in the 70s and 80s how the other American piano makers laughed at Kimball for diversifying the way they did. They'd dismiss them by saying things like "yeah, they make great furniture, if they would concentrate on making pianos instead of everything else in the world they might make a good piano too"  - things like that. Today, Kimball spends enough money on their corporate jet fleet to pay Baldwin's debts several times over. We all know where the others went, now look where Kimball went: http:www.kimballinternational.com I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers didn't show that Kimball has more money as a result of being in the piano business than any other piano company in existence. Just thought you'd find this interesting. Larry Fletcher Atlanta Chapter 301</HTML>