Scientific Atlanta history

Robinson agreed on the spot, and with Boyd, EES Director Gerald Rosselot and four other EES staff — and their combined $700 in seed money — Scientific-Atlanta was launched in 1952.

By 1956 the fledgling firm had completed development of its first product, built its first plant, and amassed 30 employees.

Scientific Atlanta grew dramatically; it earned $3.1 million in revenue in 1962 and approximately $200 million when Robinson left.

In 1971 Sidney Topol, an executive at the Raytheon Company with a background in physics and satellite technology, was named president of Scientific-Atlanta.

The company's profits ballooned by 40 percent a year from 1972 on as Scientific-Atlanta came to dominate the market it had largely pioneered.

In 1973 the company displayed a portable satellite earth station at a communications trade show in California.

In 1976, as sales rose to more than $45 million, the company greatly expanded its manufacturing, laboratory, and office space at its headquarters.

By the end of 1978 Scientific-Atlanta's sales had reached $94.2 million, with earnings of $5 million.

In March 1979, an organizational meeting was held to determine the focus of the group and make plans for the first event.

Schuyten, Peter J., “Scientific Atlanta’s New Look,” New York Times, January 7, 1980.

Quality control issues with set-top boxes (units placed on top of television sets to receive cable channel broadcasts) began to plague the firm; in 1982, these problems resulted in Scientific-Atlanta's first quarterly loss in 13 years.

Partly as a result of these changes the company posted a net loss in 1986 of $9.2 million.

Names W.E. Johnson Vice Chairman, Chief,” Wall Street Journal, February 2, 1987.

Nonetheless, by the beginning of the l990s the company's overall performance had improved dramatically as earnings increased 121 percent over the last half of the previous decade to reach $36 million in 1989 and rose again to hit $44.3 million one year later.

Cook, James, “You’ve Got to Knock Off a Few Gas Stations First,” Forbes, March 5, 1990.

In early 1991 the company introduced a satellite network for smaller businesses and began to market signal encoding devices to a number of companies.

"scientific-atlanta." international directory of company histories. detroit: gale research, 1992.

1993: James McDonald becomes CEO, overseas large investment in interactive digital cable technology.

In 1994, the company invested in PowerTV, a Cupertino, California start-up that was developing software and graphics hardware for various makes of digital set-top boxes.

General Instrument introduced the first commercially viable digital settop box in 1996.

By 1997, the company would sell off several units, including its venerable microwave instrumentations unit.

Investors regained confidence as sales of the new Explorer, a $350 digital set-top box, took off in late 1998.

Scientific-Atlanta expanded throughout 1999 as demand for both its Explorer cable box and its stock grew.

Explorers sales rose in 2000, and so did sales of satellite transmission products.

However, some still felt there was room for growth, as only 22 percent of United States cable customers were expected to have digital service by the end of 2001.

Weakening economic conditions began to undercut sales during the first half of fiscal 2002.

In February 2003, Scientific-Atlanta introduced their first Explorer HD set-top box, which is capable of displaying HDTV programming, at Best Buy stores in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

In March 2004, Scientific-Atlanta launched the Explorer 8000HD, their first set-top box with both DVR and HD.

In its fiscal year 2005, Scientific Atlanta earned $1.36 per common share (diluted).

On February 25, 2006, Cisco Systems announced that it had completed acquisition of Scientific Atlanta in a cash deal that paid $43 per share.

The company was honored at the 2008 Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for development of interactive video on demand infrastructure and signaling, leading to large scale VOD implementations.

The two day symposium included a Scientific-Atlanta series 2020 Antenna Analyzer User Workshop, an open forum discussion, and tours of local antenna measurement facilities.

Meet your AMTA 2021 Board of Directors