A few days ago I spoke with Tom Gasko, who was, and I do emphasize the past tense, a huge supporter of Dyson. The unit he sold and promoted was the now defunct DC07. Everything produced by Dyson since has been of inferior quality. The DC14 reduced the size of the bin because comsumers thought the DC07 looked too bulky. The hose handle was changed because consumers thought it was too much trouble to invert the wand. Hype and hyperbole have been the tools of Dyson marketing since before their incursion into North America. Does anyone remember the original Fantom? Dual cyclone, Dyson invention. Dyson forgot the K.I.S.S. principle. The first 400,000 or so units with their B&D motors were great vacuums. The only reason the ones still running have to go to the junkheap is because parts are no longer available. If Dyson had put his dual cyclone with the improved shroud on top of the Fantom brush roll/head with a v-belt and a full-diameter wand inside a hose large enough to store it, it would have been the perfect bagless vacuum! More cyclones mean more convoluted dirt paths. A powerful enough motor would have boosted the performance of the dual cyclone sufficiently to have made a washable permanent hepa filter feasible.
Dyson was stupid. If he had played his cards right, he could have utterly, totally, completely destroyed the world vacuum cleaner market. But he is in love with his prowess as an engineer, and believes himself above the laws of marketing. Here's what he should have done, and screw astm and all the rest.
1) Create a retrofit single cyclone bagless conversion kit for all uprights. Start marketing on infomercials, and QVC. Do the vacuum demo trick with the consumers own vacuum, clean with a bag, and clean with the conversion kit. See, you don't need a new vacuum at all, you just need our kit to make your old vacuum better than any new vacuum you can buy!
2) Get the vac shops involved. Stay out of the big box retailers! The sales of new vacs and vac bags are hurting, and the sales of old vacs are more profitable than ever. People are buying the conversion kits and keeping their old vacuums. It's obviosly a defensible patent. Don't sell or lease it. The minor players start dropping like flies. Let them. Keep it up until the big players are bleeding. Vacuums are a minor product for big box retailers now, so they buy fewer of them. No one is going to notice or care, it's just vacuums, right?
3) Create the wand mounted dirt cup for canisters, create the new and improved version of the upright cup, hard plastic with push button bottom empty. Keep selling on QVC. Get cleaning professionals and allergists on the bandwagon. Save money! Make your old vacuum better than new!
4) Introduce small canisters, hand vacs and stick vacs with the cyclonic technology, to be continued
