Rockwell Selling Dodge and Reliance Motors

[TimWilborne]

A sales rep came by the other day and told me this. I thought it was a rumor but I found THIS They are keeping Reliance Drives but getting rid of motors According to their statement they are going to "create an even greater focus on power and integrated control and information solutions to meet customers' business needs."

[gravitar]

I'll have to ask around and see if I can find out the "real" reason :)

[gravitar]

I heard from a pretty reilable source that the president of Reliance was disgruntled with Rockwell management and rounded up enough venture capital to back him in a "hostile takeover". Curiously, no mention was made at today's Drives Headquarters about Reliance/Dodge parting company, and it was only talked about in hushed tones when I brought it up :)

[TimWilborne]

Very interesting. I guess we will have to wait and see what the outcome is

[gravitar]

Yeah, it'll be interesting. The motion guys are pretty upset because apparently there's a product line that Siemens bought and had no competition, so Rockwell just spent a LOT of R&D $$ so that Dodge could have a competing product... And now Dodge themself will be a competitor! Nevermind the fact that all A-B branded motors are made by Reliance, too. Glad I'm not involved!

[Gerry]

AB/Rockwell didn't buy Reliance because they had Dodge, Reeves. Flexpak. Automax, Electrocraft, or that gen-set brand that escapes me at the moment - it was for the motors! (and their plant in Euclid was real close to Mayfield) A certain AB president (initials J.G.) made a total balls-up of the merger and ended up resigning for "personal reasons" and later moving to a certain increasingly obscure and irrelevant 'removeable disk storage' manufacturer. I don't think it's any secret that a lot of Reliance people were/are disgruntled - but losing motors and keeping drives?! -doesn't make sense.

[TimWilborne]

You know come to think of it, I use AB drives and Baldor or GE motors. Are motor sales strong?