AMP / Uncas Whitaker level-three connector business

AMP (Harrisburg, PA), founded by Uncas Whitaker (after whom Whitaker College at MIT is named), as the dominant supplier of board-to-subsystem plug-in connectors. Used to illustrate the level-three interconnect tier and the economics of plug-in board replacement ($5,000 per board, repaired and resold).

The board to the subsystem — that's within a cabinet. You've got an audio amp, you buy it and you put it into your audio system. That's that little thing that's 18 inches across by 10 inches deep by 3 or 4 inches high. You've got a bunch of interconnects in there, and these things plug into little connectors. There's a company called AMP, anybody heard of AMP, out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania? You ever heard of the Whitakers — Whitaker College here at MIT? Uncas Whitaker started a company called AMP, the world's largest manufacturer of level-three packaging — all those little plug-in connectors. You pull a printed circuit board out nowadays, if you're lucky enough to have a repairman come in — all he does is, he's got a full set of circuit boards, he just pulls them out until the thing starts working. When it starts working again, he leaves that board with you, charges you $5,000 for the replacement board, takes the other board back to the factory and someone repairs it. Then they sell it to somebody else for $5,000.