Not that many tech companies survived for 130 years, but today is the day that the father of CD-i, Philips itself, was founded 130 years ago in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. We admit it, our family was one of the Philips families, we owe a lot to this company. Having the privilege to enjoy the life of CD-i close to the people who invented and built it, is very special and perhaps one of the reasons why this blog actually exists. Our close contacts with colleagues especially at the Research departments brought us a lot of stories, memories, and even donations. We thank Philips for all their help they gave us building Interactive Dreams from the ground. Without their support, a significant part of the interviews and stories here were still hidden away.
CD-i was developed at the peak of the expansion drift in a time that Philips seemed like being active in virtually everything. Next to consumer electronics, domestic appliances, personal care products, medical products, they stepped into content related media more and more. The Compact Disc invention led to exploring the creation of a whole CD Family, with the CD-Interactive being the next big thing. Unfortunately, the early Nineties marked the turning point with Centurion and Philips started to focus more more, getting rid of certain businesses. The whole Media business was stopped when CD-i did not turn out to be the big golden standard in multimedia as was hoped. But Philips left us with a beautiful history, a great journey and numerous stories of these unfilled interactive dreams!