GENUI Acquires Mechanical Keyboard Switch Maker CHERRY | Hacker News Reader

GENUI Acquires Mechanical Keyboard Switch Maker CHERRY

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62 pointshrez29 comments

"Hooray, somebody has acquired the company that makes a product that I already considered perfect" -- Nobody, ever.

I've only every bought one Cherry keyboard. 15 years ago, used daily still. I think that's their main failing as a business. They're too good.

I just hope their new owners don't try to fix this.

The demand for mechanical keyboards and switches is as high as ever. Countless Cherry MX clones are flooding the market. Cherry just can't keep up with the quality and the lower cost of clones. They could only be profitable while holding the patent for their switches. When the patent expired it was the beginning of the end for them.

Typing this response using a Filco Majestouch tenkeyless keyboard ... with "black" cherry switches.

Keep it real ...

This is wierd, ZF primarily builds gearboxes and car parts. What can they do with a keyboard company?

Sell keyboards I expect.

They presumably have engineering and marketing staff so they should do great.

They actually seem like pretty good fits. Gear boxes and lots of car parts is basically precision manufacturing. I'm sure there's a lot of overlap in engineering and probably lots of knowledge that can go in both directions.

Not sure why there is so much doom and gloom in this thread.

Cherry is hardly a keyboard company, they make industrial switches, sensors, and control systems. mechanical keyboard switches are just one product.

It reads to me that ZF is absorbing the industrial side of Cherry and spun out the keyboard/key switch side to a private equity firm (GENUI).

If you like Cherry switches in keyboards, this should probably be seen as a good thing.

They also make lots of terrible, bog-standard, 20 EUR rubber-dome keyboards too -- but maybe those are not seen outside of Germany.

I've seen a lot of them in Spain and I can confirm those are absolutely terrible

I've got the UK version of one of their bog-standard rubber dome keyboards and it's decent enough, for a rubber dome keyboard anyway. Think it cost less than the equivalent of 10 EUR too.

I mean, one of the largest manufacture of generic Cherry switches is Kailh, who manufactures thousands of automotive limit and button switches.

Very long time cherry appreciator, I hope their staff and products are well looked after by the new owners.

Long life to Cherry. The world need more Mechanical Keyboards!

Welp, I'll have to find someone else to source my switches from, so hard to find good mechanical switches.

Cherry MX Reds for life.

Given that the company they just bought is the industry standard for this part, I'm sure they intend to keep making them. Doesn't make sense to cancel a star product.

Not cancel, but usually when someone gets bought, the product quality tanks.

They were bought by ZF a few years back

That's highly dependent on the type of acquisition. What the new owners want from the purchase makes all the difference. In the case of Google and many Silicon Valley companies, you see "acqui-hires", where they buy the company just as a way of hiring staff. Those, for example, almost always kill the original product entirely. Sometimes it is just a "if we cut quality, we can raise profits on this little investment we just bought into". But often it's to take advantage of mutual strengths to grow product lines in ways they couldn't before.

I am not a big fan of Cherry keyboards in terms of typing experience - on those I have used, I had to push the keys pretty hard, and there was little tactile or acoustic feedback. It feels like dipping my fingers into cold honey.

On the other hand, those things pretty much last forever, I have two of 'em still sitting on my shelf that must be 16 to 18 years old, and they worked perfectly the last time I used them. They are still PS/2, so I can no longer attach them to any of my machines, but something inside me refuses to throw away gear that still works.

PS/2 to USB adaptors aren't very expensive.

My private machine is an MBP and I like the feeling of the keyboard. So I bought a Cherry Clean Desktop, and it's a pretty good approximation of that MBP feeling. Slightly more force is needed, but only slightly.

That seems... weird.

What are you comparing them to in terms of feedback? Was it some bizarre switch like the cherry MX red?

No, he's using Cherry keyboards from the 90's of early 2000's. Those are membrane so regular mushy keyboards.

Cherry is famous for the mechanical keys it produces but it still caught the membrane wave so it could be relevant in the 90s.

Back then, Cherry sold "noiseless" keyboard that did not click (at least not very loudly) when typing on them. I have no idea if those were mechanical of not, but I did not like the way they felt (but like I said, they were extremely reliable).

So I guess the more expensive Cherry keyboards are closer to, say, a Model M. Good to know, I will keep that in mind when shopping for a keyboard the next time.

They still produce tactile clicky, tactile but fairly silent and linear (not clicky, not tactile) varieties of even mechanical switches. All of these varieties are quite different and you can get them with different kinds of springs.

I don't know if all these varieties are available in keyboards straight from Cherry but multiple version of all of them are found in keyboards by other manufacturers that utilize Cherry switches.

There are lots of refurb Model M's around if you want one. Or if you want a 'new' one, you can get Unicomps (pckeyboard.com) that uses the same buckling spring tech.

I used to own a Model M. Must have been twenty years old, but it still was in great condition. Then I gave it to my parenty, hoping that such an old school keyboard would make them feel more at home when using the PC.

Turned out they never used the damn thing and then - I hope you are sitting down! - threw it out. They're my parents, and I love them dearly. But that made me kind of sad.

Take off the caps and throw the rest of the keyboard away, what you have are likely worthless membrane keyboards, not the mechanical ones Cherry is famous for.

(When throwing away do of course break them open to see if there's actually a membrane there, if there's not then you might have Cherry blacks which some people do appreciate.)

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