Dyson Vacuum Cleaners: The New Kid on the Block who Taught the Big Boys Some Lessons

Prior to June 1993 the world was a quiet, traditional, boring place. At least it was for vacuum cleaners. The introduction of the Dyson took other manufacturers by surprise and shook them out of their complacency. The world of vacuums was never going to be the same again.

Dyson is now a legendary company. Just about everybody's knows the product and agrees that Dyson makes a top rated vacuum cleaner. It's become a design icon. It's considered to be a thing of beauty and owning one is considered 'de rigueur' in some circles. All this, for a vacuum cleaner? It's not hard to understand when one takes a look at how things used to be.

Just about everyone owns a vacuum cleaner. Prior to Dyson, vacuuming was seen as one of the least liked chores. Most people didn't even know what brand of vacuum cleaner they owned. James Dyson - the founder of Dyson - was probably no exception. But he had the exceptional ability to ask if a product we took for granted and despised could be made to work better. In 1978, while vacuuming his home, James Dyson realized his bag vacuum cleaner was constantly losing suction power. He noticed how dust quickly clogged the pores of the bag and blocked the airflow, so that suction dropped rapidly. He set to work and, five years later, the world's first cyclonic bagless vacuum cleaner arrived. He originally had offered his revolutionary centrifugal-force, bagless vacuum cleaner patent to the world's leading vacuum cleaner manufacturers: they all

turned him down. Not to be defeated, he began making the Dyson vacuum cleaner in a factory near to where he lived in England. In less than 2 years, Dyson was the UK's best-selling vacuum.

The success of the Dyson has been replicated throughout the world. This success took the bigger, more established vacuum manufacturers by surprise. However, they've risen to the challenge. Most now offer their customers a bagless vacuum cleaner version. They also looked again at the suction power and found other ways to improve the cleaning power of their vacuums. Hoover claim that their new WindTunnel vacuum cleaner picks up 56% more dirt from a carpet than does Dyson. Elsewhere, Electrolux claim that their range of vacuum cleaners are as powerful as any Dyson vacuum cleaner but are much quieter.

Dyson also claimed that the filter used in traditional vacuums became clogged and led to a lack of suction power. However, the introduction of the HEPA filter has caused Dyson to rethink its design and to finally introduce a HEPA filter to their vacuum cleaners. Other manufacturers, of course, claimed that this was bound to compromise the cleaning power of a Dyson.

But, is the Dyson vacuum cleaner still an innovative product? Well, Dyson has recently released an upright vacuum cleaner that incorporates a ball in the vacuum head. This makes it easier to move around the house. Other vacuum cleaner manufacturers will keep pace and in some aspects make improvements that out-do those of a Dyson.

So, who is the winner? Dyson, Hoover, Electrolux or Miele? The answer is that the consumer is the winner. What was once the complacent world of vacuum cleaners has become a competitive market place; competition driven upon technical innovations rather than marketing ploys. Whichever brand of vacuum cleaner you buy, its cleaning power owes something to the fact that Dyson came along and forced all vacuum manufacturers to remember that customers can't be taken for granted.

Robin O'Brien is founder of a website dedicated to promoting the top rated vacuum cleaners available on the market today; including Hoover, Kirby and Dyson vacuum cleaners amongst others.