Please forgive any formating or spelling errors I am writing this on my phone. I found this old post while reminiscing about working as a viking dealer repair tech and wanted to add my two cents. I worked for a dealer that owned two stores during the transition from Viking Sweden to SVP. I saw the introduction of the SE, Diamond, and Ruby. (among mid level and entry level machines) I was Viking certified to repair those models and their TOL sergers. The Ruby was the first high end made in China. In fact the very first batch of Rubies was built on Sweden. Although there was probably less than a hundred swedish built Rubies. The swedish Rubies had some serious quality control problems and we always felt it was because the swedish factory workers had heard rumors they'd be out of a job soon and were 'short timing' it. The first Rubies out of China weren't built any better. As well as quality problems I would say half were missing at least one foot or more. We had dozens of sewers coming in and complaining about missing accessories.
Viking lost a lot of dealers at the time. Not only because of quality issues but also because the new SVP CEO removed just about every dealer insentive. Dealers no longer got bulk discounts when purchasing larger quantities of machines (therefore couldn't pass on savings to their customers) They also removed a 50/50 split in advertising costs that had been around forever.
Brother and Bernina reps we're calling Viking dealers across the country convincing them to swap brands. They still offered those incentives. You may know some dealers that dropped the Viking line during this time (or relegated them to a back corner, and picked a different brand as the forefront)
SVP also didn't renew the contract with their serger manufacturer. The beloved 936 (built in China, but with great quality control) was gone. Replaced by the S25, a serger despised by dealers because of how horrible the manufacturing quality was. We assumed it was built in the same factory as the Singer sergers. SVP also started rebranding some of the entry level machines: the entry level embroidery machine was simply a Singer with a Viking logo. Obviously this further upset many Viking dealers who realized the damage being done to the brand.
At one point SVP moved some of the Sedish quality control team to China semi-permanatly to get the issues under control and quality did improve. Unfortunately it took over a year before the Viking factory in China got their act together.
To comment on some posts above: the SE had some huge problems with the tension and went through 3 or 4 part revisions before it was eliminated. If I remember right there was a grounding problem. The first SE tension assembly didn't ground the static build up anywhere. Who would have thought running lots of thread very quickly between two metal disks would cause static build up in electronic equipment. The immediate fix from viking was for techs to solder a peice of wire to the frame and tension assembly.
Not sure if this'll be seen by anyone but if so, I hope I added something interesting.