Classification: / Company Info,
Info: OLIVETTI S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, province of Turin, the company has been part of the Telecom Italia Group since 2003.
The primacy of the first PC can be assigned to Olivetti thanks to Programma 101, which was produced in 1964 and had a big success in the U.S. market.
OLIVETTI was famous for the attention it gave to design.
In 1952, the Museum of Modern Art held an exhibit titled "Olivetti: Design in Industry"; today, many OLIVETTI products are still part of the museum's permanent collection. Another major show, mounted by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1969, toured five other cities.
OLIVETTI was also renowned for the caliber of the architects it engaged to design its factories and offices.
Bellini designed the Programma 101 (1965), Divisumma 18 (1973) and Logos 68 (1973) calculators and the TCV-250 video display terminal (1966), among others. During the 1970s Olivetti manufactured and sold two ranges of minicomputers. OLIVETTI paid attention to more than the importance of product design, graphic and architectural design were also considered pivotal to the company. .
Between 1955 and 1964 Olivetti developed some of the first transistorized mainframe computer systems, such as the Elea 9003. Although 40 large commercial 9003 and over 100 smaller 6001 scientific machines were completed and leased to customers to 1964, low sales, loss of two key managers and financial instability caused Olivetti to withdraw from the field in 1964.
In 1965 OLIVETTI released the Programma 101, considered the first commercial desktop personal computer. It was saved from the sale of the computer division to GE thanks to an employee, Gastone Garziera, who spent successive nights changing the internal categorization of the product from "computer" to "calculator", so leaving the small team in Olivetti and creating some awkward situations in the office, since that space was now owned by GE.
Olivetti's first modern personal computer, the M20, featuring a ZILOG Z8000 CPU, was released in 1982. In 1983 OLIVETTI introduced the M24, a clone of the IBM PC using DOS and the Intel 8086 processor (at 8 MHz) instead of the INTEL: 8088 used by IBM (at 4.77 MHz). The M24 was sold in North America as the AT&T 6300.
In 1985 the company acquired a controlling share in the British computer manufacturer ACORN Computers Ltd, a third partner was THOMSON SA.
n 1987 OLIVETTI introduced the LSX line of computers.
The OLIVETTI: M24 was a successful product and became a reference in Europe. However, as Intel moved on to the faster INTEIL: 386 CPU, Olivetti failed to deliver reliable new products based on the new processor.
The company continued to develop personal computers until it sold its PC business in 1997.
In the 1990s, OLIVETTI's computer businesses were in great difficulty, reportedly because of the competition from US vendors. It was on the brink of collapse and had needed government support to stay afloat.
A company in transition, it had moved out of the typewriter business into personal computers before embracing telecoms between 1997 and 1999.
In the process it had lost around three-quarters of its staff.
In 1999, The Luxembourg-based company BELL S.A. acquired a controlling stake in OLIVETTI, but sold it to a consortium including the PIRELLI and BENETTON groups two years later.
OLIVETTI then launched a hostile bid for TELECOM Italia in February 1999, despite being less than a seventh of the size of its target.
In a take-over battle against DEUTSCH TELEKOM, and other potential bidders, OLIVETTI won out and controlled 52.12% of former monopoly TELECOM Italia, Italy's #1 fixed-line and mobile phone operator.
However, the ownership structure of the merged OLIVETTI / TELECOM Italia was complex and multi-layered with OLIVETTI took on around $16 billion of extra debt. It was then referred to as the "OLIVETTI/TELECOM Italia affair" because of the unpleasant secret affairs behind.
A 2003 reorganization turned the tables, however, and now OLIVETTI is the office equipment and systems services subsidiary of TELECOM Italia.
In 2003 OLIVETTI was absorbed into the TELECOM Italia group.
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