Compaq, which stood for "compatibility and quality," was an American information technology company founded by Rod Canion, Jim Harris, and Bill Murto with just $3000 in 1982.
The three were generally unhappy with their employment and broke away from Texas Instruments (TI). Then they decided to make the jump into running their own business. They set out with a clear vision of providing personal computers that were not only portable, but had the power to compete with IBM’s machines.
One year later, Compaq shipped 53,000 IBM PC-compatible COMPAQ Portables running MS-DOS, and the $111 million revenue was an American business record.
As the years passed, Compaq computers shot up like a firework and had sales of $503 million by 1985. In 1984, Compaq introduced its DESKPRO desktop computers and achieved a sales record in its second year. In 1986, it was the first to offer a 386-based machine.
In 1987 they reached the $1 billion revenue mark, and by 1991, they were 5th place in terms of market share with around $3 billion in sales.
Compaq grew into a massive computer supplier and by 1994 surpassed IBM sales in the personal computer market. By 2002 Compaq was acquired by HP and IBM stopped making new PC machines.
History of Compaq computer
