History of Compaq computer

The company started as the first maker of IBM-compatible portable computers and quickly grew into the world’s best-selling personal computer brand during the late 1980s and ’90s.

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

Macintosh computer by Apple Inc.

The Macintosh computer is built on three cornerstone ideas: second-generation Lisa technology, reliability and low cost through simplicity, and maximum synergy between hardware and software.

Development of the Lisa started in 1978, with the Macintosh following one year later. In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the Apple II team, who had proposed that Apple Computer Inc. make a low-cost "appliance"-type computer that would be as easy to use as a toaster.

The Macintosh computer was released to the public on January 22, 1984. Essentially a slimmed down version of the Lisa workstation with many of its software features, the Macintosh sold for $2495 at its introduction in early 1984; the Lisa initially sold for $10,000.

In 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh PC with the Macintosh Operating System. Apple names its OS as “Mac OS”, in 1997 which was previously known as “System”.

Apple released several minor versions of their Mac system after Jobs’ departure, with the exception of one event: in 1985, Apple once again became an innovator when it introduced desktop publishing.

The Apple Macintosh was the first widely successful personal computer offering an integrated standard graphical user interface (GUI).

Macintosh-specific packages such as MacPublisher and Aldus PageMaker, along with the addition of the first LaserWriter (a laser printer) cemented Apple’s reputation as the desktop publishing giant.

Hundred of independent developers are writing programs for Macintosh. Company includes such familiar names s Lotus, Microsoft, Software Publishing, Stoneware and Dow Jones.

One year later, Apple released the Macintosh Plus to address the limitations of original Mac. The Macintosh quickly became a popular platform for creative users, as well as for education, research and business applications.
Macintosh computer by Apple Inc.

Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation was founded in 1957 by Ken Olson and Harlan Anderson, engineers who had worked on very early machines at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory. Together with Ken Olsen’s brother, Stan Olsen they set up shop in an old woolen mill in Maynard, Massachusetts with $70,000 of capital and a single product -logic modules.

They began by building small circuit modules for laboratory use. The first PDP (Programmed Data Processor), the PDP-1, sold for $120,000. Digital Equipment Corporation’s minicomputer, the PDP-1, was much smaller and less powerful compared to the mainframe but was more interactive and significantly less expensive.

The first Product Line at Digital Equipment Corporation was formed in 1964; an event that marked an upswing in Digital Equipment Corporation’s sales volume and profits. This approach teamed the Engineering, Programming, Marketing, and Production departments under a Product Line Manager who had profit and loss responsibility. The concept soon spread from the PDP-6 group to embrace the entire company by the following year.

With growing adoption, both the minicomputer market and Digital Equipment Corporation experienced considerable growth through the 1970s.

In 1976, they moved into the high-end computing market with the VAX series of machine (an extension of their popular PDP-11 series), an architecture that extended the PDP-11s word length to 32 bits.

In March 1977: Digital Equipment Corporation announces a new mid-range price/performance system, the PDP-11/60. The PDP-11 series made minicomputers widely available for general computing, process control, and education. Including the PDP-11 clones from several sources, some in Eastern Europe, an estimated 650,000 have been produced.

In the same year DIGITAL opens the Digital Equipment Corporation Diagnosis Center (DDC) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is the industry's first facility for computerized remote diagnosis.

In 1990 a series of late releases of a new disk storage system put financial pressure on the company and, despite releasing their powerful Alpha microprocessor, DEC struggled.

In January 1992, the company reported a quarterly loss of $138 million, the next quarter it reported a quarterly loss of $234 million, and the next quarter a $294 million loss.

It sold off various sections of the company. On January 26, 1998, Compaq Computer Corporation agreed to buy Digital Equipment Corporation for $9.6 billion in cash and stock. Compaq itself was bought out by Hewlett-Packard in 2002.
Digital Equipment Corporation

Gemalto

Gemalto N.V formed by the 2006 merger of Gemplus International S.A and Axalto, is a leading global provider of digital security systems such as smart cards, payment terminals, card readers, online security programs, e-passports and subscriber identity module (SIM) cards.

Gemplus was a company dedicated to the Smart Cards business, from R&D, manufacture, and personalization, to final customer services. Gemplus was founded in 1988 by Marc Lassus and his colleagues, from a smart card division within ST Microelectronics that had come up with a high volume production process for the payphone smart chip.

Gemplus has successfully implemented portable and secure smart card-based solution to simplify a wide range of applications ranging from public and wireless communications to electronic business.

Axalto, previously known as Schlumberger Smart Cards & Terminals, is a business unit of Schlumberger Ltd, a global technology service company that has been in operation for 75 years.

In early Mac 2016, Gemalto reported an operating profit of 422.6 million euros, up 10.4 percent against last year and beating the market consensus of 389.6 million euros.
Gemalto

Adobe System Inc

Adobe Systems Inc was established in February 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, the inventors of the Postscript document format.

They named the company Adobe after a creek that ran behind Warnock’s house in California.

Dr Warnock was president of Adobe for his first two years and chairman and CEO for his remaining 16 years at Adobe.

Warnock has pioneered the development of world-renowned graphics, publishing, web and electronic document technologies that have revolutionized the field of publishing and visual communication.

In 1983 Adobe Systems Inc, gave a first glimpse of Postscript, its revolutionary page description language and also the PageMaker, Apple were positioned to be central to the development of desktop publishing.

Stockholders approved the merger of Aldus Corp and Adobe Systems Inc on August 31, 1994. It united the two driving forces behind desktop publishing software.

In 2005, Adobe Systems acquired it competitor Macromedia Inc, originator of Flash technology. With this technology, Adobe pursued a pricing technology strategy similar to the one employed for its Acrobat product line.

The company first offered an online version of its Acrobat software in 2008, which allows adding animation and video to documents.
Adobe System Inc

History of Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems was founded in early 1982. It was founded by Vinod Khosla and Scott McNealy, continued the long tradition of effecting a transfer of technology from a pubic funded university research project to a profit-making company by moving key people.

Two key people researchers who joined the firm later were Andy Bechtolsheim on the hardware side and Bill Joy on the software side.

The name Sun comes from initials of the Stanford University Network.

In their first year they released their first workstation based on hardware developed at Stanford University and on the BSD operating system. Ever since its inception, Sun Microsystem has maintained a singular vision of ‘The Network is the Computer.’

This vision has helped Sun Microsystems remain as one of the leading providers of industrial-strength hardware, software, and services to aid companies across the world.

In 1987 Sun and AT&T joined forces to develop UNIX System V Release 4, which combined the best of SunOS and System V Release 3.2.

By the end of it fiscal year 1992 it had surpassed over $3.5 billion dollars in sales and firmly held the market share lead in the fast growing workstation industry segment.

In 1995, Sun Microsystems unleashed Java technology, which was the first universal software platform designed for the internet and corporate intranets.

In April 2009, Oracle, another software giant, acquired Sun at a transaction value of $7.4 billion. This acquisition made both Oracle and Sun leading software-developing companies.
History of Sun Microsystems

Apple Computer Inc

Steve Jobs founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak. Ronald Gerald Wayne became a third partner. It was Steve Jobs who thought the name of Apple for the new company.

The three formally filed the partnership papers for Apple Computer Company in April Fool’s Day 1976. Wayne withdrew from Apple Computer only two weeks after the company was formed, unwilling to take what he thought were considerable risks with new company.

Steve and Wozniak set up shop in the garage of the Job’s family house in Los Altos, California. Wozniak had been working on combining video monitors with computers, The idea was to invent a user friendly computer that ordinary consumers could buy. They began to build a computer and they named their first machine the Apple I.

Over the years, Apple I computers have become highly collectible relics.

At that time Steve was 21 years old and Steve Wozniak was 26. Together they pioneered the personal computer and made a permanent and indelible mark on the computer industry.

On December 12, 1980, Apple became a public company. On the first day of trading, its share price increased from an initial $22 to $29.

By 2007, Apple controlled more than 70% of the digital music market and its net income was $3.5 billion. Apple
Apple Computer Inc

The Google Story

The Google Story
Google was founded by two Ph.D. computer science students at Stanford University in California – Larry Page and Sergey Brin. When Page and Brin began their hero’s journey, they didn’t know exactly where they were headed.

Larry Page was born in 1973 in Lansing. Both of his parents were computer scientists. His father was a university professor and a leader in the field of artificial intelligence, while his mother was a teacher of computer programming.

Meanwhile, Sergey Brin was also born in 1973, in Moscow, Russia, the son of a Russian mathematician and economist. His entire family fled the Soviet Union in 1979 under the threat of growing anti-Semitism and began their new lives as immigrants in the United States.

According to Brin, the research behind Google began in 1995. The first prototype was actually called BackRub. A couple of years later, they had a search engine that worked considerably better than the others available did at the time.

Within the next few years, the prototype system had been converted into progressively improved versions, and these were substantially more effective than any other search engine then available.

As the buzz about their project spread, more and more people began to use it. Soon they were reporting that there were 10,000 searches per day at on their system.

They named their successor search engine Google, in a whimsical analogy to the mathematical term googol, which is the immense large number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Google Inc. opened its door as a business entity in September 1998, operating out of modest facilities in a Menlo Park, California garage.

Google was also in the process of developing a unique company culture. It operated in an informal atmosphere that facilitated both collegiality and an easy exchange of ideas.

By the end of 2000, Google was handling more than 100 million searches each day. Shortly thereafter, Google began to deliver new innovations and establish new partnerships to enter the burgeoning field of mobile wireless computer.

By expanding into this field, Google continued to pursue its strategy of putting search into hands of as many as possible.
The Google Story

Apple Computer

Apple Computer
On April 1, 1976, two college dropouts, Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, founded the Apple Computer Company. They began operating out of garage building the Apple I, which some claim to be the first personal computer to be sold as a fully assembled package.

In the early 1970s, before the introduction of the Apple I, the personal computing products available in the market had limited appeal. They were generally sold by small electronics firms and individual hobbyists through clubs. In many ways, Wozniak’s Apple I still typified the early merchandise. It consisted of an unpacked circuit board wired by Wozniak so that a purchaser could hook it up to a power supply. Within a few years, however astonishing advances in integrated circuitry provided the critical raw materials needed. And programmers began writing software to make the machines appealing to people.

In 1977, Wozniak and Jobs introduced the Apple II. In stark contrast to the Apple I, fundamentally a kit computer with limited appeal though creatively priced at $666, the $1298 Apple II is considered by many to be the first personal computer designed for the mass market. Market appeal came from its attractive physical design, and the fact that it came fully assembled with a standard keyboard, integrated power supply, and color graphics capability.

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan awarded both Wozniak and Jobs the national Medal of technology, the highest honor bestowed on America’s leading innovators, for their achievement at Apple Computer and their contributions in bringing the power of personal computing to the general public.

The success of the Macintosh put Apple Computer in the map. It also resulted in Microsoft recognizing the importance of GUI to future sales. Eventually, the personal relationship between Jobs and Bill Gates led to a period of cooperation, where Microsoft learned the basics of GUI technology, allowing Microsoft to begin its own project: Windows.
Apple Computer