Olivetti S.p.A.
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, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of the TIM Group since 2003. One of the first commercial programmable desktop calculators, the Programma 101, was produced by Olivetti in 1964 and was a commercial success. The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in the Turin commune of Ivrea, Italy. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti, whose utopian vision led not only the company's worldwide expansion and commercial success, but also influenced business practice, politics, and culture. Olivetti opened its first overseas manufacturing plant in 1930, and its Divisumma electric calculator was launched in 1948. Olivetti produced Italy's first electronic computer, the transistorised Elea 9003, in 1959, and purchased the Underwood Typewriter Company that year. In 1964 the company sold its electronics division to the American company General Electric. In order to qualify for new loans, bankers made it a condition that the company's electronic division be sold to General Electric. It continued to develop new computing products on its own; one of these was Programma 101, one of the first commercially produced programmable calculators. In the 1970s and 1980s, they were the biggest manufacturer for office machines in Europe and 2nd biggest PC vendor behind IBM in Europe. In 1980, Olivetti began distributing in Indonesia through Dragon Computer & Communication. In 1981, Olivetti installed the electronic voting systems for the European Parliament in Strasburg and Luxembourg. In September 1994, the company launched Olivetti Telemedia chaired by Elserino Piol. Since 2003, Olivetti has been part of the Telecom Italia Group through a merger. [A] preoccupation with design developed into a comprehensive corporate philosophy, which embraced everything from the shape of a space bar to the color scheme for an advertising poster.
