Compaq Computers
Compaq ComputersCompaq Computer Corporation was founded in February 1982 by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto, three senior managers who left Texas Instruments and invested $1,000 each to form their own company. Their first idea was a portable personal computer that was sketched on a paper placemat in a Houston pie shop. The founders presented their idea to Ben Rosen, president of Sevin Rosen Partners, a high-tech venture capital firm. The venture capitalists were impressed with the idea of a portable product innovated within the emerging standard and agreed to fund the new company.
Their brainchild was the world's first standard-based portable computer and it was extremely successful. In the first full year of trading, Compaq sold more than 53,000 units and sales reached over $111 million, which is a US business record for a new company. Compaq eventually became well known for the compatibility and quality of its computers and hence its name "Compaq". In the first ten years Compaq concentrated on marketing its products for businesses, but by 1993 it finally expanded its business to the consumer markets with its Compaq Presario PC. Compaq became known as worldwide IT Company and supplier of computers. Even though Compaq is in a very competitive industry where alliances are not only formed with one company, but with several at once.
Compaq has become one of the world's most successful companies in the computer industry and has been recognized as Forbes Magazine's 1997 Company of the Year and is ranked no.42 in 1998 Fortune's 500. Currently, Compaq is partnering with a large number of prominent Canadian and multinational information technology firms, including Asset Software International (ASI), Celestia, Delrina (Symantec), Intel, Lotus, Matrox, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, SAP, Tandem and many others, in order to gain a competitive advantage by sharing resource, knowledge, and cost. In 1996, Compaq and Intel Corporation began a ten-year cross licensing agreement. Competitors of Compaq include Sony Corp and Dell Computer Corp., among other companies. For example, Sony President Nobuyuki Idei was quoted as saying, "In order to compete with Dell and Compaq, we need more speed in the supply chain. We need to build powerful global networks for tighter control of inventories, to see in real time figures like sales, profits, and market demand." In other words, it can be said that the industry Compaq is competing in is a very volatile one, where efficiency and timeliness is not a luxury, but rather a prerequisite. Compaq's five global leadership objectives is to be a leader in Technology, Total Delivered Cost, Marketing/Customer Orientation, Distribution, and Corporate Leadership. In other words, Compaq's goal is to lead the industry holistically, not just in one dimension, but on a variety of platforms. An example of this is the vision of the future supported by Compaq, Microsoft, and Intel to provide new revenue opportunities for the television industry. The...
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