Olivetti
Ing C. Olivetti & Co., SpA is a company with headquarters in Ivrea (Italy ), computer, office equipment and machines as well as application software produces. It was founded in 1908 by Camillo Olivetti. Great attention it gained with the high design level of its products, many of which are regarded as milestones of industrial design. With the acquisition of Telecom Italia and Olivetti 's parent company this was a division.
- 2.1 Design Milestones
History
Camillo Olivetti, son of a wealthy Jewish family that founded in a small red brick building on the outskirts of Ivrea, a workshop in which he spent three years working the typewriter 'M 1' developed with several technicians, which he presented in 1911 at the Turin exhibition industry. The M1 was a success: 1920 Olivetti employed 200 workers in 1933 around 800 and still at war 1940 6000 1930 he opened his first assembly plant overseas.. Two years later, Olivetti was transformed into a joint stock company ( SpA).
Initially, Olivetti distinguished only by an unusual social policy; as already a company health insurance was founded in 1909, it was followed by a developed system that ranged from kindergarten and maternal care about gifted education to cultural care of the company employees. Workers were specifically recruited from the region Ivrea and presented 90%. It was hoped that such a stronger identification with the company. In order to avoid expropriation by the anti-Semitic fascists, Camillo Olivetti wrote about the company 's Catholic baptized son Adriano Olivetti, who also developed a new management system. Adriano first defined the design as a transfer agent of the company. In 1938 he left the office of the old brick factory in a new building with glass facade embarrassed that he had given at the young architect Figini and Poliini in order.
From 1931 also office furniture were produced that had been designed by Alexander " Xanti " Schawinksy and Nizzoli. With the typewriter MP1 " Ico " Olivetti rose in 1932 in the market of portable typewriters one; Followed in 1935, the Studio 42 as a semi- professional machine. Schawinsky designed the device, but also consulted the architect Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini, who supervised the construction of the new main building at that time. In 1948 Olivetti its electrical computer Divisumma out. In the 1950s, the company had its own subsidiaries in 21 countries, 2/ 3 of the production sold outside Italy.
Adriano Olivetti founded in 1946, the magazine " Comunità " and " combined the best thinkers and theories of government and politics to art and literature " (NZZ). At the unconventional corporate policy also included an unusual staff. Head of Social Department was the socially critical poet Paolo Volponi, but sometimes also graduates of a Catholic boarding school in France.
The first produced in Italy electronic computer was introduced in 1959 under the name of Olivetti Elea 9003 with transistors. In the same year Olivetti took over the American typewriter manufacturer Underwood. Adriano Olivetti died in 1960 at the express train between Montreux and Lausanne, a stroke, which previously performed by him company became the bone of contention of the seven heirs. Shortly after, the still used by Adriano Olivetti Olivetti President Giuseppe Pero died. 1964, the company ran into financial difficulties for the first time after the acquisition of Underwood brought no significant additional sales and lagged exports to South America to meet expectations. The Company's corporate strategy was a " socialism without Marx ", with above-average wages and benefits for the employees, now it was forced to make major layoffs and wage cuts.
Development as electronics manufacturers
Bruno Visentini, a friend and lawyer of the deceased took over the leadership of the company. It was divided in 1964, the machine tool and mainframe manufacturing ( electronics division at the U.S. company General Electric) from, forced the development and production of micro - computers and built the design department ( product design, advertising, architecture) to 100 people from. Olivetti in 1968, an entire factory for computing and accounting machinery in the Soviet Union; the value of the contract amounted to 320 million DM for the first time also CNC controls for machine tools were offered and local terminals instead of mainframes. For success in the 1960s and the computer was Programma 101 (price: 16 428 DM), above all in the U.S., where it began by NASA to calculate the moon landing. With the introduction of VAT in Germany the office computers P203 became a bestseller and quintupled its sales in the country.
At the beginning of the 1970s Olivetti scored only 20% of sales directly with computers, until 1977 this proportion increased to 43%.
Development as a PC manufacturer
Olivetti's first personal computer, the M20 with the Zilog Z8000 CPU, was released in 1982. 1984 Olivetti had gone with 25 % for AT & T to come in 1989 to a majority stake. This plan failed. 1985 took over Olivetti an influential share of the British computer manufacturer Acorn Computers Ltd. , Which was also Thomson SA was involved. Olivetti sold then the model Thomson MO6 and Acorn BBC Master Compact model under the brand names Olivetti Prodest PC128 and PC128s. While the customers of the acquired company (including universities and schools) as far less lucrative turned out as well as hoped, Olivetti benefited from the research capabilities, the establishing of the Olivetti Research Laboratory in Cambridge led in 1986, where the Virtual Network Computing was developed.
In 1986, the Olivetti gravely deficient office machines and computer manufacturer Triumph-Adler by the Volkswagen Group. Although the company was regarded as backward, it still did a well-developed distribution network. Triumph- Adler unprofitable production lines were abandoned and reduced departments, a total of 4000 jobs were lost. It was followed by the relocation of the Central Germany from Frankfurt to Nuremberg on its premises. After the integration of the company in 1994 the service area of Triumph-Adler and the brand name were sold again.
As Olivetti -General Carlo de Benedetti, called L' ingegniere, 1988 following the acquisition of 18% of the share capital of Société Générale de Belgique its intention announced to increase the participation to the acquisition of a blocking stake, he had to learn that the Belgian establishment left nothing untried Olivetti to stop them, as the largest Belgian commercial bank thanks to their industrial holding company had widely ramified interests in the Belgian industry and was regarded as a national institution.
Change in the core areas
Olivetti was in the 1980s, the second largest PC vendor in Europe to IBM, according to other sources the second largest computer manufacturer in the world, 71 % of the turnover was achieved in 1982 with computers. From the late 1980s, the price decline began in the PC business.
They were forced to source more and more components from Japan and Korea, where they were at the time cheaper to manufacture. The company was also heavily exposed piracy, including high-quality household electronic typewriter, which was offered in 18000-20000 piece for 499 DM, there was soon a copy from the Far East for 298 DM The company was organized by de Benedetti into three new divisions: Systems and networks, software and Office.
More and more, the company moved its capacities in the field of telecommunications. The price and quality deterioration in the retail market forced Olivetti in 1995 even for setting the self-development of personal computers and from 1997 for complete withdrawal from this area. By 2010, the company was limited to business customers.
Entry into the mobile market and takeover of Telecom Italia
Olivetti was founded in 1995 with the German Mannesmann AG operated jointly by the mobile phone company called Omnitel, to the last man's man with 31.4 % and Olivetti were involved with 23.4%. As Olivetti applied in 1999 for a share of Telecom Italia, the two companies agreed on a sale of Olivetti shares in the largest Italian mobile operator Omnitel at Mannesmann, which today are thus owned by Vodafone. Mannesmann and Olivetti founded and operated also a common landline telecommunications companies under the company Infostrada, in which both were involved up to Olivetti joining Telecom Italia to 50 %. After the takeover of Mannesmann by Vodafone this Infostrada sold to the Italian ENEL on.
1999 acquired the Bell S. A. from Luxembourg a majority stake in Olivetti, but two years later sold it to a consortium in which Pirelli with 60 % and Edizioni Holding, a subsidiary of the Italian clothing company Benetton, 40% were involved. In a lengthy takeover battle Olivetti acquired then the majority of Telecom Italia, Telecom Italia in 2003 was the new umbrella group and Olivetti Tecnost is the brand of the technology division. The areas of the new group have since telecommunications and information technology.
The re-entry into the computer field
In March 2010, Olivetti surprised the public with the re-entry into the computer market with the notebook Olibook S1300, which is marketed in Italy since March 16, 2010.
Since spring 2011 Olivetti Olitab tablet computers are sold under the name. The OliPad 110 was sold in Germany and Austria on Aldi and Hofer in December 2011 as Medion LifeTab 9514.
Architecture and Design
Already Camillo Olivetti showed a great affinity Design and waived in the context of the new objectivity on glossy finishes and gilded frames on the typewriters in favor of a gray powder coating. With the ICO for the first time a typewriter was developed in collaboration with designers. 1936 Xanti Schawinsky, a graduate of the Bauhaus, set as a graphic designer. Starting in 1936, industrial designer and architect Marcello Nizzoli was responsible for product design and architecture, it was followed in the late 1960s in this position and Ettore Sottsass in the 1980s, Mario Bellini.
The Zurich Museum of Decorative Arts in 1961 organized an exhibition entitled " Olivetti style ". In the 1960s, the company's products were included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art and many awards, including the 1966 TCV -250 video terminal designed by Mario Bellini. Olivetti was the first foreign company in the U.S., which found such recognition to production times. In Germany, the company cooperated with the Ulm School of Design. The former student of this university, Hans von Klier, revised from 1971 to 1978 the corporate design of the company and founded the " red books " as design guidelines.
As 1983, the 75 - year anniversary was celebrated, this was titled Design Process Olivetti, the mirror wrote of the "most elegant products of the machine age " and cited the example of the designed by Nizzoli typewriters Encyclopedia 80 (1948) and Lettera 22 (1950 ).
The company's growth led to a large number of new buildings that was performed due to the design affinity at a high level. Olivetti is considered a pioneer of corporate architecture. The place Ivrea at the foot of the Alps grew by Olivetti to a city of 30,000 residents to fall to below 24,000 by the end of production in place. The Colonia Olivetti and the former factories have since 2001, the " open-air museum of Olivetti Buildings" Archivio Olivetti The most important building is the 1938, designed by Figini and Pollini main building with a glass facade.
In Florence there was the design and construction department of the showrooms, it also had its own training center. The company's most famous showroom is probably in Venice, in Piazza San Marco No. 101, and was designed in 1957-58 by the Venetian Carlo Scarpa. 2006, this shop has been restored by the company and, together with the products exhibited restored as a museum in the 1950s, after he had previously rented as a souvenir shop.
The architecture of the regional offices and training centers a well-known architect of the respective area was always entrusted to the elaborate construction was part of the corporate culture. For Germany Egon Eiermann was selected for the United Kingdom James Stirling, the 1968-72 award-winning training center built. Kenzo Tange designed in 1969 to settle in Japan. In the U.S. in 1966 Louis Kahn designed a factory and Richard Meier local sales offices and 1971, the dormitory of the Olivetti Training Center in Tarrytown, New York. Leon Krier also worked for Olivetti.
Design milestones
Studio 42 from 1935, draft: Xanti Schawinsky and office Figini & Pollini
Abacus Summa 15 of 1949, design Marcello Nizzoli
Abacus MC 24 of 1956, design Marcello Nizzoli
Lettera 22 from 1950, design Marcello Nizzoli
Programma 101 computer
Summa 19, 1969, design Ettore Sottsass and Hans von Klier
Case "Valentine ", designed in 1969 by Ettore Sottsass
Abacus Logos 58, designed in 1972 by Mario Bellini
Notebook echoes 44, designed in 1993 by Michele De Lucchi
Products
Olivetti produced or manufactured typewriters, calculating machines, accounting machines, mainframe computers, personal computers, bank terminals, computer-controlled production machines. In addition to the core business areas also office furniture and desk accessories were produced for own use and for reference objects.
- Olivetti Echos 44 Color is a portable personal computer Olivetti (1994 )
- Olivetti Echos P75
- Olivetti Envision, multimedia PC 1996-97
At the Olivetti Research Laboratory ( ORL) in Cambridge, the Virtual Network Computing was developed. In 1999, the laboratory of AT & T was bought and closed in 2002.