ICL

International Computers Ltd or ICL, was a large British computer hardware company that operated from 1968 until 2002, when it was renamed Fujitsu Services Limited after its parent company, Fujitsu. The company's most successful product line was the ICL 2900 Series range of mainframe computers.

In later years ICL attempted to diversify its product line, but the bulk of its profits always depended on the mainframe customer base. New ventures included marketing a range of powerful IBM clones made by Fujitsu, various minicomputer and personal computer ranges, and (more successfully) a range of retail point-of-sale equipment and back-office software.

ICL was always dependent on large contracts from the UK public sector. Significant customers included Post Office Ltd, the Inland Revenue, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Ministry of Defence.

International Computers Ltd was formed in 1968 as a part of the Industrial Expansion Act of the Wilson Labour Government. ICL was an initiative of Tony Benn, the Minister of Technology, to create a British computer industry that could compete with major world manufacturers like IBM. ICL represented the last step in a series of mergers that had taken place in the industry since the late 1950's.

The main portions of ICL were formed by merging International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) with EEC], the latter itself a recent merger of Elliott Automation, and EELM. EELM was itself a merger of the computer divisions of English Electric, LEO and Marconi.

On its formation the company inherited two main product lines: from ICT the ICT 1900 Series of mainframes, and from English Electric Computers (EEC) the System 4, a range of IBM-compatible mainframe clones, based on the RCA Spectra 70.

Sources of Information

[[1]] Wikipedia