ICL (International Computers Limited)
More info
- Released
- 1968–2002
- Type
- Computer manufacturer
- Owner
- Fujitsu (from 1998)
- Predecessor
- ICT, English Electric Computers
Britain's national computer champion, welded together by the government in 1968 to hold off IBM and eventually bought by Fujitsu.
The Wilson government wanted a British champion and got one by merging International Computers and Tabulators — itself the product of British Tabulating Machine Company and Powers-Samas — with English Electric Computers, putting in state money for a stake. ICL inherited the 1900 series from ICT and launched the 2900 series in 1974, running the VME operating system on a mainframe architecture that deliberately went its own way rather than copy IBM.
British government departments bought loyally; the rest of the world, less so. Fujitsu became a technology partner in the 1980s, took a large stake in 1990 and the whole company in 1998, retiring the name in 2002. The legacy survives in the worst possible way: Horizon, the accounting system behind the Post Office scandal in which hundreds of subpostmasters were prosecuted for shortfalls created by the software, was built by the subsidiary ICL Pathway.