Viglen Ltd provides IT products and services, including storage systems, servers, workstations and data/voice communications equipment and services. Viglen blade servers

History

The company was formed in 1975, by Vigen Boyadjian. During the 1980s, the company specialised in direct sales through multi page advertisements in leading computer magazines, catering particularly, but not exclusively, to owners of

Acorn The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne ...

computers. Viglen was acquired by

Alan Sugar Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar (born 24 March 1947) is a British business magnate, media personality, author, politician and political adviser. In 1968, he started what would later become his largest business venture, consumer electronics com ...

(later Lord Sugar)'s company

Amstrad Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstrad ...

in June 1994. It was listed as a

public limited company A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a limited liability company ...

in 1997, and Amstrad plc shares were split into Viglen and Betacom shares, Betacom being renamed to Amstrad PLC. Following the sale in July 2007 of Amstrad PLC to

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

's BSkyB, Viglen became Sugar's sole IT establishment. Viglen used to be run by CEO Bordan Tkachuk, a longtime associate of Lord Sugar, who can be seen making special guest appearances on ''

The Apprentice ''The Apprentice'' is a Reality competition, reality talent game show franchise originally aired in 2004 in the United States. Created by U.S.-based British producer Mark Burnett, the show depicts contestants from around the country with variou ...

.'' From 1994 to 1998, the company sponsored Charlton Athletic F.C., expiring when they won promotion to the

FA Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

. In December 2005, Viglen relocated from its London headquarters in

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

Colney Street Colney Street is a hamlet in the English county of Hertfordshire. It lies on the A5183 road, this was formerly the A5 road and, before that, Roman Britain's Watling Street. In addition its northern boundary is delineated by the M25 motorway. T ...

near

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

, into a building which also houses its fabrication plant. , Viglen focused particularly on the education and public sectors, selling both desktop and server systems, and also had interests in other IT markets such as managed services, high performance clusters, and network attached storage. In July 2009, Lord Sugar resigned as the chairman of Viglen (and most of his other companies), handing over the reins of the company to longtime associate,

Claude Littner Claude Littner (born 4 May 1949) is an American-born British business executive and the former chairman of Viglen, Powerleague, ASCO and Azzuri Communications. He is also the Deputy Chairman of Blacks Leisure and former chief executive of ...

. In January 2014, Sugar sold his interest in Viglen to the Westcoast Group, which merged it with another of its subsidiaries, XMA.

''The Apprentice''

Under its former ownership by Lord Sugar, the Viglen headquarters doubled up as one of the filming locations for the BBC programme ''

'', with various scenes including the infamous "job interviews" being set there. The "walk of shame" exit sequence at the end of every episode, showing the contestant leaving the building and boarding a taxi was also filmed at the Viglen Headquarters. (The boardroom scenes were actually filmed in a West London television studio.) On 15 December 2010, CEO Bordan Tkachuk, during a mock "interview" situation on The Apprentice, told a candidate that "ISP" stood for "Internet Service Protocol" (instead of Internet Service Provider), resulting in widespread criticism:Barry Collins
Why Lord Sugar needs to fire his "technical expert"
16 December 2010

PC Pro ''PC Pro'' is one of several computer magazines published monthly in the United Kingdom by Future plc. Its headquarters is in London. ''PC Pro'' also licenses individual articles (or even the whole magazine) for republication in various countri ...

Retrieved 24 May 2012

"I know what ISP is. It's an Internet Service Protocol. And that's what you're providing. It's not a telecoms operating licence. It's a protocol that allows telecoms over bandwidths. "I've been running Alan Sugar's companies for the last 25 years, and that's why I know a little bit about technology." —Bordan Tkachuk

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.xma.co.uk Computer companies established in 1975 Computer companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in the City and District of St Albans English brands 1975 establishments in England