Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
s,
tablets,
smartphones,
printers and other such business products as
calculator
An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics.
The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...
s and
fax machines. Headquartered in
Ivrea, in the
Metropolitan City of Turin
The Metropolitan City of Turin ( it, Città metropolitana di Torino, Piedmontese: ''Sità metropolitan-a 'd Turin'') is a metropolitan city in the Piedmont region, Italy. Its capital is the city of Turin. It replaced the Province of Turin and co ...
, the company has been part of the
TIM Group since 2003. One of the first commercial programmable
desktop calculators, the
Programma 101, was produced by Olivetti in 1964 and was a commercial success.
History
Founding

The company was founded as a
typewriter manufacturer by
Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in the
Turin commune of
Ivrea,
Italy. The firm was mainly developed by his son
Adriano Olivetti
Adriano Olivetti (11 April 1901 – 27 February 1960) was an Italian engineer, politician, and industrialist whose entrepreneurial activity thrived on the idea that profit should be reinvested for the benefits of the whole society. He was son of ...
, whose utopian vision led not only the company's worldwide expansion and commercial sucess, but also influenced business practice, politics, and culture.
Olivetti opened its first overseas manufacturing plant in 1930, and its
Divisumma electric calculator was launched in 1948. Olivetti produced Italy's first
electronic computer, the
transistorised
Elea 9003, in 1959, and purchased the
Underwood Typewriter Company that year. In 1964 the company sold its electronics division to the American company
General Electric. It continued to develop new computing products on its own; one of these was
Programma 101, one of the first commercially produced
programmable calculators. In the 1970s and 1980s they were the biggest manufacturer for office machines in
Europe and 2nd biggest PC vendor behind
IBM in Europe.
In 1980, Olivetti began distributing in Indonesia through Dragon Computer & Communication.
In 1981, Olivetti installed the
electronic voting systems for the European Parliament in Strasburg and Luxembourg.
In September 1994, the company launched Olivetti Telemedia chaired by Elserino Piol.
Since 2003, Olivetti has been part of the
TIM Group through a merger.
Design

Olivetti became famous for the meticulous attention it paid to the
design of its products, through collaborations with notable architects and designers, over a nearly 60-year period starting in the late 1930s. An early example is the portable 1932
Olivetti MP1 (Modello Portatile in Italian).
From the 1940s to the 1960s, Olivetti
industrial design
Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...
was led by
Marcello Nizzoli, who was responsible for the
Lexicon 80 and the portable
Lettera 22 typewriters, which were released in 1948 and 1950 respectively. The architect and designer
Ettore Sottsass began consulting for Olivetti in the late 1950s and designed a series of products including the Tekne 3 typewriter in 1958, the
Elea 9003 computer in 1959, and later, the Praxis 48 typewriter in 1964 and the Valentine portable typewriter in 1969.
Mario Bellini joined Sottsass at Olivetti in 1963. He designed the
Programma 101, a precursor to the desktop computer, which was released in 1965. In 1973 he designed the
Divisumma 18
The Divisumma 18 was an electronic printing business calculator manufactured by Olivetti in 1972 and designed by Milanese architect Mario Bellini. It was selected for its collection by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The skin of the Divisu ...
and Logos 68 calculators, and in 1966 the TCV-250
video display terminal.
Mario Bellini and
Ettore Sottsass, who by then directed design for Olivetti, hired designers such as
George Sowden
George J. Sowden (born 1942 in Leeds, UK) is a designer and product developer.
Career
He studied architecture at Gloucestershire College of Art in the 1960s. In 1970, he moved to Milan, where he started working with Ettore Sottsass and ...
and
James Irvine. Sowden worked for Olivetti from 1970 until 1990 and designed the company's first
desktop computer
A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply ...
, the Olivetti L1, in 1978 (following ergonomic research lasting two years). In 1991, Sowden's design for the Olivetti
fax OFX420 won the
ADI Compasso d'Oro Award. In 1999
Michele De Lucchi designed the Art Jet 10
inkjet printer, which was also awarded the Compasso d'Oro, and in 2001, the Gioconda calculator.
In 1952, the
Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) held an exhibit titled "Olivetti: Design in Industry" Another exhibit was mounted by the
Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1969 and later toured five other cities. Many Olivetti products and archival material related to design are held in museum collections including the MoMA design collection, the
Cooper Hewitt in New York, and the
Centre Pompidou in Paris. Between 1954 and 2001, Olivetti won 16 Compasso d'Oro awards for design. In May 2022,
ADI Design Museum in Milan paid tribute to this achievement with an exhibition titled Podium 16.
Olivetti paid attention to more than product design. Graphic design and architectural design was also considered pivotal to the company, which engaged architects and designers such as
Gae Aulenti, ,
BBPR,
Egon Eiermann, ,
Ignazio Gardella,
Louis Kahn,
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...
,
Carlo Scarpa
Carlo Scarpa (2 June 1906 – 28 November 1978) was an Italian architect, influenced by the materials, landscape and the history of Venetian culture, and by Japan. Scarpa translated his interests in history, regionalism, invention, and the te ...
,
Giovanni Pintori
Giovanni Pintori (14 July 1912 - 15 November 1999) was an Italian graphic designer known mostly for his advertising work with Olivetti. He is known for his use of geometric shapes and minimalist style in his advertising posters, specifically his po ...
,
Bob Noorda
Bob Noorda (July 15, 1927 – January 11, 2010) was a Dutch-born Italian graphic designer who lived and worked primarily in Milan from 1954 onwards. His works included design projects for major corporations and large-scale retail chains, publishing ...
, and
Lella and
Massimo Vignelli to design factories, office buildings, showrooms, and publicity materials.
Giovanni Pintori was hired by Adriano Olivetti in 1936 to work in the publicity department. Pintori was the creator of the Olivetti logo and many promotional posters used to advertise the company and its products. During his activity as Art Director from 1950, Olivetti's graphic design obtained several international awards, and he designed works that created the Olivetti image and became emblematic Italian reference in the history of 20th-century design.
Those designers also created the Olivetti Synthesis office furniture series which mainly were used to be installed in the firm's own headquarters, worldwide branch offices and showrooms. Olivetti also produced some industrial production machinery, including metalworking machines of the Horizon series.
Typewriters
Olivetti began with mechanical typewriters when the company was founded in 1909, and produced them until the mid-1990s. Until the mid-1960s, they were fully mechanical, and models such as the portable
Olivetti Valentine
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...
were designed by Ettore Sottsass.
With the Tekne/Editor series and Praxis 48, some of the first electromechanical typewriters were introduced. The Editor series was used for speed typing championship competition. The Editor 5 from 1969 was the top model of that series, with proportional spacing and the ability to support justified text borders. In 1972 the electromechanical typeball machines of the Lexicon 90 to 94C series were introduced, as competitors to the
IBM Selectric typewriters, the top model 94c supported proportional spacing and justified text borders like the Editor 5, as well as lift-off correction.
In 1978 Olivetti was one of the first manufacturers to introduce electronic daisywheel printer-based word processing machines, called TES 401 and TES 501. Later the ET series typewriters without (or with)
LCD
A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but in ...
and different levels of text editing capabilities were popular in offices. Models in that line were ET 121, ET 201, ET 221, ET 225, ET 231, ET 351, ET 109, ET 110, ET 111, ET 112, ET 115, ET 116, ET 2000, ET 2100, ET 2200, ET 2250, ET 2300, Et 2400 and ET 2500. For home users in 1982 the Praxis 35, Praxis 40 and 45D were some of the first portable electronic typewriters. Later, Olivetti added the Praxis 20, ET Compact 50, ET Compact 60, ET Compact 70, ET Compact 65/66, the ET Personal series and Linea 101. The top models were 8 lines LCD based portables like Top 100 and Studio 801, with the possibility to save the text to a
3.5-inch floppy disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined wi ...
.
The professional line was upgraded with the ETV series video typewriters based on
CP/M
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...
operating system, ETV 240, ETV 250, ETV 300, ETV 350 and later
MS-DOS operating system based ETV 260, ETV 500, ETV 2700, ETV 2900, ETV 4000s word processing systems having floppy drives or
hard disk
A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...
s. Some of them (ETV 300, 350, 500, 2900) were external boxes that could be connected through an optional serial interface to many of the ET series office typewriters, the others were fully integrated with an external monitor which could be installed on a holder over the desk. Most of the ET/ETV/Praxis series electronic typewriters were designed by Marion Bellini.
By 1994, Olivetti stopped production of typewriters, as most users had transitioned to
personal computers.
File:Olivetti Lettera 22 Typewriter Marcello Nizzoli.jpg, Olivetti Lettera 22 Typewriter ( Marcello Nizzoli)
File:Olivetti Lettera 32 Typewriter.jpg, Olivetti Lettera 32 Typewriter
File:Olivetti Lettera 33 Ettorre Sottsass.jpg, Olivetti Lettera 33 Typewriter (Ettorre Sottsass)
File:Olivetti Praxis 48 Ettorre Sottsass.jpg, Olivetti Praxis 48 Typewriter (Ettorre Sottsass)
File:Olivetti Lettera 36c Mario Bellini.jpg, Olivetti Lettera 36c Typewriter ( Mario Bellini)
File:Olivetti Lettera 35i Mario Bellini.jpg, Olivetti Lettera 35i (Mario Bellini)
File:Olivetti Lettera Praxis DLX Mario Bellini Design - Austin Calhoon Photography.jpg, Olivetti Lettera Praxis DLX (Mario Bellini design)
Computers
Between 1955 and 1964 Olivetti developed some of the first transistorized
mainframe computer
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
systems, such as the
Elea 9003. Although 40 large commercial 9003 and over 100 smaller 6001 scientific machines were completed and leased to customers to 1964, low sales, loss of two key managers and financial instability caused Olivetti to withdraw from the field in 1964.
In 1965 Olivetti released the
Programma 101, considered one of the first commercial desktop programmable calculators. It was saved from the sale of the computer division to GE thanks to an employee, Gastone Garziera, who spent successive nights changing the internal categorization of the product from "computer" to "calculator", so leaving the small team in Olivetti and creating some awkward situations in the office, since that space was now owned by GE.
In 1974 the firm released the
TC800, an intelligent terminal designed to be attached to a mainframe and used in the finance sector. It was followed in 1977 by the
TC1800.
During the 1970s Olivetti also manufactured and sold two ranges of minicomputers. The 'A' series started with the typewriter-sized A4 through to the large A8, and the desk-sized DE500 and DE700 series.
Olivetti's first modern personal computer, the
M20, featuring a
Zilog Z8000 CPU
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...
, was released in 1982.
The M20 was followed in 1983 by the
M24, a clone of the
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
using
DOS and the
Intel 8086
The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allowi ...
processor (at 8
MHz) instead of the
Intel 8088 used by
IBM (at 4.77 MHz). The M24 was sold in North America as the
AT&T 6300. Olivetti also manufactured the AT&T 6300 Plus, which could run both DOS and
Unix. The M24 in the US also was sold as
Xerox 6060. The
Olivetti M28
The Olivetti M28 personal computer, introduced in 1986, was the successor to the Olivetti M24.
It had an Intel 80286 CPU running at 8 MHz and 512 KB (expandable to 1024 KB on the motherboard) of RAM, featuring a 5.25" floppy drive and a 20 M ...
was the firm's first PC to have the
Intel 80286 processor.
The same year Olivetti produced its
M10 laptop computer, a
8085-based workalike of the successful
Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100, which it marketed in Europe. These were the first laptops to sell in million-unit quantities, though the itself only attained sales figures in the tens of thousands and went out of production within two years.
During the 1980s and 1990s Olivetti continued to release PC compatible machines, facing mounting competition from other brands. It turned to laptops, introducing in 1991 the
D33, a laptop in a carry case, and continuing with the
M111,
M211,
S20,
D33,
Philos
Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE – 40 CE) was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.
Philo may also refer to:
People
Given name
* Philo of Byblos (64–141 CE), writer of grammatical, lexica ...
and
Echos series. A very interesting subnotebook was the
Quaderno, about the same size as an A5 paper – it was the grandfather of the
netbook
Netbook was a commonly used term that identified a product class of small and inexpensive laptops which were sold from 2007 to around 2013. These machines were designed primarily as cost-effective tools for consumers to access the Inte ...
s introduced 20 years later.
Olivetti did attempt to recover its position by introducing the
Envision in 1995, a full
multimedia PC, to be used in the
living room; this project was a failure.
Packard Bell managed to successfully introduce a similar product in the U.S. but only some years later.
The company continued to develop personal computers until it sold its PC business in 1997.
File:Console di comando per sistema Olivetti ELEA 9003 - Museo scienza tecnologia Milano D1230 2012.jpg, Olivetti Elea 9003
File:P 6040 Olivetti (I197902).jpg, Olivetti P6040
File:Computer minipersonal - Museo scienza tecnologia Milano 09298.jpg, Olivetti P6060
File:Olivetti P6066.jpg, Olivetti P6066
Olivetti P6066 was a personal computer programmable with a version of Basic owned by Olivetti and integrated in the operating system.
Description
It was identical to Olivetti P6060 in the mechanical design; however, the color (white) and per ...
File:Olivetti P652.jpg, Olivetti P652
File:Olivetti BCS 2035.jpg, Olivetti BCS 2035
File:MIC Torino-Olivetti P101.png, Olivetti Programma 101
File:Envp75.jpg, Olivetti Envision P75
File:Olivetti 70's L1 System.jpg, Olivetti L1
File:Olivetti M19.jpg, Olivetti M19
File:Olivetti, personal computer desktop M20, 1982 (fond. natale cappellaro).jpg, Olivetti M20
File:Olivetti M24 (1987 - 1988).jpg, Olivetti M24
File:Olivetti M4 454 S 01.jpg, Olivetti M4 454S
File:Olivetti L1M40ST.jpg, Olivetti M40
File:PC128S.jpg, Olivetti Prodest PC128
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...
File:Personal computer portatile - Museo scienza tecnologia Milano 15635.jpg, Olivetti M10
File:Olivetti, primo computer portatile M15, 1987 (fond. natale cappellaro).jpg, Olivetti M15
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...
File:Olivetti m21, personal computer, 1984.jpg, Olivetti M21
File:Olivetti Echos44 2.jpg, Olivetti Echos
File:Old computer 4.jpg, Olivetti Quaderno
End of Olivetti as a separate company
In the 1990s, Olivetti's computer businesses were in great difficulty, reportedly because of the competition from US vendors and new cheap manufacturers for PC components in
Taiwan like
ASUS,
MSI,
Gigabyte
The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix ''giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB.
This defini ...
and so on from which local system builders profited much to offer cheaper PCs than Olivetti did with their own designs. It was on the brink of collapse and had needed government support to stay afloat.
In 1992,
Digital Equipment Corporation announced its intention to invest in Olivetti, approximating to a 10% stake valued at around , amidst a wave of investment in European companies by their US counterparts. Digital were already reselling Olivetti personal computer models in Europe, and the investment presented an opportunity for the adoption of Digital's Alpha processor in Olivetti's workstation products.
The investment programme was to be conducted in two steps over an 18 month period, augmented by additional share purchases.
The partnership between the companies, regarded as a way of supporting Olivetti whilst cementing a development relationship around Digital's Alpha platform, developed in the following two years, although the balance of revenue from selling products to each other was reported as being strongly in Olivetti's favour, it having generated lire from Digital in 1993, but with Digital only selling products worth lire to Olivetti. Digital remained a significant purchaser of laser printers and laptops from Olivetti, but had begun to manufacture its own personal computers and planned to produce its own laptop products. Meanwhile, Olivetti had been slow to introduce Alpha-based products, eventually shipping models based on Digital's own products. With Digital's finances under pressure, posting quarterly losses and incurring costs around redundancies, the company sold its stake - noted as amounting to 7.8% - for .
A company in transition, it had moved out of the typewriter business into personal computers before embracing telecoms between 1997 and 1999, spinning off its personal computer business in 1997 and divesting its computer services business in 1998.
In the process it had lost around three-quarters of its staff.
In 1999, The
Luxembourg-based company Bell S.A. acquired a controlling stake in Olivetti, but sold it to a consortium including the
Pirelli
Pirelli & C. S.p.A. is a multinational tyre manufacturer based in Milan, Italy. The company, which has been listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since 1922, is the 6th-largest tyre manufacturer and is focused on the consumer production of tyre ...
and
Benetton groups two years later. Olivetti then launched a hostile bid for Telecom Italia in February 1999, despite being less than a seventh of the size of its target. In a take-over battle against
Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG (; short form often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a German telecommunications company that is headquartered in Bonn and is the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. Deutsche Telekom was ...
and other potential bidders that initially seem to have been settled in Deutsche Telecom's favour, with an merger reportedly agreed in April 1999,
Olivetti won out and controlled 52.12% of former monopoly Telecom Italia, Italy's #1 fixed-line and mobile phone operator. However, the ownership structure of the merged Olivetti / Telecom Italia was complex and multi-layered with Olivetti took on around $16 billion of extra debt. It was then referred to as the "Olivetti/Telecom Italia affair" because of the unpleasant secret affairs behind.
After a 2003 reorganization, Olivetti became the office equipment and systems services subsidiary of Telecom Italia. In 2003 Olivetti was absorbed into the
Telecom Italia group, maintaining a separate identity as Olivetti Tecnost.
Rebirth and resumption of computer production
In 2005, Telecom Italia relaunched the company in the information technology sector, investing €200 million; at first, restoring the original Olivetti brand, then replacing it with Olivetti Tecnost in 2003. In 2007, Olivetti launched the "LINEA_OFFICE", designed by
Jasper Morrison
Jasper Morrison (born 1959) is an English product and furniture designer. He is know for the refinement and apparent simplicity of his designs. In a rare interview with the designer, he is quoted as saying: "Objects should never shout".
Ear ...
for Olivetti; a new line of PCs, notebooks, printers,
fax machines and calculators. Olivetti today operates in Italy and
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, and has sales associates in 83 countries. Research and development are located in
Agliè
Agliè (Piedmontese: ''Ajé'') is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about north of Turin.
Agliè borders the following municipalities: San Martino Canavese, Torre Canavese, Ba ...
,
Carsoli and
Scarmagno in Italy, and
Yverdon, Switzerland.
In March 2011 Olivetti began producing the OliPad, its first
tablet computer, featuring a ten-inch screen, 3G, WiFi,
Bluetooth connectivity,
Nvidia Tegra 2,
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
2.2.2 and a 1024 x 600 display. It also features an application store, with
apps specifically designed by Olivetti for 'business & government'. In 2014 the R&D department in
Arnad
Arnad ( frp, Arnà; Issime wae, Arnoal); is a town and ''comune'' in the Aosta Valley region of northwestern Italy. See also
*Vallée d'Aoste Lard d'Arnad
Vallée d’Aoste Lard d’Arnad (PDO) is a variety of '' lardo'' (a cured pork product ...
was sold to
SICPA
SICPA (acronym for the former name ''Société Industrielle et Commerciale de Produits Alimentaires,'' no longer in use) is a Swiss company that provides security inks for currencies and sensitive documents, including identity documents, passp ...
.
Smartphones
In 2013, Olivetti launched a series of smartphones called ''Oliphone'':
* Olivetti Oliphone M8140
* Olivetti Oliphone Q8145
* Olivetti Oliphone Q8150
* Olivetti Oliphone Q9047
* Olivetti Oliphone WG451
* Olivetti Oliphone WG501
See also
*
List of Italian companies
*
Olivetti typewriters
*
Olivetti computers
*
TIM Group
References
External links
*
History of Olivettiat
Telecom Italia (archived 2005)
Picture of a 1983 office featuring an Olivetti M24*
- SEQ Corporation, Stockholm, Sweden
Video Olivetti L1 M40 ST Retro Computer museum, Zatec, Czech Republic videoVideo Olivetti P6066 Retro Computer museum, Zatec, Czech Republic video
{{Authority control
Technology companies established in 1908
Electronics companies established in 1908
Italian companies established in 1908
Italian brands
Mobile phone manufacturers
Mechanical calculator companies
Electromechanical calculator companies
Computer printer companies
Office supply companies
Computer companies of Italy
Computer hardware companies
Electronics companies of Italy
Home computer hardware companies
Netbook manufacturers
Display technology companies
Telecommunications equipment vendors
Mobile phone companies of Italy
Multinational companies headquartered in Italy
Telecom Italia
2003 mergers and acquisitions
Ivrea
Compasso d'Oro Award recipients