Other World Computing (OWC), founded in 1988, is an American computer hardware and software company, with an online store for upgrading

Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and accessories.

History

1988

At age 14, Larry O'Connor began LRO Enterprises, a printer ribbon reinking business, in his family's barn. A year later, LRO Enterprises reorganized into LRO Computer Sales and began selling computer memory chips via

America Online AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo! Inc. The service tra ...

. The company moved into its first facility in

Woodstock, Illinois Woodstock is a city in and the county seat of McHenry County, Illinois, McHenry County, Illinois, United States. It is located 51 miles northwest of Chicago, making it one of the city's outer-most suburbs. Per the 2020 United States census, 2020 ...

, and hired its first employees.

1990s

1992 - LRO Computer Sales shifted focus to computers by offering hard drives to its customers. 1993 ''-'' LRO Computer Sales was incorporated in the state of Illinois under the name New Concepts Development Corporation (NCDC). The company then moved into a 2,500-square-foot office space, which expanded to about 6,500 square feet over the next eight years. 1994 ''-'' O'Connor renamed LRO Computers Sales "Other World Computing" (OWC), which operates

doing business as A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

NCDC. OWC shipped its first OWC-branded acceleration products in 1995 followed by the introduction of the Mercury G3 ZIF upgrade line in 1999.

2000s

OWC expanded and introduced the Mercury Classic Elite line of external storage and offered an

iPod The iPod is a series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices that were designed and marketed by Apple Inc. from 2001 to 2022. The iPod Classic#1st generation, first version was released on November 10, 2001, about mon ...

case. OWC announced a portable

FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony a ...

drive and a FireWire/USB combination product in 2003. Later on, OWC launched www.fastermac.net, a Macintosh-only

Internet access Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide ...

service that provided dial-up access throughout the U.S. specifically for Macintosh computer users in 2003. 2004 - The company also began offering an iPod battery replacement program and introduced the miniStack line of drives to complement Apple's Mac mini. 2006 - OWC introduced the first Dual-HD external FireWire drive RAID available up to 1.5 TB and became the first third-party company with memory modules and upgrade kits for the Intel-based Mac Pro. It met Apple specifications and was the first to introduce a Quad Interface external hard drive combining FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and

eSATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard ...

connection options in one product – the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Quad Interface. 2007 ''-'' OWC announced it would be the US distributor of the Axiotron Modbook. OWC also introduced the OWC Mercury Rack Pro line and the OWC

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

internal and external drives. . 2008 - OWC moved into a new corporate headquarters designed to platinum

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green building certification systems, green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating ...

standards. 2009 - OWC expanded its storage line with the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2, a desktop hardware RAID storage product. Later that year a Vestas V39-500 kW wind turbine started generating more electricity than OWC needed to run the facility. OWC said it was the first technology manufacturer/distributor in the U.S. to become totally on-site wind powered.

2010s

Other World Computing was on the ''Inc.'' magazine 5000 "Fastest-Growing Privately Owned Companies" and "Computer and Electronics Top 100" list from 2007 through 2013. 2010 - OWC announced the Mercury Extreme

SSD A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses Integrated circuit, integrated circuits to store data persistence (computer science), persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-stat ...

line of 2.5"

SATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard ...

solid state drives. The OWC Data Doubler, for adding a second internal drive to MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac computers, was also introduced, as was the OWC Slim eSATA

ExpressCard ExpressCard, initially called NEWCARD, is an interface to connect peripheral, peripheral devices to a computer, usually a laptop, laptop computer. The ExpressCard technical standard specifies the design of slots built into the computer and of expa ...

Adapter, which adds an eSATA port to Mac and PC notebooks. 2011 - Sales revenue was reported as $88.3 million, with about 137 employees. 2019 - OWC acquired fellow external computer storage products and accessories manufacturer Akitio. 2021 - OWC acquired LumaForge, an award-winning vendor of highly specialized, high-performance NAS solutions for video production team
OWC ACQUIRES LUMAFORGE AND JELLYFISH TECHNOLOGIES

Products

OWC markets upgrade kits for Apple products. The Data Doubler installation kit allows customers to add a second 2.5" SATA

hard disk drive 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 hard disk drive platter, pla ...

solid state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses Integrated circuit, integrated circuits to store data persistence (computer science), persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-stat ...

to the optical drive bay of a Mac mini, MacBook, MacBook Pro or an iMac. The optical drive can then be repurposed as an external drive. OWC designs and manufactures

s. MaxRAM was a line of memory upgrades for Apple products; this line has since been marketed under the OWC label. OWC provides external drives,

Network Attached Storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. In this context, the term "NAS" can refer to both the technology and systems ...

(NAS), internal drives,

docks The word dock () in American English refers to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore). In British English, the term is not used the same way as in American Engli ...

and adaptors,

memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras as well as in many early games conso ...

s and memory card readers, PCIe expansion, a range of software and apps designed for data workflow, toolkits and accessories, and memory modules.

References

{{reflist Computer hardware companies Companies established in 1988 Companies based in McHenry County, Illinois Computer companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Illinois