ADI Corporation

ADI Corporation (Advanced Data International) is a defunct Taiwanese manufacturing company active from 1979 to the 2000s. Its primary export was computer hardware—chiefly computer monitors—through its American subsidiary ADI Systems. For a time, it was the fifth largest monitor manufacturer in the world,[1] with major customers including Apple, Compaq, and Optiquest.

History

ADI Corporation (an initialism for Advanced Data International) was founded in Taiwan in March 1979 by Liao Jian-cheng. The company was originally a diversified concern, manufacturing a number of disparate products, including footwear for Nike, Inc.[2][3] By the time the company entered the market for computer hardware in the 1980s, ADI still had a contract with Nike to produce shoes.[2] Its first computer-related exports were data terminals and computer monitors.

In 1986, Liao Jian-cheng merged ADI with his other corporation Cheng Chang Enterprises Co., Ltd.[2] In 1987, the company went public on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.[4] Around the same time, the company established Quimax Systems, an American subsidiary dedicated to importing the company's monitors and terminals manufactured in Taiwan. A major customer of Quimax in the 1980s was Esprit Systems, a seller of terminals that was spun off from Hazeltine Corporation within the decade.[5] In 1989, ADI became a major shareholder in Espirit, and in 1990 the year they led a group of other Taiwanese companies in a takeover of Espirit that transformed the public American company into a privately owned venture.[6][7]

By the turn of the 1990s, ADI was a leading manufacturer of terminals and displays in Taiwan.[8] ADI began offering monitors under their own name starting in 1993, under the subbrand MicroScan.[9] Major customers of ADI soon included Apple Computer, Compaq, and Optiquest.[10][11] Of these customers, Compaq was by far the largest, ADI producing nearly all of their monitors in the 1990s.[12] In November 1994, Compaq, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in May 2002, formed a joint venture with ADI to raise factories in Mexico, Brazil, and Europe to assemble and store ADI's monitors, helping reduce the travel time from Taiwan to ADI's major exports.[13] Unit shipments increased from 1.1 million in 1993 to 1.6 million in 1994.[14] Also in 1994, ADI piloted the production of an i486SX subnotebook, although it never came to fruition.[15]

In 1998, ADI obtained the rights from Sony to sell monitors with Trinitron picture tubes, starting with the MicroScan 5GT.[16] Around the turn of the millennium, the company began selling flat-panel monitors, chiefly LCDs.[10]

ADI went defunct around the same time they let their American website domain name expire in December 2006.[17]

External links