Portal:Companies/Selected article

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Usage

The "Selected Article" box on the Portal page is randomly generated with the Random Portal Component template. To add an article to be randomly selected, you must:

  1. Find the next available subpage number from the list of articles below
  2. Make a new subpage of this page with that number (Portal:Companies/Selected article/<# here>)
  3. Write a summary of the article using the layout design at Portal:Companies/Selected article/Layout
  4. Link to the new subpage at the bottom of the list below, like the other subpages
  5. Update the "max=" attribute on the {{Random portal component}} in the "Selected Article" box on the main page to the number of the subpage you created

Selected articles list

editSelection 1

An Oliver model No.5 with pencil that, when lowered, could draw lines or tables.
The Oliver Typewriter Company was an American typewriter manufacturer headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The Oliver Typewriter was the first effective "visible print" typewriter, meaning text was visible to the typist as it was entered. Oliver typewriters were marketed heavily for home use, utilizing local distributors and sales on credit. Oliver produced more than one million machines between 1895 and 1928 and licensed its designs to several international firms.

Competitive pressure and financial troubles resulted in the company's liquidation in 1928. The company’s assets were purchased by investors who formed The British Oliver Typewriter Company, which manufactured and licensed the machines until its own closure in the late 1950s. The last Oliver typewriter was produced in 1959.

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Adobe Systems, based in San Jose, California, acquired Scene7 to help boost its overall services strategy.
Scene7 is an American on-demand rich media software company that provides document hosting and interactive publishing services such as online catalogs, targeted email, video, and image management. Several companies, mostly retailers, use the company's services to showcase products on their websites and to allow customers to interact with the products. Scene7's technology allows users to manipulate product images by zooming in and rotating products, simulating the inspection of merchandise in retail stores.

The company, founded as a division of Autodesk, created a room decoration computer software called Picture This Home in the mid-1990s. The division was sold to Broderbund in 1998, then spun off as a company called GoodHome.com in June 1999, receiving $30 million in venture capital. After GoodHome.com failed to become profitable, it was reorganized and renamed Scene7. It formally launched on January 23, 2001 and focused on helping companies prepare interactive advertisements for consumers. Scene7 was acquired by Adobe Systems on May 31, 2007 for an undisclosed sum.

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The headquarters of Odwalla Inc. in Half Moon Bay, California.
Odwalla Inc. is a health food company founded in Santa Cruz, California in 1980 that sells fruit juice and food bars. Odwalla, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Coca-Cola, is headquartered in Half Moon Bay, California, with a production facility in Dinuba, California. The name "Odwalla" was taken from that of a character in the song "Illistrum" written by the Art Ensemble of Chicago jazz group as a metaphor for the company.

The company experienced strong growth from its incorporation in 1985, expanding its distribution network from California to most of North America, and went public in 1993. However, a period of decline occurred as a result of a fatal outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 bacteria in 1996 caused by contamination of its apple juice. Odwalla recalled its juices and experienced a ninety-percent reduction in sales following the event. The company gradually recovered, and, after a few years, was making a profit again. Odwalla was acquired by the Coca-Cola Company in 2001 for $181 million.

Odwalla's range of products includes juices, smoothies, dairy-free soy milk, and similar organic beverages, as well as several flavors of energy bars, known as food bars, and bottled spring water. While Odwalla originally sold unpasteurized juices (because the process of pasteurization alters the flavor of juice), following the E. coli outbreak, Odwalla adopted flash pasteurization and other industry-standard safety procedures.

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BAE Systems' headquarters
BAE Systems is a British defence and aerospace company headquartered at Farnborough, UK, which has worldwide interests, particularly in North America through its subsidiary BAE Systems Inc. BAE is the world's third-largest defence contractor and the largest in Europe. BAE was formed on 30 November 1999 by the £7.7 billion merger of two British companies: Marconi Electronic Systems, the defence electronics and naval shipbuilding subsidiary of The General Electric Company plc (GEC) and aircraft, munitions and naval systems manufacturer British Aerospace (BAe). It has increasingly disengaged from its businesses in continental Europe in favour of investing in the United States. Since its formation it has sold its shares of Airbus, EADS Astrium, AMS and Atlas Elektronik. BAE Systems is involved in several major defence projects, including the F-35 Lightning II, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Royal Navy Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. The company has been the subject of criticism, both general opposition to the arms trade and also specific allegations of unethical and corrupt practices, including the Al Yamamah contracts with Saudi Arabia that have earned BAE and its predecessor £43 billion in twenty years.

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Laboratories at Icos
Icos Corporation was the largest biotechnology company in the U.S. state of Washington before it was sold to Eli Lilly and Company in 2007.

Co-founded in 1989 by George B. Rathmann, a pioneer in the industry and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and co-founder of Amgen, Icos focused on the development of drugs to treat inflammatory disorders.

During its 17-year history, the company conducted clinical trials of 12 drugs, three of which reached the last phase of clinical trials. Icos also manufactured antibodies for other biotechnology companies.

Icos is famous for tadalafil (Cialis), a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction.

This drug was discovered by GlaxoSmithKline, developed by Icos, and manufactured and marketed in partnership with Eli Lilly. Boosted by a unique advertising campaign led by the Grey Worldwide Agency, sales from Cialis allowed Icos to become profitable in 2006.

Cialis was the only drug developed by the company to be approved. LeukArrest, a drug to treat shock, and Pafase, developed for sepsis, were both tested in phase III clinical trials, but testing was discontinued after unpromising results during the trials. Eli Lilly acquired Icos in January 2007, and most of Icos's workers were laid off soon after.

CMC Biopharmaceuticals, a Danish contract manufacturer, bought the remnants of Icos and retained the remaining employees.

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Elderly Instruments is a musical instrument retailer in Lansing, Michigan, United States, with a reputation as a "megastore", a repair shop and a locus for folk music including bluegrass and "twang". Specializing in fretted instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, mandolins, and ukuleles, Elderly maintains a selection of odd or rare instruments. Elderly is known as the premier repair shop for fretted instruments, as one of the larger vintage instrument dealers in the United States, and as a major dealer of Martin guitars in particular.

Industry publications, music retail trade, and bluegrass music journals have featured articles about the Elderly repair staff. The company also provides consignment services for rare and vintage instruments. Since its foundation in 1972, Elderly has undergone two major expansions: into mail order in 1975 and then into Internet sales in the 1990s. In 2005 it was the subject of a lawsuit by Gibson Guitar Corporation concerning trademark infringement. Today it is recognized internationally for its services and products; its mail order and Internet business account for 65–70 percent of its total revenue. Elderly grossed $12 million in 1999 and by 2007 was grossing $17 million annually.

In addition to retail and repair services, Elderly Instruments is noted as a center of local music culture for bluegrass and "twang" music. Elderly Instruments operates a wholesale record distribution business, Sidestreet Distributing, in the lower level of its complex, servicing more than 300 small retail businesses.

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The Holden 50-2106 utility launched in 1951, three years after the 48-215 sedan.
GM Holden Ltd is an Australian automaker based in Port Melbourne, Victoria. The company was originally independent, but since 1931 has been a subsidiary of General Motors (GM). Holden has taken charge of vehicle operations for GM in Australasia and, on behalf of GM, holds partial ownership of GM Daewoo in South Korea. Over the years, Holden has offered a broad range of locally produced vehicles, supplemented by imported GM models. In the past, Holden has offered badge engineered Isuzu, Nissan, Suzuki and Toyota models in sharing arrangements.

Holden bodyworks are manufactured at Elizabeth, South Australia, and engines are produced at Port Melbourne, Victoria. Historically, production or assembly plants were operated in all mainland states of Australia: Acacia Ridge, Queensland; Dandenong, Victoria; Mosman Park, Western Australia; Pagewood, New South Wales; and Woodville, South Australia. Until 1990, GM's New Zealand subsidiary Holden New Zealand operated a plant based in Trentham, with a plant in Petone running until 1984. The consolidation of car production at Elizabeth was completed in 1988, but some assembly operations continued at Dandenong until 1996.

Although Holden's involvement in exports has fluctuated since the 1950s, the declining sales of large cars in Australia has led the company to look to international markets to increase profitability; in 2006, exports alone accounted for almost AU$1.3 billion in earnings.

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The sign at a main entrance to the Microsoft corporate campus. The Redmond Microsoft campus today includes more than 8 million square feet (approx. 750,000 m²) and over 30,000 employees.
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation, which rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by various versions of Microsoft Windows in the 1990s and 2000s.

Throughout its history the company has been the target of criticism for various reasons, including monopoly status and anti-competitive business practices including refusal to deal and tying. The U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission, among others, have ruled against Microsoft for various antitrust violations.

It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Microsoft's best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software.

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A NeXTstation with the original keyboard, mouse and the NeXT MegaPixel monitor
NeXT Computer, Inc. (later NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets. NeXT was founded in 1985 by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs after his forced resignation from Apple. NeXT introduced the first NeXT Computer in 1988, and the smaller NeXTStation in 1990. Sales of the NeXT computers were relatively limited, with estimates of about 50,000 units shipped in total. Nevertheless its innovative object-oriented NeXTSTEP operating system and development environment were highly influential.

NeXT later released much of the NeXTSTEP system as a programming environment standard called OpenStep. NeXT withdrew from the hardware business in 1993 to concentrate on marketing OPENSTEP for several OEMs. NeXT also developed WebObjects, one of the first Enterprise web application frameworks. WebObjects never became very popular because of its initial high price of $50,000 but remains a prominent early example of a web server based on dynamic page generation rather than static content. Apple purchased NeXT on December 20, 1996 for $429 million, and much of the current Mac OS X system is built on the OPENSTEP foundation. WebObjects is now bundled with Mac OS X Server and Xcode.

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