Office Workstations Limited
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Industry | Software Engineering |
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Founded | 1984 |
Founder |
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Defunct | 1989 |
Fate | Acquired by Matsushita Electric Industrial |
Headquarters | , |
Products |
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Office Workstations Limited (OWL) was a British software company based in Edinburgh.
OWL was founded in 1984 by five former employees of ICL (Ian Ritchie, Stuart Harper, Gordon Dougan, Richard Stonehouse and Dave MacLaren) who had previously worked at ICL's Scottish Development Centre at Dalkeith Palace until its closure the previous year.
The following year (1985), OWL International Inc., a
Hypertext Pioneer
OWL developed and supported
Guide was likely the first ever commercially available hypertext browser, when it was introduced on the Macintosh in 1986, nearly a decade before hypertext became the standard method of developing and browsing the Internet.[citation needed]
Ownership
OWL was bought for over £7m in 1989 by Matsushita Electric Industrial (MEI) of Japan and became Panasonic Office Workstations Ltd.. They subsequently developed software to support next generation consumer electronics., including DVD technology, Digital television, next generation mobile communications, Internet delivery of multimedia and 3D car navigation systems.
Spin Off Companies
A number of spin-off companies were formed by ex-OWL employees, including InfoAccess (a
Closure
On 30 April 2005 Panasonic OWL was shut down.
References
- ^ "The OWL Story". Electrum. 26 January 2001. Archived from the original on 14 November 2013. Retrieved 2 December 2017.