Ambra Computer Corporation

Logo used from 1992 to 1994

Industry| Personal computers
Founded| 1992 (1992)
Defunct| 1994 (1994) (worldwide)
1996 (Canada)
Parent| IBM

Ambra Computer Corporation was a subsidiary of IBM in the United States. The name "Ambra" was licensed by Individual Computer Products International (ICPI) - a UK-based IBM subsidiary which owned Ambra Personal Computers in the UK - to the Ambra Computer Corporation. It introduced a line of personal computers targeted at the home user, sold mainly through mail-order, first in Europe (1992), then in the USA (1993). Ambra had a volume production run of just a year or so; the line was discontinued in 1994[1] in favor of the IBM Aptiva (except for Canada, where it was not discontinued until 1996).[2]

## Contents

* 1 Models
* 2 Positioning
* 3 Aesthetics
* 4 Timeline
* 5 See also
* 6 References

## Models

Ambra 486 Sprinta used by Linus Torvalds from 1993-1994.

* 386
* 486
* Achiever 2000
* Achiever 3000
* Achiever 4000
* Achiever 5000
* Achiever 7000
* Achiever 9000
* Achiever D
* Achiever DP
* Achiever S
* Achiever T
* Achiever Anthem
* Achiever Hurdla/Sprinta
* Notebook
* Ispirati (Canada)

## Positioning

Ambra PCs were generally positioned at the low-end of the market, and made use of their ties with IBM in marketing materials in order to make the machines appear better quality than the host of clones, since 'real' IBM PCs were known to be expensive. In reality the machines were fairly low specification, having shadow-mask screens, minimal onboard peripherals, and using low-end processors with the minimum memory and hard disk size at each price.

Television advertising for the brand in the UK used the slogan: "Take your mind for a run."

## Aesthetics

The machines were coloured off-white, which was unusual at the time, since most machines were beige. Generally the cases were compact and offered little room for expansion.

An Ambra mouse, showing its unusual front-button placement

One notable aspect was the original Ambra mouse, which differed from almost all other designs in the position of its buttons. Conventional mice have the buttons on top: the user clicks by pressing down. The Ambra mouse had the buttons on the front, either side of the cable: the user clicked by pulling their finger backward, in a manner similar to squeezing a trigger. Criticisms led to Ambra changing to a more conventional design: one UK magazine review described the mouse as "looking like a torture device."

## Timeline

Template:Timeline of the IBM Personal Computer

## See also

* Acquisition of the IBM PC business by Lenovo

## References

1. ↑ "IBM ends Ambra PC range in Europe: Computer giant takes advantage of" (in en). 2011-10-22. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/ibm-ends-ambra-pc-range-in-europe-computer-giant-takes-advantage-of-market-share-to-shelve-subsidiary-1395087.html.
2. ↑ COMPANY NEWS - I.B.M. TO CLOSE AMBRA PERSONAL COMPUTER SUBSIDIARY, 1994-07-29, NYTimes.com:

Template:IBM personal computers

* v
* t
* e

IBM

History|

* History of IBM
* Mergers and acquisitions
* Think (motto)
* Operating Systems

Products|

* IBM Cloud
* IBM Cognos Analytics
* Watson
* Cell microprocessor
* Power Systems
* Personal Computer
* Mainframe
* Information Management Software
* Lotus Software
* Rational Software
* SPSS
* ILOG
* Tivoli Software: Service Automation Manager
* WebSphere
* alphaWorks
* Criminal Reduction Utilising Statistical History
* Mashup Center
* PureQuery
* Redbooks
* FlashSystem
* Fortran
* Connections
* Q System One

Business entities|

* IBM Aspera
* Center for The Business of Government
* Global Services
* IBM Hybrid Cloud
* International subsidiaries
* jStart
* Kenexa
* Research
* The Weather Company (Weather Underground)
* Watson Health

Facilities|

* Towers
* 1250 René-Lévesque, Montreal, QC
* One Atlantic Center, Atlanta, GA
* Software Labs
* Rome Software Lab
* Toronto Software Lab
* IBM Buildings
* 330 North Wabash, Chicago, IL
* Johannesburg
* Seattle
* Research Labs
* Africa
* Almaden
* Austin Laboratory
* Australia
* Brazil
* China Laboratory
* Haifa Laboratory
* India Laboratory
* Ireland
* Thomas J. Watson Center, New York
* Tokyo
* Zurich Laboratory
* Facilities
* Hakozaki Facility
* Yamato Facility
* Cambridge Scientific Center
* IBM Hursley
* Canada Head Office Building
* IBM Rochester
* Somers Office Complex

Initiatives|

* Academy of Technology
* Centers for Advanced Studies: CASCON
* Deep Thunder
* IBM Fellow
* Pulse conference
* The Great Mind Challenge
* DeveloperWorks: Develothon
* Linux Technology Center
* IBM Virtual Universe Community
* Smarter Planet
* World Community Grid

Inventions|

* Automated teller machine
* Electronic keypunch
* Hard disk drive
* Floppy disk
* DRAM
* Relational model
* Selectric typewriter
* Financial swaps
* Universal Product Code
* Magnetic stripe card
* Sabre airline reservation system
* Scanning tunneling microscope

Terminology|

* Globally Integrated Enterprise
* Commercial Processing Workload
* Consumability
* e-business

CEOs|

* Thomas J. Watson (1914–1956)
* Thomas Watson Jr. (1956–1971)
* T. Vincent Learson (1971–1973)
* Frank T. Cary (1973–1981)
* John R. Opel (1981–1985)
* John Fellows Akers (1985–1993)
* Louis V. Gerstner Jr. (1993–2002)
* Samuel J. Palmisano (2002–2011)
* Ginni Rometty (2012–present)

Board of directors|

* Alain Belda
* William R. Brody
* Kenneth Chenault
* Michael L. Eskew
* David Farr
* Shirley Ann Jackson
* Andrew N. Liveris
* James McNerney
* James W. Owens
* Samuel J. Palmisano
* Virginia M. Rometty
* Joan E. Spero
* Sidney Taurel
* Lorenzo Zambrano

Other|

* A Boy and His Atom
* Common Public License/IBM Public License
* Customer engineer
* Deep Blue
* Deep Thought
* Dynamic infrastructure
* GUIDE International
* IBM and the Holocaust
* IBM international chess tournament
* Lucifer cipher
* Mathematica
* IBM Plex
* SHARE computing
* ScicomP
* Quantum Experience

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambra Computer Corporation. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Company:Ambra_Computer_Corporation&oldid=4380753"
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template