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- Norsk Data (ND) was a Norwegian manufacturer of minicomputers which operated between 1967 and 1992. The company was established as A/S Nordata – Norsk Data-Elektronikk on 7 July 1967 and took into use the Norsk Data brand in 1975. The company was founded by Lars Monrad-Krohn, Rolf Skår and Per Bjørge, three computer engineers working at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment which had just built the minicomputer SAM 2. ND's first contract was the delivery of a Nord-1 computer to Norcontrol. Initially in competition with Kongsberg, ND started delivering computers to Norwegian institutions. By 1972 the company had developed Sintran operating system, the 32-bit Nord-5 and a time sharing system. The international break-through came with the 1973 delivery of computers to CERN and the company soon had half their sales abroad. Two years later the database program Sibas (SIBAS is (tm) of SRS that has full rights to the code developed at the Central Institute for Industrial Research by Olli, Salter, Aschim and Hoffmann) had been completely ported and made available, and the following year a 150-terminal system connected via X.21/X.25 based XMSG and a flight simulator backbone for the F-16 were delivered. In 1978 Norsk Data both bought Tandberg and launched its office suite Notis, although Tandberg was sold again in 1980. ND became the first foreign-listed Norwegian company in 1981, which also saw the launch of the 32-bit ND-500. Throughout the 1980s ND acquired a series of domestic and foreign hardware and software companies, many loosely oriented at increased hardware sales. At the peak in 1986 and 1987, Norsk Data had 4,500 employees, 2.5 billion Norwegian krone (NOK) in revenue and was Norway's second-largest company by market capitalization—having increased fifty-fold between 1977 and 1985. Despite late attempts to develop Ndix, ND never succeeded at entering the Unix market which started to dominate in the late 1980s. The company's share value halved on 19 October 1987 and never recovered. The company went through a series of reorganizations, but the company never succeeded at making money on open systems and the last area with profits was sales to existing Sintran customers. From 1988 the company was gradually split up; parts were sold to foreign competitors while others were spun off as subsidiaries or sold. By 1993 all equity had been lost and the remaining parts of the company sold off or taken over by the creditors. The main parts of company were bought by Telenor. (en)
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