Vadem

Last updated
Vadem Limited
FormerlyVadem Inc. (1983–1999)
Company typePrivate
IndustryComputer
Founded1983;41 years ago (1983) in San Jose, California
Founders
  • Henry Fung
  • Chikok Shing
Defunct2013;11 years ago (2013)
FateDissolution
Products Vadem Clio
Number of employees
30 (1994)

Vadem Inc., later Vadem Limited, was an original design manufacturer, chipset designer, and computer design firm active from 1983 to 2013. The company chiefly focused on the design of mobile computers such as laptops, rendering their services to companies such as Zenith Data Systems, Osborne Computer Corporation, and Sharp Corporation, among others. In the late 1990s, the company released their own branded product, the Vadem Clio, a PDA.

Contents

History

A Vadem Clio from 1998 Vadem-montage.png
A Vadem Clio from 1998

Vadem Inc. was founded by Henry Fung and Chikok Shing in San Jose, California, in 1983. [1] : 411  [2] : 128  Fung had previously worked for Intel as an engineer, while Shing had worked for the Osborne Computer Corporation, which had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy around the time of Vadem's incorporation. [1] : 411  [3] In its founding year, Vadem delivered the design for what would become the Morrow Pivot, one of the first battery-powered MS-DOS compatible portable computers, manufactured and sold by Morrow Designs. [1] : 411  Morrow provided Vadem with under $3 million in seed money in exchange for the design. [3]

As Morrow had signed a non-exclusive agreement with Vadem to use the computer's design, Vadem later sold the rights to the design to the recently reorganized Osborne Computer Corporation, who marketed it as the Osborne III computer in 1984. [3] Later, in 1985, Vadem's Shing designed the lunchbox-sized Morrow Pivot II for Morrow, this time under an exclusivity agreement. Morrow themselves sold the rights for the Pivot II design to Zenith Data Systems, who released it as the Zenith Z-171. [4] : 157  [5] The Z-171 sold immensely well for Zenith Data Systems, the latter shocking industry observers in early 1986 when it was awarded a contract to sell 20,000 Z-171s worth $27 million to the IRS, beating out IBM and their PC Convertible. [6] [7] [8] In 1985, Sharp Corporation hired Vadem for the design of the PC-7000, their first fully IBM PC compatible portable computer. In 1987, the recommissioned Vadem for a successor laptop, the PC-4500. [2] : 128  Zenith themselves later hired Vadem for the design of their all-in-one Eazy PC, in 1987. [9] : 76 

The company posted profits in the fiscal years 1986 and 1987. [2] : 128  By 1988, Vadem occupied a 6,000-square-foot research and development facility San Jose, employed 18 full-time employees and had several freelance consultants on their roster. [2] : 128  In the late 1980s, the company began pivoting to designing integrated circuits for application in personal computers and embedded systems, such as solid state disks and LCD controller chips. During this pivot, Vadem found their greatest successes in the PC-compatible chipset market, [2] : 125  [1] : 411  signing two contracts with Intel in 1988 for the rights to Vadem's designs for a chipset compatible with the IBM PC XT and PS/2 Model 30, in exchange for investment capital and referrals to Vadem from Intel's sales department. [1] : 412  In 1989, Vadem designed for Intel the 82347, a power-management support chip designed for Intel's laptop-oriented i386 variant, the i386SL. [10] [11] In 1990, they released a low-cost, low-power CMOS chipset for the Intel 80186 and NEC V40. [1] : 411 

Vadem expanded to 30 employees in 1994, by which point the company began focusing on logic and power-management chipsets the handheld PC and personal digital assistant (PDA) markets. [12] [13] In late 1998, the company released their own PDA, the Clio, based on an NEC MIPS VR4111 processor. [14] : 44  [15] The Clio was rebranded by Sharp as the Mobilon TriPad in the same year. [14] [16] : 149 

The company experienced financial turmoil in 1998 and restructured in 1999, following a purchase of stake in Vadem by Microsoft which saw the company split four ways and reemerge as Vadem, LLC. The latter dissolved in 2013 after having transferred its patents into the various spin-offs, all of which went defunct shortly after their creation. [17] [18]

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