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TA Triumph-Adler GmbH
Company type	GmbH
Industry	Technology
Founded	1896; 128 years ago in Nuremberg
Headquarters	Nuremberg , Germany
Products	Document management systems; Office equipment;
Parent	Kyocera (since 2010)

TA Triumph-Adler GmbH (formerly TA Triumph-Adler AG) is a German office equipment manufacturer based in Nuremberg and founded in 1896. The company currently manufactures computer printers and other document management systems. The company is now part of the Japanese conglomerate Kyocera.

History

Triumph-Adler was founded in 1896 by Siegfried Bettmann as Deutsche Triumph Fahrradwerke Aktiengesellschaft (AG) in Nuremberg as a subsidiary of the Triumph Cycle Co. Ltd. of Coventry.^[1]^: 7

Until 1909, Deutsche Triumph Fahrradwerke AG only produced bicycles. Briefly, they also manufactured motorcycles. In 1909, Triumph entered the office equipment business after purchasing the equipment of a bankrupt typewriter company whose assets were being auctioned off to the public.^[2]^: 19–20^[3]^: 382

In 1911, the company changed its name to Triumph Werke Nürnberg AG, and two years later it was split off from Triumph Engineering. During World War I and World War II, Triumph mainly manufactured typewriters, bicycles, motorcycles and even automobiles. On the side, it also produced wheelbarrows and handcarts.^[3]^: 383

In 1957, Grundig under control of its founder Max Grundig purchased a majority stake in Triumph Werke Nürnberg as well as in Adlerwerke.^[2]^: 26 In 1958, Grundig merged both companies as well as the dictation machine division of its Grundig tape recorder factories (Grundig Stenorette) to form Triumph-Adler-Büromaschinen-Vertriebs-GmbH. From then on, the company only produced and sold office machines.^[3]^: 383

In 1968, Triumph-Adler was ranked the sixth-largest office machine manufacturer in the world.^[4] In 1968, Grundig sold Triumph-Adler to the Litton Industries of the United States.^[5]^: 79 This had come after Grundig had been looking to streamline the company, after it began focusing most of its efforts around producing consumer electronics and especially color television sets—a booming market for Grundig in the late 1960s.^[6]^: 190 In 1979, Triumph-Adler returned to Germany after Volkswagen AG acquired a majority stake in 1979, followed by the remaining stakes in 1980.^[3]^: 383 Volkswagen had previously failed to enter the office machines industry in 1978 after a bid to gain a majority stake in Nixdorf Computer fell through.^[7]^: 77 In 1980, Triumph-Adler acquired a majority stake in Pertec Computer Corporation. Pertec themselves acquired Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), designers of the famous Altair 8800 microcomputer, in 1977.^[8] Triumph-Adler further expanded its strategic position with the Alphatronic brand of computer systems in the increasingly competitive computer business.^[9]^{: 247–248} In 1981, they acquired Omnidata of Westlake Village, California, to expand their presence in the turnkey word processor computer systems segment.^[10]

In 1985, the name was changed again to TA Triumph-Adler AG.^[3]^: 384 In 1986, Olivetti S.p.A., a competitor to TA based in Italy, purchased the majority of TA's holdings from Volkswagen.^[11]^[12] With this acquisition, Olivetti grabbed 50% of the European typewriter market.^[13]^: 183 After the acquisition, domestic production and development of TA products in German largely halted, and several German manufacturing facilities, including the traditional Frankfurter Adlerwerke in 1993, were shuttered and sold off. Sales were outsourced to a separate company. In 1994, a consortium of shareholders acquired the Triumph-Adler subsidiary from Olivetti and converted it into a medium-sized holding company that now included office, games and leisure, construction technology and healthcare divisions.^[3]^: 384

In 2003, Kyocera Mita Corporation (now Kyocera Document Solutions), a Japanese manufacturer of copy, print and fax systems, acquired a 25% stake in TA in exchange for rebranding Kyocera's hardware under the TA name.^[14]^: 76 In early 2009, Kyocera Document Solutions took over the majority of Triumph-Adler; and in October 2010, they purchased the remaining shares.^[15]^: 366

References

^ Reinwald, Thomas (2004). Triumph Motorräder [Triumph Motorcycles] (in German). Kleine Vennekate. ISBN 9783935517140 – via Google Books.
^ ^a ^b Dingwerth, Leonhard (2008). Grosse und mittlere Hersteller [Large and Medium-sized Manufacturers] (in German). Historisches Schreibmaschinen-Archiv. ISBN 9783921913383 – via Google Books.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Grant, Tina, ed. (2003). International Directory of Company Histories. Vol. 48. St. James Press. ISBN 9781558626898 – via the Internet Archive.
^ Staff writer (2 April 1975). "Litton Wins Reversal of FTC Order to Shed Unit in West Germany". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company.
^ Dyas, Gareth P.; Heinz T Thanheiser (1976). The Emerging European Enterprise: Strategy and Structure in French and German Industry. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781349025152 – via Google Books.
^ Grant, Tina, ed. (1999). International Directory of Company Histories. Vol. 27. St. James Press. ISBN 9781558626683 – via Google Books.
^ Noam, Eli M. (1992). Telecommunications in Europe. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195070521 – via Google Books.
^ Milewski, Richard (8 December 1980). "Last Vestige of MITS Closes". InfoWorld. 2 (22). IDG Publications: 7 – via Google Books.
^ Longley, Dennis; Michael Shain, eds. (1983). Microcomputer User's Handbook: The Complete and Up to Date Guide to Buying a Business Computer. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781349067374 – via Google Books.
^ "Triumph Adler übernimmt Omnidata" [Triumph Adler takes over Omnidata]. Computerwoche (in German). 14 (4). IDG Publications. 16 April 1981. Archived from the original on 14 January 2024.
^ Staff writer (23 April 1986). "Olivetti to Acquire Triumph-Adler". The New York Times: D5. Archived from the original on 24 May 2015.
^ Lewis, Paul (7 November 1986). "Italian Enters Paris Fasion". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 24 May 2015.
^ Mozley Roche, Edward (1992). Managing Information Technology in Multinational Corporations. Macmillan. ISBN 9780024026903 – via Google Books.
^ "New fuel for an old engine". The Economist. Vol. 373, no. 8402. 20 November 2004. pp. 75–76 – via Google Books.
^ Jowett, P.; Francoise Jowett (2011). Private Equity: The German Experience. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230308664 – via Google Books.