Olivetti built a PC before IBM — and buried it because the typewriter was selling

The Olivetti M20, launched in 1982, was one of the first personal computers with a built-in floppy drive, a Z8000 processor, and a proprietary operating system (PCOS). It predated the IBM PC XT and was technically competitive with anything on the market. Olivetti's engineering team had built a machine that could have positioned the company at the centre of the personal computer revolution.

But Olivetti's sales force was built for typewriters and adding machines. The M20 required a different kind of sale — to IT managers, not office managers — and a different kind of support. The company's distribution network, its dealer relationships, and its service infrastructure were all designed for mechanical products. The M20 was sold through the same channels as the typewriter, to the same buyers, with the same pitch.

The M20 was quietly discontinued in 1985. Olivetti later re-entered the PC market with the M24 (an IBM-compatible clone), which was more successful but came three years after the M20. The company that had built a personal computer before IBM ended up selling IBM clones. The engineering was right; the organisation was built for a different product.