Compaq A Timeline
Compaq was sketched on a placemat in a Houston House of Pies in 1982. Twelve years later it was the biggest maker of personal computers in the world. Eight years after that it was gone, inside Hewlett-Packard. This video follows it year by year.
Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto left Texas Instruments and founded Compaq in February 1982, with $1,000 each and $2.5 million from Ben Rosen of Sevin Rosen Partners. To copy the IBM PC legally they needed a BIOS that behaved exactly like IBM's without using a line of IBM's code, so they wrote one in a clean room. The Compaq Portable followed: 53,000 shipped in 1983 for more than $111 million, a US first-year record.
On 9 September 1986 the Deskpro 386 beat IBM to Intel's new chip by about seven months. In September 1988 Compaq and eight other makers, the Gang of Nine, answered IBM's closed Micro Channel with EISA. Then cheaper clones bit: a $70 million loss in the third quarter of 1991, 1,440 jobs cut, and Canion removed on 25 October 1991.
Eckhard Pfeiffer's price war (ProLinea, 1992; Presario, 1993) made Compaq number one in 1994, with 4.8 million PCs shipped. Then the bid to become an enterprise giant: Tandem (1997, about $3 billion when agreed) and Digital Equipment (26 January 1998, $9.6 billion, the largest computer takeover to that date). The 1998 loss of $2.7 billion, Dell's direct model, and Pfeiffer's exit on 18 April 1999.
On 4 September 2001 HP agreed to buy Compaq for about $25 billion in shares. Walter Hewlett fought it; HP's shareholders approved it by 51.4% to 48.6% in the vote of 19 March 2002; the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled for HP on 30 April; and the merger completed on 3 May 2002. HP dropped the Compaq brand from its PCs in 2013 and licensed it abroad. The ProLiant servers Compaq built are still sold by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
No figure appears without its date and source.
Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.
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Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons)
- House of Pies, Kirby Drive, Houston - where Compaq was sketched on a placemat: ShreddedLettuce, CC0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHouse_of_Pies_Houston.jpg
- Compaq Portable, the first fully IBM-compatible portable PC: Tiziano Garuti (1000Bit, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACompaq_portable.jpg
- Compaq Deskpro 386, the first 80386 PC: Tecnoxarxa, CC0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACompaq_Deskpro_386_16Mhz.jpg
- Compaq ProLiant 2500 server: Tommy Karlsson, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACompaq_Proliant_2500.JPG
- Clock Tower Place, Maynard MA - the mill that was DEC's headquarters: self, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMaynard_MA_Clock_Tower_Place.jpg
- Assabet Woolen Mill, Maynard MA (former DEC headquarters): Daderot, CC0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAssabet_Woolen_Mill_-_Maynard%2C_Massachusetts_-_DSC04913.jpg
- Carly Fiorina, HP CEO, 2003: U.S. Department of Commerce, Photographic Services, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACarly_Fiorina_2003.jpg
- Former Compaq headquarters campus, Harris County TX (aerial, 2002, as HP campus): U.S. Geological Survey, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHewlettPackardCampusHarrisCoTX.png
Primary sources
- Britannica Money, 'Compaq' - $2.5M initial investment and Rosen as chairman; 53,000 portables and more than $111M in 1983, the most by any first-year US company; public in 1983; 1991 recession, Gulf War and Canion's ouster at Rosen's urging.
- Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas, 'Compaq Computer Corporation' - February 1982; $1,000 each; the House of Pies placemat on Westheimer Road; Fortune 500 in fourth year (1986); Tandem $4bn; Dell passes Compaq in 2001; campus northwest of Houston..
- International Directory of Company Histories via FundingUniverse, 'Compaq Computer Corporation' - $70M Q3 1991 loss, 1,440 jobs (12%), ProLinea June 1992, Presario August 1993 (100,000+ in 60 days), SystemPro November 1989, DEC closing June 1998.
- Wikipedia, 'Compaq' and 'Compaq Portable' - 16 Feb 1982; clean-room BIOS at about $1M; Portable announced Nov 1982, on sale Mar 1983, $2,995, 28 lb, 9-inch screen; Pfeiffer out 18 Apr 1999; completion 3 May 2002; brand dropped 2013; licensing to Newsan (2015), Ossify (2018), Positivo (renewed 13 Apr 2021).
- IBM, 'The IBM PC' (ibm.com/history) - 12 August 1981; off-the-shelf parts; published technical reference.
- PCjs Machines blog, 18 June 2019 - Deskpro 386 unveiled 9 September 1986; speakers Rosen, Canion, Gates, Moore; IBM's 386 answer about seven months later.
- Wikipedia, 'Extended Industry Standard Architecture' - announced September 1988 by the Gang of Nine; MCA licensing.
- UPI, 25 October 1991, 'Compaq removes Canion' - $70M loss, 1,440 jobs, 14-hour board meeting, Pfeiffer aged 50.
- Dataquest figures via The Washington Post, 25 January 1995 - 1994 shipments 4.8M (Compaq), 3.96M (IBM), 3.95M (Apple); shares 10.3% and 8.5%.
- Tandem Computers Form 8-K, June 1997 - agreement of 23 June 1997, about $3.0bn at the 20 June closing price.
- Digital Equipment Corporation Form 8-K, press release of 26 January 1998 (SEC EDGAR) - $9.6bn, $30 plus ~0.945 Compaq share per DEC share, $4.8bn cash, largest in computer-industry history, Pfeiffer quotation.
- Compaq Form 10-K for 2000 (SEC EDGAR) - revenue 1996-2000 and the 1998 net loss of $2,743M.
- HP and Compaq joint press release, filed as SEC Form 425 on 4 September 2001 - about $25bn, 0.6325 HP share per Compaq share, 64%/36%, $87bn combined revenue, Fiorina quotation.
- Delaware Court of Chancery, Hewlett v. Hewlett-Packard, C.A. No. 19513, Chancellor Chandler, 30 April 2002 - public announcement 4 September 2001; the Deutsche Bank vote claim decided for HP.
- HP Form 8-K, May 2002 - final count 838,401,376 for, 793,094,105 against (51.4% / 48.6% of votes cast).
- HP Inc Form 8-K, November 2015 - separation of Hewlett Packard Enterprise completed 1 November 2015.
- HPE newsroom, May 2026 - HPE ProLiant Compute DL394 Gen12 with NVIDIA Vera CPU (Computex 2026).
Not regulated financial advice.