Olivetti, in general, is such a tragic story for any Italian tech enthusiast. In many ways they were the original Apple: focusing on aesthetics, design and usability; turning a pretty unsexy commodity such as the typewriter into a luxury good; opening sophisticated "Olivetti stores" in high-end shopping venues such as Manhattan or Paris; and so on.
But by the end of the 80s the writing was on the wall: the Italian system could not support a world-class tech player.
"But by the end of the 80s the writing was on the wall: the Italian system could not support a world-class tech player."
There are many that believe - including Olivetti employees back then, according to documented sources - that the US system did in fact "un-support" it to favor IBM, considering the demise of Olivetti is to be mainly attributed to the sudden death of the Italo-Chinese (CEO and CTO) heads of the Olivetti electronics division, in less than clear circumstances.
"Nel 2013 Carlo De Benedetti dichiarò a un programma radiofonico: "In Olivetti c'era la convinzione che fosse stato ucciso dai servizi segreti americani"[6], ipotizzando che l'incidente di Tchou fosse stato in qualche modo provocato per favorire l'IBM[7]."
Consider that in these years, Italy was a Cold War playground where secret services of US/Nato on one side and Russia/China on the other, were actively taking part in multiple underground large scale operations.
And that's not even getting into mafia itself, its ties with judges, state and municipal governments and so on (a whole book on its own), church scandals, and so on...
Americans, who naively believe in the innocence of states and big corporate interests and disbelieve in political conspiracies and cover ups (despite some of their own elite's shit having been exposed time and again, from Hoover's blakmails and politician surveillance to the Watergate, and from Iran-Contra to Abu Ghraib on to Snowden), should probably refrain from commenting on places like Italy...
I think the difference is that a lot of people in Italy will go straight for the conspiracy theory. Maybe that's why the anti-vax movement (and chemtrails and a lot of other nonsense) is so strong there.
Other really exciting products Olivetti pioneered were Calculators in the 1960's and 70's:
The Programma 101, a workhorse containing magnetostrictive acoustic delay line memory. I saw a youtube tear-down of one once-- amazing. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programma_101)
It is quite hard to explain. I'll try to sum it up (partially, I guess) in a few bullet points:
* Italian economy favors small and medium-sized enterprises over big corporations. This has worked alright for some industries (e.g. automotive/machinery and several niche markets), less so for mass production of consumer electronics.
* Italy has few natural and energetic resources, which made it difficult for Olivetti to compete with cheap PC clones from US/Taiwan/etc. Being far away from the ocean migh also have played a role in this.
* Big Italian companies often become entangled with political/financial scandals. Olivetti had its share of that as well. [1]
But by the end of the 80s the writing was on the wall: the Italian system could not support a world-class tech player.