Wang Laboratories
American computer company (1951–1999)
Wang Laboratories, Inc., was an American computer company founded in 1951 by An Wang and Ge Yao Chu and operating in the Boston area. Originally making typesetters, calculators, and word processors, it began adding computers, copiers, and laser printers. At its peak in the 1980s, Wang Laboratories had annual revenues of US$3 billion and employed over 33,000 people. It was one of the leading companies during the time of the Massachusetts Miracle.
The company was directed by An Wang, who was described as an "indispensable leader" and played a personal role in setting business and product strategy until his death in 1990. Over forty years, the company transitioned between different product lines, responding to competitive threats to its early products. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1954–1963), Tewksbury, Massachusetts (1963–1976), Lowell, Massachusetts (1976–1995), and finally Billerica, Massachusetts.
Wang Laboratories filed for bankruptcy protection in August 1992. After emerging from bankruptcy, the company changed its name to Wang Global. It was acquired by Getronics of the Netherlands in 1999, becoming Getronics North America, then was sold to KPN in 2007 and CompuCom in 2008.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Wang Laboratories” as american computer company (1951–1999). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as american computer company (1951–1999). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1206799. The Library of Congress control number is n81150401. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1990, 1954 and 1963.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wang Laboratories” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.