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Toshiba is out of the laptop business, officially, after transferring its remaining shares in Dynabook to Sharp Corporation.
The Japanese company said it has transferred the 19.9% of the outstanding shares in Dynabook Inc. that it held to Sharp Corporation. Toshiba had transferred 80.1% of the outstanding shares of Toshiba Client Solutions Co., Ltd, in 2018, which was renamed Dynabook in 2019.
“As a result of this transfer, Dynabook has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sharp,” Toshiba said in a statement.
Toshiba was a pioneer in personal computer space, and had launched its first laptop – T1100, in 1985. It was an IBM PC-compatible laptop computer powered by an Intel 80C88 clocking at 4.77 MHz, with 256 kB RAM.
T1100 - Toshiba's first laptop, launched in 1985.
T1100 had a 3.5” floppy drive for internal storage, and a monochrome display. It worked on Microsoft’s DOS (2.11) operating system, weighed 4.1 kg, and was priced around $2000.
“The T1100 was a true pioneer in the development of laptop PCs, winning acceptance not only from PC experts but the business community as well,” the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) said in a report.
Toshiba was a prominent brand in the portable PC business, and in the past 35 years, it has developed several products. Its Satellite, Portégé, and Qosmio line of laptop computers were introduced during the 1990s and early 2000s; they competed against products made by IBM, Apple, and Dell.
