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The incorporation of Librex came at a time when Nippon Steel, at the time the largest [[steelmaking]] company in the world in terms of sales, was increasingly [[Diversification (marketing strategy)|diversifying]] its operations. Although computer companies investing in Japanese steel companies and vice versa was somewhat commonplace in the turn of the 1990s technology industry—EISD had ties to several American computer companies—Nippon Steel set out Librex to operate independently, which was described as a rarity. Said Susan MacKnight of the Washington-based Japan Economic Institute, no other steel company had "set up a wholly owned subsidiary [in] anything outside the steel business in this country" up to that point.<ref name=Richards1990 /> Along with Librex in the United States, Nippon Steel set up Nippon Steel Computer [[Public limited company|PLC]] in [[Langley, Berkshire]].<ref name=New_York_Times1992 />
Nippon Steel EISD, which only operated domestically, influenced the foundation of Librex, as executives within Nippon Steel expressed the desire for the company to have its own name-brand commodity computer.<ref name=Rockman1996 /> Starting in 1986, EISD had formed joint ventures with the American companies [[IBM]], [[Concurrent Computer Corporation]], [[Supertek Computers]], [[Sun Microsystems]], [[Calcomp|CalComp]], and [[3M]] and Japan companies [[Hitachi]] and [[Itochu]] to help develop EISD's hardware and software products.<ref name=Electronic_News1990 /><ref name=Schmitz1990>{{cite journal | last=Schmitz | first=Tom | date=September 9, 1990 | url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-09-09-9003150509-story.html | title=Nippon Steel Will Build Laptops in Silicon Valley | journal=Chicago Tribune | publisher=Tribune Publishing | page=11E}}</ref><ref name=CBR1990>{{cite journal | last=Staff writer | date=August 23, 1990 | url=https://techmonitor.ai/technology/nippon_steel_forms_librex_to_make_mabket_laptops_in_the_us | title=Nippon Steel Forms Librex to Make, Market Laptops in the US | journal=Computer Business Review | publisher=New Statesman Media Group | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011033233/https://techmonitor.ai/technology/nippon_steel_forms_librex_to_make_mabket_laptops_in_the_us | archivedate=October 11, 2022}}</ref> Discussions within Nippon Steel to form an international computer company began in 1987 with the commissioning of EISD to research the manufacture of [[workstation]]s and [[laptop]]s. A slate of notebook computers were developed by EISD in partnership with the EISS laboratories of Tokyo and [[Kanagawa, Japan]]. On Librex's incorporation in June 1990, the general manager of EISD, Toshiji Tanaka, was named president and [[Chief financial officer|CFO]] of Librex and moved to San Jose. The subsidiary employed only 12 in August 1990, with 28 additional positions planned for creation by December; Librex projected 80 jobs in late 1991.<ref name=Electronic_News1990 /> [[Goodby, Silverstein & Partners]], an advertising agency in [[San Francisco]], handled Librex's print ads.<ref name=Johnson1996>{{cite journal | last=Johnson | first=Bradley | date=November 11, 1996 | url=https://adage.com/article/news/technology-marketing-hey-s-perfect-tech-ad-makers-campaigns-creators-clients-simply-forget/76236 | title=Hey, nobody's perfect, not even tech-ad makers |
===First products (1990–1991)===
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In its three years of existence, Librex managed to attain the rank of the 47th largest personal computer maker in the United States by August 1992.<ref name=New_York_Times1992 /> Dan Crane, vice president of sales and marketing for Librex, reflected in 1996 that Nippon Steel's remote management imposed handicaps in selling Librex's products at attractive prices: "Nippon Steel simply didn't have the cultural infrastructure needed to compete here ... [having a] rather cool, ultraslim notebook for 1992 with quantities and prices that were [arbitrarily] set in 1991", in part due to management honoring the initial quotes it gave to retail and direct sales partners, refusing to ask for adjustments after the fact.<ref name=Doyle1996>{{cite journal | last=Doyle | first=T. C. | date=July 1, 1996 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/194167590/ | title=Pacific Power | journal=VARbusiness | publisher=CMP Publications | page=68 | via=ProQuest}}</ref>
Librex's San Jose headquarters at 1140 Ringwood Court later became home to [[Synaptics]].<ref name=Krohn1990 /><ref>{{cite journal | last=Donato-Weinstein | first=Nathan | date=January 28, 2014 | url=https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/01/27/synaptics-grows-again-with-10-million.html | title=Synaptics grows again with $10 million property purchase |
==References==
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