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Defunct Company table
table started by
alexander for the Business Commons
A defunct company is a company that no longer operates.
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| x name | x image | x Reason for ceasing operations | x Ceased Operations | x article |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x Mobius.net | ||||
| x Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory |
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Apr 1960 |
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, the primary lab of the Shockley Transistor Company, was the first company to work on silicon semiconductor devices in what came to be known as Silicon Valley. It was purchased by Clevite in 1960, and officially...
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| x Tobin Arms |
Tobin Arms was a firearms company started in 1905 in Norwich, Connecticut, USA. It produced side-by-side and double-barrel shotguns in various grades. The company moved to Woodstock, Ontario, Canada in 1909 or 1910. It then made shotguns until 1925...
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| x Sunbeam |
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Sunbeam was a British motorcycle marque generally known for high quality.
Sunbeam was founded by John Marston, who was born in Ludlow, Shropshire, U.K. in 1836 of a minor landowning family. In 1851 at age 15, he was sent to Wolverhampton to be...
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| x CRL Group PLC |
CRL Group plc is a defunct British video game company. Originally CRL stood for "Computer Rentals Ltd." It was based in King's Yard, London and run by Clement Chambers and Ian Ellery. They made a number of adventure games based on horror stories...
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| x Armstrong Whitworth |
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Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. Headquartered in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth engaged in the construction of armaments, ships, locomotives,...
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| x Acornsoft |
Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers Ltd, and was a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, they also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and...
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| x MicroProse |
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MicroProse, as a corporation and brand name, has been owned by several entities since its original founding by Sid Meier and Bill Stealey in 1982, as Microprose Software.
Founded in 1982 by Bill Stealey and Sid Meier, Microprose Software, Inc was...
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| x Armstrong |
The Armstrong was an English automobile manufactured from 1902 to 1904; "claimed to be the best hill-climber extant", the car featured an 8 hp International engine.
After 1904, vehicle production came under Armstrong-Whitworth.
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| x Palace Software |
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Palace Software was a British video game publisher during the 1980s based in London, England. It was notable for the Barbarian and Cauldron series of games for 8-bit home computer platforms, in particular the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore...
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| x Ocean Software |
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Ocean Software (or Ocean Software Ltd. and sometimes Ocean of America, Inc. but generally only referred to as Ocean) was one of the biggest European video game developers/publishers of the 1980s and 90s. The successor company is Infogrames UK. The...
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| x Mirrorsoft |
Mirrorsoft was a game software publisher in the United Kingdom, owned by Mirror Group Newspapers. It started off with educational software and then moved into games. One offshoot of its printing roots was Fleet Street Publisher on several platforms....
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| x RCA |
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1986 |
RCA Corporation, founded as Radio Corporation of America, was an electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. Currently, the RCA trademark is owned by the French conglomerate Thomson SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned...
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| x Origin Systems |
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2004 |
Origin Systems, Inc. (sometimes abbreviated as OSI) was a computer game developer based in Austin, Texas that was active from 1983 to 2004. It is most famous for the Ultima, Wing Commander, and Crusader game franchises.
The company was founded in...
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| x Telecomsoft |
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Telecomsoft was the computer software division of British telecommunications company British Telecom (now BT). It was the owner of the well-known Firebird and Rainbird labels, under which it sold video games at a variety of price-points.
Telecomsoft...
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| x Austin-Healey |
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Austin-Healey is a defunct British sports car maker. The marque was established through a joint venture arrangement, set up in 1952 between Leonard Lord of the Austin division of the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and Donald Healey, a renowned...
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| x Nuffield Organisation |
The Nuffield Organisation was a vehicle manufacturing company in the United Kingdom. Named after its founder, William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, it was formed in 1938 as the merger of Nuffield's Morris Motor Company (already having acquired...
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| x MicroIllusions |
MicroIllusions, based in Granada Hills, California was a computer game developer and publisher of the home computer era (late 1970s to early 1990s). MicroIllusions, as a company, was a strong supporter of the Commodore Amiga and would typically...
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| x Domark |
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Domark was a computer and video games software house based in the United Kingdom. The name was derived from the given names of its founders, Dominic Wheatley and Mark Strachan. Domark developed and published many games for home computers during the...
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| x Nutting Associates |
Nutting Associates was an early arcade game manufacturer from Mountain View, California, formed in 1968 by Bill Nutting. They introduced a number of mechanical coin-operated games, starting with a quiz game known as Computer Quiz, and moving on to...
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| x Tradewest | 1994 |
Tradewest is a now-defunct American video game company based in Corsicana, Texas that produced numerous games in the 1980s and early 1990s. The company is best known as the publisher of the Battletoads and Double Dragon series in North America and...
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| x Sirius Software |
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Sirius Software was a video game publisher of Apple II, Commodore 64 and Atari computer games in the early 1980s.
The company was founded in the early 1980s by Jerry Jewell, and gained attention for its dramatically quick rise to prominence and its...
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| x British Motor Corporation |
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1966 |
The British Motor Corporation (BMC) was a UK vehicle company, formed by the merger of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Organisation (parent of the Morris car company, MG, Riley and Wolseley) in 1952.
BMC was the largest British car company...
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| x Acclaim Entertainment |
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2004 |
Acclaim Entertainment was an American video game developer and publisher. It developed, published, marketed and distributed interactive entertainment software for a variety of hardware platforms, including Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis, Saturn,...
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| x Coleco |
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1989 |
Coleco was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as "Connecticut Leather Company". It became a highly successful toy company in the 1980s, known for its mass-produced version of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game consoles...
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| x Interceptor Group |
Interceptor Micros also known as Interceptor Software (and later as Interceptor Group) was a developer/publisher (mainly of adventure games) for various 8bit and 16bit computer systems popular in Western Europe during the eighties and early nineties...
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| x Jowett |
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Jowett was a car marque based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England from 1906 to 1954.
The company was founded by the brothers Benjamin and William Jowett who started in the cycle business and went on to make V-twin engines for driving machinery;...
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| x Creative Sparks |
Creative Sparks was a British video games software house in existence during the 1980s. The company started out as Thorn EMI Computer Software, a division of the now-defunct British conglomerate Thorn EMI, and later changed its name.
Creative Sparks...
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| x Penn Central Transportation |
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The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American railroad company that operated from 1968 until 1976. It was created by the merger on February 1, 1968, of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York...
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| x Magnetic Scrolls |
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Magnetic Scrolls was a British computer game developer during the mid 1980s and early 1990s. It was one of two largest interactive fiction game makers of the 1980s. Their primary focus was the development of cutting edge text adventure games (also...
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| x Grandslam Entertainment |
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Grandslam Entertainment (later Grandslam Video) was a computer and video games software house based in Britain. It was formed in late 1987 from the ashes of Argus Press Software by former Argus Managing Director, Stephen Hall. Grandslam developed...
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| x FTL Games |
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FTL Games (Faster Than Light) was the video game development division of Software Heaven Inc. FTL created several popular video games in the 1980s and early 1990s. Despite the company's small size, FTL products were consistently number-one sellers...
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| x J.K. Greye Software |
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J.K. Greye Software was a British software company set up by John K. Greye and Malcolm Evans after they met at a classical guitar club in Bristol in 1981. They produced computer games for the Sinclair ZX81 and ZX Spectrum home computers.
They struck...
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| x Working Designs |
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Working Designs was an American video game publisher that specialized in the localization of Japan-native RPGs, strategy games, and top-down shooters for various video game platforms. Though the company had published many 'cult hits', it was known...
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| x Argonaut Games |
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Argonaut Games plc was a British video game developer. Founded as Argonaut Software by teenager Jez San in 1982 the company name is a play on his name (J. San) and the movie title Jason and the Argonauts.
The company produced its first game Skyline...
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| x Strategic Simulations, Inc. |
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Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) was a video game developer and publisher with over 100 titles to its credit since its founding in 1979. It was especially noted for its numerous wargames, and for the groundbreaking Panzer General series.
The...
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| x Financial Collection Agencies Ltd. |
Financial Collection Agencies Ltd (FCA) was an accounts receivable/collections company that operated in Canada, the United States and Europe from 1979 to 1998 when it was acquired by the NCO Group for $68 Million USD.
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| x Lanchester Motor Company |
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Lanchester Motor Company was a car manufacturer based at Armourer Mills, Montgomery Street Birmingham, Great Britain. It operated from 1895–1955. The company having merged with Daimler and thence becoming part of Jaguar, the rights to the Lanchester...
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| x Triumph Motor Company |
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1984 |
The Triumph Motor Company is a defunct British motor manufacturer. The Triumph marque is currently owned by BMW. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann (1863-1951) and Moritz (Maurice) Schulte from Germany founded Bettmann & Co...
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| x Standard Motor Company |
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Merger |
The Standard Motor Company was founded in Coventry, England in 1903 by Reginald Walter Maudslay (1871-1934). The Standard name was last used in Britain in 1963, and in India in 1987.
The company was set up in a small factory in Much Park Street,...
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| x Vortex Software |
Vortex Software was a video game developer founded by Costa Panayi and Paul Canter in the early 1980s to sell the game Cosmos which Panayi had developed for the Sinclair ZX81. They converted the game to the ZX Spectrum, but due to the low sales of...
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| x Distinctive Software |
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Distinctive Software, Inc. (DSI) was a Canadian software house established in Burnaby, British Columbia, by Don Mattrick and Jeff Sember. It is the predecessor to EA Canada.
Distinctive Software was best known in the late 1980s for their ports,...
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| x Level 9 Computing | 1991 |
Level 9 was a British computer text adventure game company which produced some of the most advanced games of the 1980s. Founded in 1981 by Michael, Nicholas and Pete Austin, the company produced about 20 games for BBC Micro, Nascom, ZX Spectrum,...
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| x Amsoft |
Amsoft was a software company owned by Amstrad. It published games between 1984 and 1989 for Amstrad's range of 8-bit home computers; the Amstrad CPC and, from 1986, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Many people's first play on the Amstrad CPC would have...
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| x Advertisement card |
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| x Newman Printing Company, Inc. |
The Newman Printing Company was founded in Bryan, Texas, in 1950 by Louis Newman, Jr.
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| x Jacobus de Breda | ||||
| x Determine Software | Acquisition | 2005 | ||
| x Gremlin Interactive Limited |
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Gremlin Interactive was a British software house based in Sheffield and working mostly in the home computer market. The company was established in 1984 as Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd. and renamed in 1994. Gremlin's early success was based on games...
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| x Marimba |
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Marimba, Inc. develops, markets and supports software change and
configuration management solutions. Its products automate the
distribution and management of software applications and content.
Specific software solutions it provides include data...
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| x Cray Computer Corporation | 1995 | |||
| x Friedrichshafen Flugzeugbau | 1923 |
Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen GmbH was a German aircraft manufacturing company. It was founded in 1912 in Friedrichshafen, Germany by Theodor Kober who had previously worked for the Zeppelin company. The town, which was located by the Bodensee, was...
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| x Alsace |
The Alsace was a small car assembled by Piedmont Motor Company for Automotive Products Co of New York, made with right-hand drive for export purposes. Its only differences from the normal Piedmont were the right-hand drive and its Rolls-Royce type...
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| x Macromedia xRes |
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xRes was an image editing application by Fauve Software, later acquired by Macromedia. It allowed for a real time preview of work, and its tools were deemed better than the competing version of Adobe Photoshop. An early version also introduced the...
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| x Moffat Communications |
Moffat Communications was a Canadian cable and broadcasting company. Privately owned by the Moffat family, the company was based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The company owned the following media businesses in Canada and the U.S.A.:
In the 1990s Moffat...
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| x Rederi AB Slite |
Rederi AB Slite was a Swedish shipping company, founded in 1947. The company was one of the three founding companies of Viking Line. Rederi AB Slite went bankrupt in 1993.
Rederi AB Slite was founded by Carl-Bertil Myrsten together with his siblings...
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| x Act III Broadcasting |
Act III Broadcasting was a company that owned several television stations that started as independents, and later became Fox affiliates. The stations were located in medium-sized markets, and the company existed from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s,...
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| x Georges Creek Railroad |
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The Georges Creek Railroad was a railroad operated by the Georges Creek Coal and Iron Company. The railroad operated from 1853 to 1863 when the railroad was absorbed into the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad.
The Georges Creek Coal & Iron...
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| x Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company |
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The Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company, founded as Cowles Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company, and Cowles Syndicate Company, Limited formed in the United States and England during the mid-1880s to extract and supply valuable metals. Founded...
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| x WMC Resources |
WMC Resources Limited was an Australian diversified mining and fertilizer company formerly listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. WMC was an acronym for Western Mining Corporation. It was delisted on 29 June 2005 following a successful takeover by...
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