How it started
Origin as Itel
Itel was founded in 1967 by Peter Redfield and Gary Friedman as an equipment leasing company and initially focused on leasing IBM mainframes. Through creative financial arrangements and investments, Itel began to lease IBM mainframes to customers at lower costs, which led to Itel ranking second to IBM in revenues.
In 1977, a joint venture between National Semiconductor and Hitachi formed, and was contracted by Itel to manufacture IBM-compatible mainframes branded as Advanced Systems. After initial success shipping 200 such systems and net profits of $73 million, Itel increased investments and personnel to market its Advanced Systems brand. When Itel requested lower prices to compete with IBM, the CEO of National Semiconductor Charlie Sporck, persuaded Itel to commit to long-term contracts with National Semiconductor and Hitachi.
National Semiconductor takes over Advanced Systems
When news leaked that IBM was releasing a superior line of computers, customers held back purchases of Itel goods, causing Itel's inventory to build up drastically. Hitachi agreed to Itel's request to cut back on shipment, but National Semiconductor insisted that National had blackmailed Itel. In 1979, Redfield was forced to resign as CEO. National Semiconductor took over Itel Advanced Systems' sales and marketing divisions.
National Semiconductor renamed the National Advanced Systems (NAS) division, assembling and selling IBM-compatibles where the central processing unit (CPU) was imported from Hitachi. National and Hitachi relied upon IBM's gradual and restrained roll-out of newer models to support IBM's technology and market share, which supported NAS's occasional successes.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hitachi Vantara, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2