Inspur
| Industry | Computer hardware |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2000 |
| Headquarters |  Jinan, Shandong, PRC |
| Products | Computer hardware |
| Website | Inspur |
Inspur, formerly named Langchao, (浪潮 in Chinese, means "tides") is a Chinese computer technology company famous for its PC server and software products.
Inspur's manufacturing base and R&D center is located in Jinan, Shandong Province. Its business activities include server manufacturing and software development. The company also acts as an outsourcing recipient for both the United States of America and Japan. The company's most important product is server hardware.
As recently as 2000, Inspur was a local company based in Shandong, with its business activities spanning North China. The company later moved its marketing center to Beijing, the IT industry hub of China, and expanded its operations to the national level.
In June 2005, it was reported that Microsoft had invested 20 million US$ in the company [source needed]. And on 18 April 2006, the company switched its name from "Langchao" to "Inspur" in hopes it would increase its sales from overseas markets by as much as thirty percent by 2010.
Financial Times Germany wrote on 16.03.2009: ..."Inspur International, eine Tochter der Inspur Gruppe, ist seit 2004 an der Börse in Hongkong gelistet. 2005 stieg Microsoft als strategischer Investor mit 25 Millionen US-Dollar ein und begann eine umfangreiche Kooperation mit dem führenden chinesischen IT- Unternehmen in Dienstleistungen und Software Outsourcing...."
In April 2009 Inspur announced it will team up with leading virtualization software developer VMware Inc. to launch a laboratory for the research and development of cloud computing technologies and related products. [1]