Type | Ltd |
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Industry | Computing |
Founded | UK (1975) |
Headquarters | Hertfordshire |
Key people | Claude Littner, Chairman Lord Sugar, Former Chairman and major shareholder Bordan Tkachuk, Chief Executive |
Website | www.viglen.co.uk |
Viglen Ltd provides IT products and services, including storage systems, servers, workstations and data/voice communications equipment and services.
Contents |
History
The British company was formed in 1975 and was acquired by Amstrad in 1994. In 1997, it was listed as a public limited company and Amstrad plc shares were split into Viglen and Betacom shares, Betacom being renamed to Amstrad PLC. Following the sale of Amstrad PLC to Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB, Viglen is now Lord Sugar's sole IT establishment. Viglen is run by CEO Bordan Tkachuk, a long time associate of Lord Sugar, who can be seen making special guest appearances on The Apprentice.
From 1994 to 1998, the company sponsored Charlton Athletic F.C., expiring when they won promotion to the FA Premier League.
Viglen focuses particularly on the education and public sectors, selling both desktop and server systems. Viglen also has interests in other IT markets such as managed services, high-performance clusters, and network-attached storage.
In December 2005, Viglen relocated from its London headquarters in Wembley to Colney Street near St. Albans into a building which also houses its fabrication plant.
On the 1st of July 2009, Lord Sugar resigned as the chairman of Viglen (and most of his other companies), handing over the reins of the company to long time associate Claude Littner. Lord Sugar is a member of the House of Lords and has stated his wish to help small and growing businesses.
Other Business
In the early 90s, Viglen also manufactured baby incubators as well as leather coin purses for London Transport. These items were made alongside computer systems in the Trumpers Way factory in Hanwell, West London. As the computer systems business grew the purses and incubators were eventually phased out.
The Apprentice
The new headquarters doubles up as one of the filming locations for the hit BBC show The Apprentice, with various scenes including the infamous "job interviews" being set there. The final scene of each program, showing the contestant leaving the building and boarding a taxi is also filmed at the Viglen Headquarters. The boardroom scenes are actually filmed in a West London television studio[citation needed].