Taxan

TAXAN is a brand of Kaga Electronics Co. Ltd, Tokyo, Japan. It was founded in July 1981. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the US division published several video games on the NES and Game Boy.

On 12 December 1985 Kaga Electronic Company Ltd opened a UK office in Bracknell, Berkshire under the leadership of Hugh Chappell.

Taxan (UK) Ltd initially sold a range of monochrome and colour monitors for IBM, IBM compatible and Apple personal computers as well the highly successful KP810 and KP910 dot matrix printers with NLQ printing technology.

The company appointed Northamber plc and P&P Micro Distributors followed by Bytech Peripherals Ltd to sell Taxan products to computer resellers. In addition Taxan appointed approximately 50 leading resellers who purchased directly from Taxan and were chosen specifically to build the brand in the UK. Taxan also supplied a number of system integrators and OEM customers either under the Taxan brand or original brand. This included Dell Computer Corporation who set up their first UK office in the building next door to Taxan.

Despite considerable success in the dot matrix printer market Taxan (UK) Ltd made a decision in 1987 to focus on monitors and thus the KP815 and KP915 were the last printers sold in the UK.

By 1987 Taxan became the market leader in the UK and as a result of this position Kaga Electronics decided to transfer all activities for Europe to the UK office, renaming the Company Taxan (Europe) Ltd.

Taxan (Europe) Ltd expanded operations in Europe rapidly, which included opening subsidiary companies and offices in Germany, France and Sweden. Distributors were appointed throughout Europe and the company enjoyed considerable growth.

In addition to selling computer monitors the company also sold a range of graphics cards under Taxan brand. This included products designed and manufactured in Japan as well as a highly successful relationship with Paradise System Inc.

In 1987 Taxan added the ATI EGA Wonder Graphics adaptor (under the ATI brand) to its product range establishing a strong relationship with the founder of ATI Technologies in Toronto, Canada. This led to Taxan eventually working with ATi on an exclusive basis selling graphics adapters under the Taxan brand and eventually under the ATI brand only.

At its peak, Taxan (Europe) Ltd revenues exceeded $80 million per year.

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