As we approach the month of July, Pico Technology is preparing to celebrate 25 years of business.
Pico data loggers, oscilloscopes and signal generators are used by engineers, scientists and technicians around the globe to bring their products to market. Pico automotive diagnostics products help keep the wheels turning for vehicle manufacturers and service organizations on every continent.
1991 was an interesting year. Intel introduced the low-cost 486SX microprocessor, priced at £178. It was implemented on PCs running MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0. The World Wide Web Consortium was founded by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, and the GSM mobile network was launched in Europe.
On July 1 Alan Tong and Mike Green co-founded Pico Technology. The company was originally set up as a software consultancy to develop data acquisition solutions using plug-in expansion cards, mostly for customers in the medical industry.
Operating from Hardwick, near Cambridge, Pico’s first product was the ADC-10, so called because it was an analog to digital converter and sampled at 10 kS/s. It connected to the PC via the parallel port. The first order for ADC-10s was received in August that year, with two units sold for £49 each.
The ADC-10 was the world’s first PC Oscilloscope, and in the years that followed Pico notched up several more industry firsts, including the first oscilloscope with digital triggering and the first high-resolution oscilloscope.
Today, Pico has over one hundred employees at its head office in St Neots, UK and its subsidiaries in the USA and Lithuania. The company has three divisions producing Test & Measurement, Automotive Diagnostics and Radio Frequency test products that are sold worldwide.
Managing Director and Owner Alan Tong said “Pico Technology are serving engineers, scientists and technicians with affordable instruments that capture, display and analyse the signals in their world.
“We take advantage of the latest computing and communications standards and provide excellent value with all-inclusive product packages that don’t require users to purchase additional options or licenses.”
“The company culture at Pico is key to our success,” continued Tong. “We treat customers as our friends, with free software upgrades and technical support for the lifetime of each product. Pico users are very loyal and have become strong advocates for our products amongst their colleagues. We also enjoy very low staff turnover – many of our employees have been at Pico for over a decade.”
“On 1st July we will celebrate with our employees; but we will also have in mind other people—suppliers, partners, distributors and former employees—who have enabled us to deliver 25 years of continuous growth.”
PMM recently visited Pico ahead of the anniversary. A full report of the visit will feature in our July/August issue. Grab your copy from your local stockist on July 1.
