Lap Power were a Swedish publicly listed company that was started in 1991Resterna av ett börsbolag
he remains of a public companyDagens Industri 2000-06-29 that during the 1990s sold (mainly portable) personal computers and computer accessories. A lot of attention and controversy came from provocative advertising featuring Helen Wellton posing scantily clad to sell their computers. (HTML 41 kB) The company was owned by Mr and Mrs Helen Wellton (b.1961) and

Claes Wellton Persson Claes is a masculine given name, a version of Nicholas, as well as a patronymic surname. It is also spelled Klas, Clas and Klaes. Given name Claes is a common first name in Sweden. It was also a common name in the Low Countries until the 18th cent ...

. Lap Power's new owners plunged the company into bankruptcy in 2000.

JämO against Helen Wellton

Company ads where Helen Wellton occurred frequently on the picture together with the company's products attracted the

Equality Ombudsman The Equality Ombudsman (, DO; formerly , JämO) is a government agency in Sweden tasked with supervising the laws relating to discrimination on the basis of someone's sex, transgender identity or expression, ethnicity, religion Religion is ...

's (JämO) attention. The ads were reported twice by the Ombudsman to the

Industry and Commerce Ethics against sexist advertising Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

(ERK). The first time she was freed. The second time, she was convicted of her smile, which ERK considered "signaling sexual overtures".

History

The corner stones for Lap Power were done in mid-1990s but it wasn't until 1991 that it started for real. The first big order came from the

Swedish Armed Forces The Swedish Armed Forces (, literally ''Defence Force'') are the Military, armed forces of the Kingdom of Sweden. It consists of four separate military branches, the Swedish Army, the Swedish Navy, the Swedish Air Force and the Home Guard (Swed ...

. That ordered a number of camouflage painted "towable" computers. It could best be described as a stationary machine that had been assembled together with a foldable screen. These clumsy models became little of a specialty for the company in the beginning and the possibilities were soon realised. My thought was that in the feature all one would need was a small portable computer and no stationary. I was the first in the world to market a package that consisted of a portable computer, a big monitor, big keyboard and a mouse for office workplaces, says Claes Persson (the former CEO). Persson also says he was the first with a docking strip that fit portable computers. In the docking strip, screen, keyboard and mouse were always connected. Too bad I didn't patent this.

References

Defunct computer companies of Sweden Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer systems companies

JämO against Helen Wellton

History

Further reading

References