Apricot Computers was a British manufacturer of business personal computers, founded in 1965 as "Applied Computer Techniques" (ACT), later changing its name to Apricot Computers, Ltd. It was a wholly owned UK company until it was acquired in the early 1990s by the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, which hoped that Apricot would help them compete against Japanese PC manufacturers, in particular NEC which commanded over 50% of the Japanese market at the time. Mitsubishi eventually shut down the Apricot brand; a management buyout resulted in new company Network Si UK Ltd being formed. In 2008 a new, independent Apricot company was launched in the UK.