Wipro Products Limited (earlier Western India Vegetable Products Limited) headed by Azim H Premji was one such enterprising company that decided to foray into the Indian computer market. At that time, Premji had met and was impressed by Ashok Narasimhan, who worked as the financial controller at TELCO in Pune and convinced him to join Wipro as its General Manager of Finance & Planning, to help set-up its computer business. Their vision was to build minicomputers that would offer an exceptional performance, at a price point that was suitable for the Indian market.

Wipro looked to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for the required technology knowhow and expertise in this nascent space. At that time, the Digital Systems Lab of the School of Automation (now the Department of Computer Science and Automation – CSA) in IISc, headed by Dr N J Rao, was offering courses in microprocessors and had developed a substantial amount of expertise and knowledge in the area.