Wipro was set up in 1945. Primarily an edible oil factory, the chief products were Sunflower Vanaspati and 787 laundry soap (a by-product of the Vanaspati operations). The company was called Western India Vegetable Products Limited; it had a minor presence in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. In the 1970s and 1980s , it began to expand and made forays into computing. In 1975, Wipro marketed India's first homegrown PC.
Wipro was the sole representative for Sun Microsystems in India, before the Sun liaison office was set up in India, in the early 1990s.
Wipro is the highest-ranked Indian IT provider by International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.
Wipro and its success in handling outsourced information technology from US businesses is detailed in Thomas L. Friedman's best-selling book The World Is Flat and Steve Hamm's Bangalore Tiger. Wipro's offshore model is considered 'unique among the larger players in the security consulting space' according to an independent report by Forrester Research.
