Getronics has a rich and exciting history. The foundations of the present organisation were laid almost a hundred and twenty years ago. Since its re-listing on the Amsterdam stock exchange in 1985, Getronics has gradually grown into an international ICT service provider.

In 1887, Groeneveld, Van der Pol & Co's Elektronische Fabriek NV established a technical installation company for public utilities and the ship-building industry. Business went well and within a few decades the company had grown into the listed company Groenpol NV. In 1968, this company merged with Geveke NV and in 1970 the new organisation Geveke & Groenpol NV was acquired by Steenkolen Handelsvereniging NV, or SHV. Geveke & Groenpol NV was then withdrawn from the Amsterdam stock exchange and SHV split the organisation into an installation division and a sales division called Groenpol Industrial Sales. Owing to expansion into Belgium and France, this name was changed to Geveke Electronics in 1972.

In 1983, Geveke Electronics organised a leveraged management buy-out and acquired a large part of the shares from SHV. Subsidiary companies were brought under one parent company - Geveke Electronics International NV. After the company was re-launched on the Amsterdam stock exchange under the name Geveke Electronics NV, the name was changed to Getronics NV in 1988. On 14 March 2005, PinkRoccade was taken over by Getronics, resulting in the biggest ICT service provider in the Netherlands.

The history of PinkRoccade dates back to 1950. In that year, Prime Minister Drees set up the Rijkscentrale voor Mechanische Administratie (RMA). The task of the RMA was to ‘look after punch-card work that, in the opinion of the Minister for Internal Affairs, due to its nature and size, does not qualify to be carried out by a general government department or one of its services, state-owned companies or institutions’. In 1969, the council of ministers decided to change the name of the RMA into the Rijks Computercentrum (National Computer Centre or RCC).

It was the job of the RCC ‘to perform services in the field of automatic information processing’ for departments and government and semi-government bodies ‘if the Minister of Internal Affairs has granted his approval for this’. In 1990, RCC became an independent body and a public limited company with all shares owned by the government. RCC started to expand its range of services. This led to acquisition of the Maatschappij voor Informaticadiensten and the Instituut voor Enquête Verwerking. The former RCC became an operating company and was put on an equal footing with companies acquired earlier. In order to avoid confusion, the name was changed to Roccade Informatica Groep NV in 1995. Together with Pink Elephant, which was set up in the 1980s, and Bouwfonds Informatica, among others, the group now forms the present PinkRoccade.

In 1999, PinkRoccade was listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange (Euronext). The Dutch state still owns 26% of the shares. Large acquisitions and outsourcing deals have led to PinkRoccade growing rapidly. TAS and ASZ were taken over in 2000.

Since 23 October 2007, Getronics has been part of KPN. The merging of Getronics and KPN’s ICT activities has resulted in the biggest ICT service provider in the Benelux. Getronics is KPN’s label for all ICT services to the large business user market.