Over the past year and a half, Renraku Computer Systems, one of the world’s three computer giants and a member of the Corporate Court , had gone from being a slumbering giant to become a runaway juggernaut on the global market. Renraku had been a powerful and prosperous company for years—one of the top eight in the world to claim a position on the Court—but its methods had been conservative and, most analysts thought, rather outdated.