The two companies took somewhat different approaches. Giat concentrated on developing a

new cartridge resembling a .30 Luger round necked down to .22 caliber, which they called the

5.7x22mm. Fabrique Nationale not only developed a larger round, the 5.7x28mm, but FN

also developed a series of innovative weapons around the new cartridge: a select-fire bullpup

weapon with a 50-round horizontal magazine on top of the receiver and an extremely accurate,

lightweight (19 ounce), high capacity (20 round) pistol called the Five seven. FN publicly

announced they were developing a personal defense weapon in 1989 which was scheduled for

production 1990. Ironically, however, the P90 was not named for the year of its initial

production, but rather for FN's "Project 9.0" which spawned it.

When Giat became the parent company of Fabrique Nationale, Giat abandoned the

5.7x22mm project in favor of FN's more advanced project for several reasons. (1) FN's

5.7x28mm cartridge met all of the NATO requirements. And (2) Giat didn't have a weapon

designed for its cartridge but FN had already developed the P90 for its new cartridge. The first

public demonstration of the Five-seveN pistol subsequently took place in 1995, and an

improved variant went into production in May 1998. The external ballistics provided by FN's

5.7x28mm cartridge are vastly superior to the performance provided by the Russian

5.45x18mm PMT cartridge. As of this writing, the P90 has been adopted by more than a

dozen countries in limited numbers.