Ibanez is a major creator and contributor to the pool of available guitars, amplifiers and even
effects pedals today.
Ibanez began before
World War II largely in Spain, but Ibanez was only truly recognized after the 1970's. In the 70's they came out with some Fender and Les Paul copies which often sounded as good or better than the real things but were priced much lower, making them popular among those who couldn't get their hands on the better equiptment.
Pretty soon some guitarists that were poor and played Ibanez like
George Benson,
Adrian Smith and
Paul Stanley started getting real famous and making big bucks. This really helped Ibanez's reputation and business. Soon Ibanez really began innovating and coming up with great products from jagged destroyers to the more modern RG Series guitars both originally made for the insane lead guitarist in a heavy metal band.
Ibanez also created the legendary
TS-9 Tubescreamer effect pedal deliverying very
tubey distortion, still considered today to be the holy grail of distortions and
overdrives.
Today Ibanez is played by guitar heroes like
Joe Satriani and
Steve Vai and is bigger and better than it ever was, still expanding vastly with a new
Tone-Lok pedal line-up, the S series guitars and much more. They are now largely based in Japan.
I myself own an
Ibanez S-Classic SC420, and having a decent amount of knowledge as a guitarist can tell you that Ibanez makes some of the best guitar and effects there are and at a very affordable price.