friedl@vsi.COM (Stephen J. Friedl) (05/11/89)
I haven't seen anybody mention this, so I'll quote this from EE Times, May 8, 1989 without permission: --------- start -------- INTEL PAYS $10M FOR BELL ASSETS Freemont, Calif. - Intel Corp. has acquired the assets of a small Unix company here, Bell Technologies Inc., that specializes in Unix add-on cards and X.11 graphics software exclusively for Intel 80386, 80486, and 80860 environments. No terms were revealed, although the eight-year-old Bell has annual revenue of approximately $10 million. [If they don't know the terms, how does the headline know how much Intel paid? - SJF] Under the agreement, Intel assumes all the assets, but none of the liabilities of Bell. Bell will take care of outstanding finances, then the company will be folded into Intel. Bell founders Dimitri Rotow and Robert Glossman have already announced their intention to join Intel, and Bell's staff of 30 will be polled in the coming weeks about their desire to join Intel. Bell was the power behind the throne at the recent 80860 rollout, as Intel used Bell add-in display hardware for all demos except the one presented by IBM. The company has a particularly strong stake in the X Windows environment, and it signed a pact with AT&T Co. earlier this year to develop a standard X.11 implementation for System V Release 3.2. The X.11 implementation runs on a variety of add-in cards Bell offers for the AT and XT bus, including an on-board 82786 graphics coprocessor. "The idea here was to bring in more Unix experience internally," said Nariman Karanjia, manager of Intel's systems marketing group in Oregon. "These guys had worked closely with [Richard] Wirt [director of software technology at Intel] for quite a while, so we started looking more favorably at acquiring the talent." Intel and Bell had already signed a series of agreements prior to the acquisition, including a March pact for third-party maintenance of Bell products. In additipon to its Unix software and graphics cards, Bell also sells multiport cards, network adapters and facsimile boards. ---------- end --------- Congrats, Dimitri... Steve -- Stephen J. Friedl / V-Systems, Inc. / Santa Ana, CA / +1 714 545 6442 3B2-kind-of-guy / friedl@vsi.com / {attmail, uunet, etc}!vsi!friedl "California: the land of cute women, hot tubs, and no rust" - me