In its second year on the London Stock Exchange, Livingston, Scotland-based uninterruptible power supply firm Magnum Power Plc has turned in interim figures it says it is happy with, given the levels of investment needed to turn a patented idea into a saleable product. The half-year losses rose to ú1.4m from ú1.2m, reflecting its investment in research and development, patent applications and new premises. Turnover rose to ú329,309 in the half year to November 30, from ú29,569 last time. Magnum Power, which has developed its own BI-UPS uninterruptible technology for built-in power supplies, says it has a rapidly-growing order book, especially from the OEM market, including a recently concluded contract with an unnamed US industrial computing customer worth around $1m. Magnum director Robert Hynd says the company is focusing on the high end workstation, server and point-of-sale market, until such time as it begins to see a return on its investment, probably towards the end of 1996. But it has also filed a patent for a start-up and resume product for personal computers, the SU-RE BI-UPS. This is designed to work with IBM Corp’s OS/2 Warp and Microsoft Corp’s Windows95 quick start-up support (CI No 2,778).
Clean, smooth power
Both operating systems enable a personal computer to re-boot to exactly where it was when powered off, without going through the usual start-up procedures. However, this relies on at least 20 seconds of clean, smooth power supply after the machine is switched off, which could be provided by Magnum’s product. The company believes its future growth depends on building its intellectual property base, and it has already filed further patent applications for technology it is developing. It has also consolidated its operation by moving to new premises in Livingston, in Scotland’s Silicon Glen. The move involved investment of more than ú1.1m, but Magnum says the benefits of having all core staff in one building are already being felt. It says its Partnership Programme is a key to its future success, giving it access to production facilities it would otherwise have had to take time and money developing itself. It has signed a manufacturing agreement with Simi Valley, California-based Golden Systems Inc (CI No 2,749), in which the Golden’s Indian subsidiary, Ultra-Tek Ltd will manufacture BI-UPS for high volume orders. In addition, Magnum has various partnership agreements for specific projects, and its own low volume manufacturing plant at Girvan. It also has a sales distribution agreement with Sumitomo Corp of Japan, and says this has generated considerable interest in BI-UPS in the Far East. Magnum says it is confident that the potential for BI-UPS will begin to be realised in the coming year, and expects to break even on a month-to-month operational basis during 1996.
