In a business as volatile and unforgiving as personal computers, it is really handing out hostages to fortune to start talking about being determined to become number two in the business and insisting that you are far more successful already that anyone realizes – but that is what Texas Instruments Inc was doing 18 months ago with its TravelMate and Extensa notebook computer business (CI Nos 2,662, 2,748). The boom fell yesterday when the company accompanied its figures by saying that it had reached definitive agreement to sell its mobile computing business to Acer Inc, on undisclosed terms. The calculator business is not included in the sale agreement. Texas expects a substantial number of its mobile computing business employees to transfer.
