The agreement between Robotron and IBM leaves Siemens scurrying and in danger of missing out on the biggest prize – the company has landed one agreement with Robotron, but it says that while it is considering buying into five separate divisions of Robotron – the company has interests in everything from mainframes through electronic typewriters to chips – it will only do so if it gets management control: Robotron was saying last week that it did not intend to cede control (CI No 1,383). The firm pact signed by Siemens is with the 1,000-employee software arm of the East German Kombinat, and also involves another West German software company, SAP AG, which employs 1,400 and has turnover of about $220m. The three have agreed to form a joint venture company to be based in Dresden: it will market Western software in the German Democratic Republic and other Comecon lands.
