Lotus Development Corp’s latest proposed acquisition, cc:Mail Inc, Mountain View, California (CI No 1,610) offers a system that enables personal computer users to send and receive text, files, graphics and facsimile across the major local area networks on the most widely used operating systems and hardware – MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows 3.0, and the Macintosh, and Lotus wants to marry it with its Notes group communications program designed to enable users to develop customised graphical applications: the US Social Security Administration is implementing a 60,000-node cc:Mail network in more than 2,000 locations across the US and in the year to March 31 last, 55-employee cc:Mail was profitable on sales of $7.5m; it looks for a 50% increase in the fiscal year to next month.
