Torch Technology Ltd’s topsy-turvy existence took a turn for the worse this week when the Cambridge-based firm went into receivership after its majority shareholder – the Australian firm Catsco, Prahran, Victoria – refused to put up additional funding. Receivers from KPMG Peat Marwick McLintock hope the firm can be sold as a going concern, though it may be split and products sold off separately if no buyer emerges – some form of partial management buyout has not been entirely ruled out. The company’s turnover stands at around UKP1.5m now – the majority from hardware sales – way down from its peak in the mid-1980s when it did well supplying add-ons for the enormously popular Acorn-designed BBC Microcomputer. There are reckoned to be nine areas of technology which could be bought separately or as a whole. Torch’s hardware and software catalogue extends from the Motorola 68010 and 68020-based Triple X and Quad Unix stations with an installed base of 800 and 400 respectively – through boards and Apple Macintosh graphics cards to a number of X Window applications and interfaces. The much troubled company, which has 30 employees, was apparently mid-way through developing a 68030-based board – the QY – when the cash crisis struck. The QY was to – or may yet – form the basis of two new Unix systems, one high-end VME OEM offering and a low-end workstation, the Torchstation, at around UKP5,500, both intended for April delivery. Several customers of Torch are said to be interested in it, but no names have been revealed. Torch says it is open to offers and a for sale notice is going into the Financial Times next Tuesday.
