Dark clouds seem to be hanging over the intelligent input-output board manufacturing crowd, as the strain of an overcrowded marketplace begins to take its toll. A series of shake-ups here has already seen two leading vendors, Roswell, Georgia-based Computone Systems Inc and the UK firm Specialix Ltd, Byfleet, Surrey, reining back their operations in attempts to re-position themselves. Computone, which spent the last year re-organising, has, in a further belt tightening effort, recently cut 20% of its 138 strong workforce. The redundancies were, the company says, incurred largely by its manufacturing operations, which it is currently scaling down and moving out to a smaller site in Alabama. Feeling the pinch, Computone also revealed that it has abandoned four of its add-on products from its flagship Intelliport and distributed cluster control line. We’re just getting rid of some dead wood, explained a Computone official. Over in the Specialix camp, founder and vice-president of research, John Pettitt, has left to start up his own business but not, Specialix claims, as a competitor. Pettitt was responsible for co-developing the company’s pilot input-output controller. Reshuffling its pack, Specialix has brought its research and development operations back to the UK under the charge of technical director Tony Beaumont. Although the company is trying to limit the damage of Pettitt’s departure, Specialix competitors cite other reasons for what they see as the company’s loss of direction. It is, they say, confined to the asynchronous market, while the technology is moving towards software add-on products and local area network communications.
Software is the magic
Digiboard’s European managing director, Bob Poorman, says that hardware is the easy part… software is the magic. Specialix’s RIO [high-end Transputer-based multi-port board] may look great on paper, but its not up to form in reality. Indeed, as number one player the market, St Louis Park, Minnesota-based Digiboard Inc seems to be revelling in the disarray – it claims to be moppping up many of Computone and Specialix’s European deals. Poorman attributes the company’s success to its feet on the ground philosophy, which he claims is where the likes of Computone and Specialix have come unstuck. These companies have deviated from their core business… serial communications is where the money is, not the high-end multi-port market. Trapped in a cost-cutting spiral, Computone and Specialix – plus Chase Research Inc which is rumoured to be courting a buyer – are being forced to streamline their organisations. While the input-output controller makers maintain Unix is the fountain of life for their businesses, their market seems overpopulated. The race is now on, the vendors say, to get into local and wide area network markets. Digiboard and Computone are expected to launch local network-based add-in boards before the end of the year.
