Acquisition-hungry UK company, Sanderson Electronics Plc will buy the UK end of Santa Ana, California-based Alpha Microsystems Inc for 907,792 new shares worth $2.1m. Sanderson is thought to be primarily interested in the electronic point-of-sale and wholesale business built up by Alpha Microsystems Great Britain. It also gets Sabre Business Systems Ltd of Dublin and Sabre Business Systems (NI) Ltd in Belfast. Now 17 years old, Alpha Micro is saddled with a hardware business that seems to be stuck in a time warp, and still offers Motorola 68030 and 68040-based small business computers running the proprietary Amos operating system. Of late, however, it has been refocusing towards software, and earlier this year launched AlphaConnect, a software agent and communications tool that connects Internet and intranet systems with legacy data. Sanderson said it was discussing further strategic alliances with Alpha that might lead to a UK distribution deal for AlphaConnect.
