Caught in a rapidly-maturing market for personal computer and Macintosh X Window servers, 11-year-old AGE Logic Inc has escaped into the clutches of fast-growing Windows TCP/IP and Internet communications software supplier NetManage Inc, Cupertino, California, which has snapped up the San Diego, California company in a share swap (CI No 2,798). AGE president Peter Shaw says the company could have survived as an independent unit but acquisition makes most sense for the future of the company, its technology and the people that did the work. Shaw says all AGE employees will be retained by NetManage. Privately-held AGE (which at one time flirted with the notion of filing for an initial public offering) has captured an 11% share of the personal computer X server market without recourse to venture funding, and expects NetManage to replace the Network Computing Devices Inc-derived personal computer X server it currently offers in its Chameleon suite with its newly-acquired AGE XoftWare and Pacer technologies. AGE bought Mac-to-Unix communications supplier Pacer Software Inc earlier this year. Although some of AGE’s OEM customers – including FTP Software Inc, SunSoft Inc and Walker, Richer & Quinn Inc – overlap with NetManage suppliers, AGE believes the conflicts will be resolved without significant loss of business. NetManage has some 150 employees and will retain the development units it has picked up with the acquisition plus those it already has in the US and Israel.
