Software Publishing Corp, San Jose is to be put out of its misery by a tiny company, Allegro New Media Inc, Fairfield, New Jersey, which had a mere $1.4m in sales last year. Allegro was last heard of when it announced plans to acquire Nashua, New Hampshire desktop publishing and graphics company Serif Inc in April (CI No 2,904). Under the deal, Software Publishing shareholders will receive about 0.26805 shares of Allegro common for each Software Publishing they hold – and, reflecting the discrepancy in size, Software Publishing holders will end up with 45% of the enlarged Allegro. Software Publishing, which has made serveral rounds of lay-offs this year, will now become a subsidiary of Allegro but continue to operate under the Software Publishing name, and key officers will become Allegro officers.
