Uniplex Software Inc president and chief operating officer Tom Frederick has split the Folsom, California-based CP Software Group subsidiary company into two pieces as part of a business plan he says will put the unit on track to a flotation. He claims Uniplex came in above the line in 1995 and is looking for a few more profitable quarters before going to market. Uniplex, headquartered in San Mateo, California, is losing around 10% of its staff as a result of the reorganization, bringing total head-count down to 110, half based in the UK where much of the research and development is still done. Frederick has also axed the company’s international operation – losing vice-president Europe Nigel Brown in the process – bringing all country reports back to San Mateo. A Workgroup division will house the recently introduced onGo Document Management System plus the onGo Office messaging system, which includes mail, dairy, scheduling and directory, and resource management. OnGo office is designed to be used in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard Co’s HP OpenMail messaging and is currently being implemented for Microsoft Corp’s Exchange under Windows NT where it will integrate with BackOffice. The division will report directly to Frederick and is positioned to be the genesis of a revitalized Uniplex. A second Internet Mail division will incorporate the Uniplex Business Software Unix office automation suite, for which the company is best known, and the Uniplex Mail standalone Unix electronic mail system. The company is seeking a general manager for the division who will report to Frederick. Uniplex once ruled the roost of the Unix office automation world and was sold to UK-based engineering company IMI Plc after it had reached its peak. IMI didn’t keep Uniplex long, turning it over to CP Software in July 1994. At that time the California company was vacuuming up independent Unix software vendors; its other acquisitions included Island Software Corp and Australian text retrieval firm Intext Ltd. Uniplex is currently integrating Intext’s document routing technology into Document Management System for an end-of-year release. It expects current Document Management System prospects to wait until that version is out of the gate and says Java and ActiveX applications should be front-ending Document Management System within a year. Uniplex does around 75% of its $20m turnover from onGo products, the balance from Uniplex Business Software and Mail.
