With pioneer modem manufacturer Hayes Microcomputer Products all but dead and buried, the company’s former chairman and CEO, Ron Howard will today open the doors of a new company selling remote access products he purchased from Hayes when the company went bankrupt. Howard’s new company, called Vabacom Inc, will sell Hayes’ line of remote access devices, specifically its Century 9000 and 2000 products. Former Hayes VP of strategic business development, Steve Fischer, will also join the new outfit, as chairman, as will around ten others, the majority of whom are ex- Hayes employees, Howard said.
When we last spoke to Howard in January, he said that he still held out hope that Hayes, which was forced into liquidation just weeks before would be able to re-form with the help of new investors. After weeks of wrangling with the company’s main lending bank, NationsCredit, Howard said he had managed to persuade it not to shut up shop altogether but to keep a skeleton operation in the US, around 45 people, and give he and his management team time to find a potential buyer or investors. But speaking to ComputerWire yesterday, a decidedly down-beat Howard said the plan had all fallen through. Having agreed to allow him to keep a core team of 45 engineers and administration staff, the bank reneged on its offer and decided to sell off all of Hayes’ assets to the highest bidders.
The company was divided up into 25 packages, or divisions, and each was sold off at an auction in early February. It’s just dismal and atrocious, Howard said, we were in the middle of working on a deal to restructure the company. We had lined up a new manufacturing resource and new equity investment…but they [the bank] thought they were in a superior position. Howard said he ended up having to leave the company altogether and act as a consultant while Hayes was broken up into different packages and sold off. The European arm of Hayes, which wasn’t effected by the liquidation process was sold to US-based modem manufacturer Zoom Telephonics.
Howard said Vabacom Inc, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, has projected revenues of $5m in the first six months. At the first the company will only sell ex-Hayes products but the intention is to begin developing and manufacturing a new line of Vabacom- branded remote access devices in the near future. Right now, there’s a lot of pent up demand from existing customers for the Hayes products so our first mission is to get the product out fast before they start looking elsewhere. Because Vabacom hasn’t had to invest any money in R&D or expensive premises, Howard said its products would seem miraculously inexpensive compared with the company’s competitors.
