Gandalf Technologies Inc has revealed plans to rationalise its research and development operation following its August acquisition of Infotron Systems Corp. A company spokesman said that around 30 people were being made redundant, in addition to the 50 laid off last September following the takeover. The company’s design and manufacturing subsidiary, Gandalf Data Ltd, will consolidate its engineering support operations, including computer-aided and mechanical design, at its Nepean, Canada-based headquarters, transferring those functions from Infotron’s Cherry Hill, New Jersey facility. However the design of its wide area networking products will remain in Cherry Hill. Of more immediate concerns to its customers will be the announcement that the company plans to reduce research and development effort in what it calls its more mature product lines. The word from Gandalf is that while these lines will be fully supported for the life of their usage in the field, the number of new feature releases is declining, thus it no longer no longer feels the need to invest in such developments. Unfortunately, the spokesman said he was unable to say off-hand exactly which of the products are considered to be the mature ones. However he said that the cuts would affect products in the terminal server and statistical multiplexor range where Gandalf and Infotron still have considerable product line overlap. In addition, the company says it plans to divest itself of its Herndon, Virginia-based T3 engineering facility. A design and support staff of seven at this facility primarily develops voice networking applications used by major utilities. Existing T3 customers will continue to be supported and while the company’s Infotron 2000 product line will interface with T3 and E3 services it is not felt necessary to operate a separate facility to undertake this work. Gandalf is adamant that this is the last round of job cuts.
