GraphOn Corp claims to have the ‘any client to any server’ connectivity solution with the acquisition of Corel Corp’s Jbridge Java windowing technology. In return Corel gets a 25% stake in GraphOn worth some $3.9m on paper. GraphOn says that together with its Go-Between, Go-Global and Go-Joe software it can now link any desktop to any server over any connection. JBridge is a windowing technology written in Java that enables Windows applications to be run on any thin client with an installed Java Virtual Machine. GraphOn thinks its business, which was $3m this year, is ready to rocket. It is currently on the way to getting a Nasdaq small cap listing by reversing into Unity First Acquisition Corp which went public in 1996 raising $6m. GraphOn’s will receive 6.79 million shares of First Unity, giving it and Corel a 78% stake in the New York company. GraphOn is also closing $5m venture funding from Spenser Trask Securities which, together with the other warrants it received through the First Unity deal, gives it some $31m capital to play with. GraphOn will also inherit around 10 Jbridge developers in New Hampshire, plus another six or seven Corel staff who will transfer to bring the company headcount to 50. It includes refugees from the failed Exodus Technologies. GraphOn was going to use technology from France’s Groupe Prologue SA before Microsoft Corp closed the door in its face (and Citrix’s) by buying Prologue’s IP and getting its engineers working on Hydra, Windows Terminal Server. It aborted its own acquisition by Prologue after Redmond stepped into the frame. GraphOn is trumpeting a new channel initiative being run by the Dr.Solomon distribution team it has picked up after Symantec bought the company earlier this year. It says it will be doing 100% channel business by the New Year. Graphon’s technology uses a Unix-based Rapid X protocol which its claims is faster than the Citrix ICA Windows technology. Sybase Inc has already licensed Jbridge for its database while GraphOn counts IBM Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc among its OEMs. Jbridge is effectively the last remnant of Corel’s ill-fated suite of Java office applications and was formerly code-named Remagen. GraphOn says it will ship a production version of Jbridge within six months. Corel claims it has 35 million active WordPerfect users and 10 million Corel Draw users, which should be a big enough base into which to sell upgrades to keep business rolling.
