IBM and Siemens AG joined hands in New York yesterday to announce that they had finally reached agreement on the sale of most of IBM’s Rolm Corp to Siemens – but gave no indication of the price paid, although Siemens said earlier in the week that it would be less than $500m up-front. An new Rolm Co is to be established in Norwalk, Connecticut as a jointly owned marketing and service organisation handling both Rolm’s products and Siemens’ private network telecommunications and ISDN systems and equipment. It will also do joint marketing with IBM on IBM’s computer-based voice applications. The present Rolm Corp in Santa Clara, California will become Rolm Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Siemens, developing and manufacturing PABX systems, telephones and other telecommunications products. A joint IBM-Siemens Technical Operating Committee will also direct co-operative development of advanced voice-data business system for sale worldwide. Siemens’ Tel Plus Communications Inc in Boca Raton, Florida will become a business partner of Rolm Co. Internationally, IBM will remarket Siemens’ PABX systems, telephones and other telecommunications products under the IBM logo in Europe and Australia. IBM Canada and IBM Japan will sign distribution agreements for Rolm Systems products, and Rolm distribution partners in some countries in Latin America and the Far East will also handle them; existing Siemens distribution channels in these countries are unchanged.
