Integrated Micro Products Ltd, which now goes under the name IMP Ltd, plans to make a major announcement in the next few weeks which will detail the latest fruits of its development partnership with Motorola Inc, which is expected to include a new customised fault-tolerant Unix system. Based on IMP’s OpenFT3 fault-tolerant technology, the processor will be aimed primarily at the telecommunications market and run Unix System V.4 rather than the firm’s preferred operating system, Unisoft Ltd’s Uniplus. And, says marketing manager Dick Penny, there will be lots of new things happening in the next six months. Motorola is the Consett, County Durham-based firm’s number one OEM customer and IMP works with three separate divisions, which are essentially the size of individual companies, selling both standard IMP boxes and customising them to deal with specialised tasks. IMP also supplies product to NCR Corp and has some other OEM deals in the pipeline, although Penny said he could supply no further details until these were cemented. The company generated approximately 80% of its UKP5m turnover last year in the US, a negligible amount in the UK because of the underdeveloped state of the European network services market IMP does not sell its products direct, so what they are used for depends on its OEM partners – and the rest in Japan. But Penny expects to double turnover year-on-year over the next few years in the wake of the announcement, and by taking further customers on board.
