Some 25 Kubota Pacific Computer Inc employees are buying the remains of the Japanese company’s graphics technology, after the farm machinery maker’s decision last week to wind up its hardware business, according to our sister publication Client/Server News. The buyout has been underwritten by $2m of Kubota’s money, which will be used to set up a new concern to peddle its low-priced ActionGraphics Peripheral Component Interconnect-based three-dimensional accelerator boards into the iAPX-86, RISC and Windows NT markets. Internally, the new company is called Advanced Graphics Inc, a name that is expected to change. Ben Wegbreit, president of the company since it was called Kubota Pacific Computer Inc and designed high-priced Turbo Channel Digital Equipment Corp Alpha graphics workstations called Denali and Kenai, will not make the jump with his staff. Jeff Dunn, who has been vice-president of marketing and arranged the deal, will run the firm. ActionGraphics, a name that will stick, is expected to be seen at both Comdex in various iAPX-86 boxes and at AutoFact, perhaps in NeTpower’s new MIPS-based Falcon machine. The company has previously indicated that although it is going for the mass iAPX-86 market it will support NT-on-RISC machines under special arrangements with their vendors, not as packaged goods.
