Mountain View, California-based X Window System terminal specialist Network Computing Devices Inc has made its first acquisition and has filed to go public with an initial offer of 2.5m shares at between $12 and $14 a share (see page five). The acquisition is Spectragraphics Corp’s GSS Personal Graphics Division, which supplies software that enables MS-DOS personal computers to perform X terminal functions. Network Computing paid $4.5m for the business; Spectragraphics acquired the business – then called Graphic Software Systems Inc, in June 1990 for up to $12m (CI No 1,452). It now becomes the PC-X Division of Network Computing Devices, and its 44 employees remain in Beaverton, Oregon; it will continue to develop and market its PC-Xview line of X server software for MS-DOS- and Windows-based micros. The company developed the first graphics tools for MS-DOS, OS/2 and RS/6000 AIX, all under contract to IBM Corp. The PC-X product line will be sold through Network Computing’s direct sales force and OEM customers, and via its own telemarketing and reseller programmes.
