US companies having been scouring Europe for ISDN equipment companies to buy, but Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Network Express Inc – itself in process of being acquired by Cabletron Systems Inc – has found what it was looking for much closer to home. It has paid $7m for IBM Corp’s WaveRunner family of ISDN adaptors. Its money buys the WaveRunner name, the existing IBM WaveRunner inventory and the right to build and market ISDN adaptor products currently marketed as WaveRunner. The WaveRunner products are designed to be used as modems when the user is on the road and as ISDN adaptors when the user is at home or at the office, and work with the Network Express products. Network Express bought the UK-based ISDN equipment manufacturer Fivemere Ltd last October.
