Parallan Computer Inc has been little more than a cash shell since IBM Corp ended the agreement under which it built and marketed the Mountain View company’s servers, and with $36m in the bank but very little in the way of products, the company has been looking around for something else to do. Now it has found an answer, in the shape of Meridian Data Inc, which it is to acquire – lock, stock, name and headquarters in Scotts Valley – for $19m in cash, leaving some $17m or a little less in the bank. Meridian Data is described as standards pioneer since the early days of the CD ROM industry, and is a leader in compact disk networking systems and software. The company had sales of $14.8m last year, up 40% on 1992, and in recent months has averaged over $2m per month, and has been profitable for five consecutive quarters. Parallan says that it intends to change the legal name of the parent company to Meridian Data sometime next year.
