One of the most soul-destroying activities in the computer industry is keeping alive a business with products that are certain to be big money-spinners three or four years out during the period when the market for them is laboriously being built and sales are non-existent for long spells. By common consent, parallel processing will grow into a very serious market in a few years, but at SofTech Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts, the waiting time is too long, the money available has run out and so it has decided sadly that it must close its Compass Inc subsidiary in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Compass develops commercial grade compilers for highly parallel computers and SofTech will retain ownership of the technology and will license it to interested parties. A skeleton staff will be kept on at Compass for a short time to look for buyers for the technology. The shutdown will result in the write-off of about $1.0m of goodwill and other assets and $600,000 for other costs. The aggregate financial impact of the shutdown will depend on results of ongoing technology licensing negotiations. Compass results will be treated as a discontinued operation starting with the figures for SofTech’s fiscal second quarter to November 29.
