Not satisfied with making software acquisitions on its own account, Stratus Computer Inc is now having its acquired companies make their own acquisitions. Its TCAM Systems Group has signed a letter of intent to pay $3m to acquire Femcon Associates Inc, a Westford, Massachusetts specialist in stock exchange and securities trading software, and will combine the company’s business with its own. Stratus reckons that over 80% of all exchanges in the world that have bought trading automation software applications in the past two years have gone to either TCAM or Femcon. The financial services market accounts for about 30% of Stratus Computer’s turnover. Femcon products include the NuCOLT equities trading system and the World Trade securities exchange automation system. They run on Stratus, Tandem Computers Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co, Sun Microsystems Inc, and Silicon Graphics Inc machines, and all those machines will continue to be supported.
