The acquisition by Sun Microsystems Inc’s SunSoft Inc of most of Interactive Systems Corp from Eastman Kodak Co finally closed on New Year’s Eve, more than three months after their agreement in principle was first initialled. Insiders claim nothing substantive was changed during that time and attribute the delays to disentangling Interactive’s on-going services and technologies business, which Kodak is keeping, from the Intel-Unix side going to SunSoft. Thay also blame Kodak for being bureaucratic and slow-footed. SunSoft’s acquisition of Interactive’s Santa Monica, California-based, 200-person, $30m-a-year Systems Products Division is said to give Sun, which is anxious to launch its much-heralded Solaris-on-Intel operating system, a ready-made infrastructure familiar with the shrinkwrapped Intel marketplace. Sun’s own excursion into iAPX-86-based systems some years back ended with the disbanding of that unit and the scattering of those forces. Interactive’s sales and marketing relationships will continue on for its new master. Much to the chagrin of its present staff, the hullabaloo created by the SunSoft acquisition has overshadowed the fact that Interactive itself – or at least its old Service and Technologies Division – soldiers on. Interactive president Dennis Peck has been replaced by British ex-patriate Ben Salama, formerly head of the $30m-a-year Services and Technologies division. Its Santa Monica arm now gone, the company has shrunk back to its headquarters in Naperville, Illinois. Interactive intends to continue its traditional non-denominational Unix and networking consulting, licensing and software development operations for OEM customers, including SunSoft, and for end users, where it believes that it will be garnering the bulk of its future growth.
