The Cambridge, UK-based computer manufacturer Tadpole Technology Plc says it expects to reach consistent profitability next year following yesterday’s announcement of a new portable workstation. The company’s shares were temporarily suspended at the beginning of April (CI No 3,132) but are now trading again following a period of restructuring and the raising of some 2.5m pounds in capital. A new strategy has been put in place and Tadpole is working closely with Sun Microsystems Inc, at both board and field level and with Sun Professionals on Java development. The new SPARCbook 3000 has been designed for users wanting to run complex, process-intensive applications on the move, such as in software demonstration, an area in which Oracle Corp has been using the machines. The telecommunications market seems to be another arena targeted by Tadpole and customers include Deutsche Telekom AG, Cisco Systems Inc, 3Com Corp, British Telecommunications Plc and AT&T Corp. Weighing about 8Ibs, the SPARCbook 3000 has a 3Gb hard drive, up from 1.2Gb on the previous model (CI No 3,160), a 12.1 inch screen and a 170MHz TurboSPARC processor, and runs on Unix. Bernard Hulme, Tadpole’s chief executive officer who took over from Tadpole founder and managing director George Grey last July (CI No 2,950) believes the company’s new Sun centric direction will be they key to its success. He commented: We can do lots of things, but we have decided to be very focused on Sun technology and Sun markets. Hulme went on to say that the 120-person organization doesn’t salami slice the whole damn thing.
