Unisys Corp completed its $360m acquisition of data communications equipment specialist Timeplex Inc a week or two back, and has announced that the new corporate unit, Unisys Networks has now been formed. Unisys Networks will function as a specialist corporate networking supplier, with the Timeplex subsidiary at its core. The new company will start life with annual sales running at $500m a year. Unisys Networks will also assume responsiblity for the engineering of existing Unisys communications and networking products, but Timeplex former senior management play key roles throughout Unisys Networks. The new president is Edward Botwinick, former chief execcutive and president of Timeplex Inc and his former senior vice president of sales and marketing, Victoria Brown is the new president of Timeplex. Network Strategy, for which there has been no senior management announcement, is another unit within Networks which will co-ordinate Unisys Corp’s communications activities. There has been no such announcement for the UK but the services of Unisys Networks are available to UK customers. It is not clear whether the marketing of specific Unisys products such as the Sperry DCP and Burroughs CP2000 communications processors will be solely handled by the new company, nor how independent of Unisys kit the division will be when it pitches for networking business – does it aim to be another Electronic Data Systems? No-one at the new Unisys subsidiary was able to say – it’s much too soon to discuss details was the company line.
