Raxco Inc of Rockville, Maryland, and Epsom, Surrey-based UIS Ltd, have swapped letters of intent to merge their respective operations. The two companies say that they have vied for leadership of the VAX systems management and performance software markets for a number of years, and believe that the new $24m company will achieve dominance in the US and Europe. The company, as yet unnamed, is to be headquartered in the US, and the chief executive will be Richard Lefebvre, currently chief executive of Raxco Inc, and formerly head of Sage Software. Details of ownership have still to be finalised, but shares will be divided between existing shareholders and several venture capital companies. UIS is backed by General Atlantic, and Raxco has a number of US backers. UIS has been going for 21 years, having started life as the computer arm of engineering consultants W S Atkins. Like many long established computing companies, it evolved from providing bureau services to developing systems software, particularly for the DEC market. It has subsidiaries in the Netherlands, Munich, and Frankfurt, and it has made a number of small acquisitions in the US. There is some degree of product overlap between UIS and Raxco, especially in disks, but UIS says that Raxco has the edge in tuning products, while UIS is more mature in media management. Operational headquarters will be in the US, but UIS is hopeful that sales and marketing will be here.
