Scientific Micro Systems Inc’ post-market crash decision to retrench and confine operations to its established OEM market, lies behind the recent formation of Bracknell-based International Marketing Channels Ltd, IMC, and the new company’s current attempts to acquire subsidiary casualties SMS Indentica and SMS Supermac. IMC, established by ex-SMS staffers and self-styled high flyers Frank Walters, Charles Matthews and Andy Robson, describes itself as a British management consortium and is now busy finalising negotiations to acquire microcomputer storage division SMS Identica and placing a substantial – but as yet undisclosed – bid for the Apple Macintosh peripherals integrator SMS Supermac. IMC argues that Identica, which already achieves some 90% of its sales in Europe, will benefit – in expansion terms – from a UK base, and openly admits that the Identica label will attach considerable status to the IMC name. SMS Supermac is being eyed against recent findings that suggest that the Apple Mac now enjoys fourth position in the UK’s best-seller ranks of personal computers: the company also shares the same distribution channels as Identica. On the assumption that acquisition plans materialise, IMC is placing turnover estimates for 1988 firmly in the UKP5m region.
