The San Diego, California-based Sparc laptop house, RDI Computer Corp, has quietly undergone a major upheaval to turn it from a speculative outfit into a serious company. Its three founders are no longer connected with the company, and its new president Roy Wright, who is said to have come by his job compliments of Sun Microsystems Inc president Scott McNealy, has a business plan that is designed to chart the growth of the company from its present $10m a year to $100m, and he also has plans to take RDI public. His first port of call after coming on board was to ensure RDI’s financing, which meant going to the company’s strategic partner, the $380m-a-year Korean firm TriGem Computer Corp. This was done in the early part of the summer and has just been disclosed. The firms aren’t saying how much is involved other than that it is several million dollars, and TriGem now owns between 40% and 50% of RDI. In the meantime, Wright has been transforming his management team, now completed with the additions of Reg Broughton from ICL Plc as vice-president of OEM sales and marketing and Carl Baldini, a founder of server start-up Enterprise Technology as engineering vice-president.
