San Jose, California-based Reply Corp has sold technology to enable the integration of Windows and Macintosh operating systems to Radius Inc, prompting speculation of imminent bankruptcy. The company has moved its 25 staff to Radius’ offices in Sunnyvale, California and Reply’s former chief executive and ten key engineers have been employed by Radius. Radius’ president and chief operating officer, Mark Housley, said Reply would continue trading with its remaining employees from Radius’ offices, but added: The people we didn’t pick will still be working for Reply, but how long they’ll be in existence is hard to say. Radius believes the acquisition of the Dos on Mac technology will put it back on track following a period of troubled months for the multimedia technology provider.
Abandoned Mac cloning
It abandoned plans last year to clone the Mac and sold out to Umax Data Systems Ltd (CI No 2852), realizing it had over stretched itself. Founded in 1986 and employing around 120 people, Radius believes the technology is a perfect complement to its family of graphics accelerators, digital video products and professional color systems. The technology operates via a PCI adapter card, which Reply says has been designed with all the elements of a personal computer motherboard, enabling dual compatibility. Reply says the Dos on Mac cards will enable users to swap between Mac and personal computer applications, bringing the functionality and performance of two computers on to one. The Dos on Mac card supports the Macintosh and Windows NT operating systems, with support going down as far as Windows Version 3.1. Housley said the majority of the company’s customers use Mac’s for their creative work, but look to Window’s based applications for the rest of their computer dealings. For the time being Radius won’t change the product name, but Housley said: Over time you’ll see new products with different names, and added Reply seems to have a pretty good reputation on the technical and operations side. Housley commented that now Radius owns Reply’s main source of business, he didn’t really think they had much of a business.
