Peripatetic network manufacturer Timeplex Inc has formally changed its name to Ascom Timeplex, since its Swiss parent made it part of a new Enterprise Networks Division. The announcement was accompanied by plans for a new product line – the Synchrony range of switches, which are designed to cope both with existing multiplexor traffic and Frame Relay, maintaining compatibility with the company’s Link+ range of products, and with the new generation of technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode, Switched Multi-Megabit Data Stream Sonet and ISDN. Synchrony will manage this by being modular, says the company – extra capacity and capabilities can be slotted in as required. Don’t hold your breath though – the first product to emerge, the Synchrony 300, is not due to ship until the middle of next year and, even then, it will only be with the basic Time Division Multiplex and Frame Relay modules – the company has not given any date for delivery of the broad-band elements. Dr Emanuel Hafner, Ascom executive vice-president and formerly head of Ascom’s Telecom Networks Division, heads up the Enterprise Networks Division. Ascom Timeplex president Dewaine Osman reports to Hafner, and both are members of the Ascom Timeplex board of directors. In addition, Ascom’s In-Net subsidiary has been consolidated within Ascom Timeplex, which also will distribute Ascom’s AXS X25 product line. The company is obviously still busy developing the high-end technologies needed for Synchrony and, to that end, Osman said that Ascom Timeplex will invest 20% of its 1992 equipment revenue in research and development. The company also proudly showed off its four new sales and marketing subsidiaries in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the Benelux countries, but showed signs of discomfiture at the press launch when questioned about the recent round of redundancies at the old Timeplex Business Network Services division, which closed just before Christmas. A Timeplex Ascom spokesperson claimed that Business Network Service functions had successfully been incorporated into the main sales and marketing operation.
