Integrated Micro Products Ltd, the Consett, County Durham-based fault-tolerant Unix systems manufacturer that has just unveiled its third-generation OpenFT3 technology, which implements a system’s fault-tolerance entirely in hardware (CI Nos 1,845, 1,849), has revealed that Data General Corp and NCR Corp have just signed up as OEM customers. No further details were revealed as to the nature, or value, of the deals. The two new contracts add to the $20m five-year deal the firm signed with Motorola Inc last spring (CI No 1,679), to supply the basic 68030 fault-tolerant Unix hardware for Motorola’s trunk radio systems for police and emergency radio systems.
Culmination
Integrated Micro has very high hopes for its third-generation technology, which the company describes as the culmination of six or seven years’ development, and the firm expects to expand a lot on the back of the big OEM customers it aims to draw in over the next year. We will easily double turnover this year, says Integrated Micro’s marketing manager, Richard Penny, thoroughly confident in the new technology, which has eaten up 20% of the manufacturer’s UKP4m revenues over the last 12 months. He differentiates Integrated Micro from competitors Tandem Computers Inc and Stratus Computer Inc, saying that his firm which since 1988 has owned General Automation Inc’s former Parallel Computers Inc – has seven years’ experience in both Unix and fault tolerance. The 80-strong company does all its manufacturing in the North East of England, in one production plant measuring 12,000 square feet. Los Gatos, California-based Parallel Computers had its own facility in the US, but Integrated shut this down after the takeover, recognising that it was more economical to restrict manufacture to the UK. Integrated Micro makes as much as possible in-house, producing all its systems from the chip up. It started up in 1982 with modest resources. Since around 1984, it has come on in leaps and bounds, backed by venture capitalist Equity Capital Industry and more recently by 3i Plc, which together own around 50% of the private company’s equity.
Consett, County Durham based Integrated Micro Products Ltd has been around since before the world started talking about open systems and realised that Unix might be the answer to a maiden computer user’s prayer, but the company is such an oddity in a cruel world – a British computer manufacturer that builds from the chip up, entirely in the UK, yet does most of its business in the US market that it has been largely ignored in the media. But now that it is claiming to have perfected a fault-tolerant technology that works regardless of the operating system, the world is surely going to have to sit up and take notice. Meantime, just who is this Quixotic company that dares to challenge the entrenched interests in the fault-tolerant market and is confident its new technology is good enough to win over the brightest and best in the industry? Susan Norris has been finding out.
Penny says the firm is quite reasonably profitable at the moment, having been through a tough year, with the high development costs associated with OpenFT3 proving something of a drain on resources. All Integrated Micro’s business comes from OEM customers and value-added resellers. The company has sales offices in Los Gatos and Chicago, the US being the biggest market for Integrated’s fault-tolerant systems; Penny notes that there are very few fault-tolerant systems installed in the UK, where the technology hasn’t taken off very much yet. Outside the US, Integrated has close relationships with distributors in Japan. One of the first of the new OpenFT3-based machines – the XTM – is being shipped out to value-added reseller CJK Corp of Tokyo, which has been distributing Integrated’s Unix systems for almost two years now (CI No 1,415). CJK develops specialised applications for large retail organisations, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp being among its customers for the Integrated Micro boxes.
Indian market
The Indian computer market is also a large source
of the UK manufacturer’s business, although contracts there are predominantly on an OEM basis, for base systems which are assembled and adapted by the procurer. ICL Plc’s 40% affiliate, ICIM – International Computers Manufacture Pte Ltd – in Poona, Maharashtra, for example, buys in Integrated Micro’s 68030-based Unix processor boards for integration into systems to front-end the ICL mainframes it markets in India (CI No 1,346). Back in the UK, Integrated’s two main value-added resellers are Systems Reliability Plc, which now trades as Enterprise Computer Group, and Kerridge Ltd, a computer systems integrator which sells to the motor industry. Enterprise Computer is more of an OEM customer, Penny says, taking building blocks from Integrated Micro and assembling them into the chassis of its Orbitel telephone call-monitoring system. Penny’s enthusiasm for Integrated Micro Products’ new fault-tolerant Unix technology left the impression that we’re going to hear a lot more from the company over the months to come.
