Eschborn-based Symbolics GmbH, the German subsidiary of the artificial intelligence systems specialist Symbolics Inc, Burlington, Massachusetts is moving up in the world – it’s decided it wants to change its focus from a hardware and software supplier to a system house developing custom applications. Ingo Kriescher explained to Computerwoche that Symbolics GmbH has gained much experience as a distributor and so now wants to sell the products of its parent company as well as providing hard- and software support. Symbolics object-oriented software at the moment runs only on Sun Microsystems and Apple Computer 68000 family systems, but the company wants to offer its packages for other environments – the applications are currently being converted for IBM’s RS/6000 and will eventually be available for all Unix and Lisp systems. The German subsidiary is also set to become majority locally owned Ingo Kriescher will take a 51% stake in the company, Symbolics Inc will hold 20% and the balance will probably be held by one of the major German banks. To date Symbolics GmbH’s customers for the object-oriented software include Lufthansa, Munich Airport and the German end of American Express.
