Although the body of former X Window software and Unix hardware outfit Torch Technology Ltd could not be kept together as a going concern, its ashes are to remain in Cambridge, where they have been scattered amongst the community of small and innovative hardware and software firms based there. Unipalm Ltd bought up Torch’s X-technology division at the end of March (CI No 1,392), and now communications specialist Cube i.t. – part of the Cambridge-based Cube Group – has stepped in for the hardware side of the company, which includes the 68030-based QX VME board and Torchstation workstation projects that Torch was working on at the time it went into receivership (CI Nos 1,361, 1,412). Cube i.t. has taken 12 former Torch employees into its fold, which ups its payroll to 36, and will concentrate on developing and manufacturing the VME board for high-performance workstation applications. Cube i.t.’s sister company Control Universal, which manufactures board-level industrial microprocessor control systems, will be responsible for marketing the boards, while Cube i.t. will focus on the Motorola-based workstation line. Cube i.t. was formed in December 1988 after Control Universal took over Barkway Electronics. Managing director Martin Sebborn says that new products will emerge over the next few months, and that part of the reason for Torch’s downfall was that heavy research and development investment was made at the expense of sales and marketing efforts – an imbalance that Cube i.t. and Control Universal will be addressing. In addition Cube i.t. will be working with Unipalm on support for Torch’s Y-Opentop graphical user interface – which Unipalm acquired with the X technology group – though Unipalm’s long-term aim is to sell source code and rights to the interface, not to support it as an end-user product. Unipalm’s XTech division has completed the Motif development work begun at Torch, and will release Motif, a development kit and X11.4 server software for Sun Microsystems Inc workstations at the end of this week. It has appointed Aurora Technology as its distributor in the US. The rest of Torch – the popular Apple Macintosh frame-grabber product, RSVP – has gone to Graphics Unlimited.
