As we went to press, news was emerging that Phoenix Technologies Ltd was about to acquire its rival Award Software International Inc, in a move that would unite two of the largest suppliers of BIOS firmware to the PC industry. San Jose-based Phoenix, which has just reported record second quarter revenues up 34% over last year to $25.4m, on which it earned income of $2.2m, is the larger of the firms and boasts the highest profile. But Mountain View, California-based Award claims to have been gaining market share in recent years, concentrating on second-tier PC vendors while Phoenix sold to tier one Intel OEMs. Both have also had their eyes on the major opportunity in the embedded systems market potentially opened up by the Windows CE operating system. And the two have also been vying for a piece of the market for emerging standards such as the USB bus and IEEE 1394 Firewire interface. Neither company would comment on the deal on Wednesday night, but sources say an announcement is due today, Thursday. Award, which posted revenues up 66% to $23.4m last year and income of $5.6m, has seen its stock price shoot up over recent months since hitting a low point in January. At the close of the market, the shares were up one point to $14.25.
