San Jose, California-based GraphOn Corp has gone out of the terminals-making business and is reorganising itself, albeit on a smaller scale, as a technology source, selling rights to its ASCII-cum-X terminal technology to as many OEM customers as are willing to buy. So far it has licensed Qume Corp and Tatung Science & Technology Co, with others to come further down the road, according to president Walt Keller. GraphOn’s reorganisation was forced by a failure to attract the venture capital it needed to pursue its course of commercialising X terminals. It needed $4.5m and succeeded in getting only $2.5m. Keller attributed the venture capitalists’ reluctance to invest to the unglamorous nature of GraphOn’s chapter which he described as essentially creating the next generation text terminal geared to a market different from those of Network Computing Devices Inc or Visual Technology Corp. GraphOn has perforce trimmed its sails, laying off 25 people over the last month. There are now about 10 left including four engineers and a handful of customer service representatives still plugging away supporting an installed base of some 10,000 machines, Keller said. As a manufacturer it might have been a $10m firm, as a technology supplier it’s probably more like a $1m firm without counting the royalties, Keller said. The Qume and Tatung deals, which were clinched before GraphOn ceased manufacturing, could result in products appearing in time for Comdex, Keller added.
