Networking server and hub manufacturer Xyplex Inc was not a part of Raytheon Co for long: Raytheon only moved in to buy the Littleton, Massachusetts company in September 1994, and given the three months it takes to complete any acquisition, has only owned it for just over a year – but already it has decided the buy was a mistake and sold it on to Simi Valley, California-based Whittaker Corp. Whittaker is paying $117.5m for Xyplex, $67.5m in cash, the balance in Whittaker shares, and Raytheon is cutting its losses and having to swallow quite a bit of pride, because it paid $171m cash for Xyplex (CI No 2,498). Whittaker – the company that bought Hughes LAN Systems Inc last year, wants Xyplex to complete its capability to provide complete end-to-end networking implementations with wide systems integration and technical support capabilities. Xyplex provides remote access and branch office internetworking products including ISDN and Frame Relay, while Whittaker claims to have been the first to market with Asynchronous Transfer Mode-based backbone hubs for high bandwidth local and wide area network applications such as video and medical imaging. Xyplex does the Network 9000 switching and routing hubs, the Network 3000 family of branch office systems, local net and Asynchronous Mode switches, and the MAXserver remote access servers. Xyplex had sales of $107m in 1995; Whittaker had sales of $159.5m in the year to October 31; this year, communications should be 60% of its business, up from 23% last year. Xyplex will come under Hughes LAN – now Whittaker Communications.
