Unipalm Group Plc started out in the software distribution business in 1986, long before its Pipex Internet access provision subsidiary was conceived, but it was for Pipex that UUNet Technologies Inc acquired the company for a handsome price back in October 1995 (CI No 2,769). Now the original Unipalm business and name have been sold in what is effectively a management buy- out, for a purchase price of 4.5m British pounds, raised from various private investors. UUNet Pipex – as the Unipalm Group is now known – will relinquish the Unipalm name to the new Newmarket, Suffolk-based company AwareNet Ltd, an off-the-shelf company, which will now change its name to Unipalm. As part of the sale, UUNet Pipex has transferred all contractual arrangements to the new Unipalm, which says it has aggressive plans to develop and grow its software distribution business and intends to retain and expand the existing workforce. Mark Norman, former head of product portfolio at UUNet Pipex and head of marketing at Unipalm Ltd, becomes managing director, and all 16 UUNet Pipex staff previously associated with software sales and support are joining him at the new company, which will operate from Newmarket, 10 miles away from the company’s original base in Cambridge. Norman anticipates it becoming a business with a turnover between 5m British pounds and 10m British pounds once the dust has settled. Currently, the company has distribution franchises with the likes of FTP Software Inc, Netscape Communications Corp, Intergraph Corp, NetManage Inc, Network Computing Devices Inc and Century Software Inc. Norman says that he is planning to shift the business away from TCP/IP and up a level to intranet software over the coming year. The company also plans to establish a large Web site stocked with evaluation software, and plans to be doing busimess over the Web from the first quarter of next year.
