FLASH: Intel bought Bell Technologies (really)

[Stephen J. Friedl]

I haven't seen anybody mention this, so I'll quote this from
EE Times, May 8, 1989 without permission:

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INTEL PAYS $10M FOR BELL ASSETS

Freemont, Calif. - Intel Corp. has acquired the assets of a small
Unix company here, Bell Technologies Inc., that specializes in
Unix add-on cards and X.11 graphics software exclusively for
Intel 80386, 80486, and 80860 environments.  No terms were
revealed, although the eight-year-old Bell has annual revenue of
approximately $10 million.

[If they don't know the terms, how does the headline know how
much Intel paid? - SJF]

Under the agreement, Intel assumes all the assets, but none of
the liabilities of Bell.  Bell will take care of outstanding
finances, then the company will be folded into Intel.  Bell
founders Dimitri Rotow and Robert Glossman have already announced
their intention to join Intel, and Bell's staff of 30 will be
polled in the coming weeks about their desire to join Intel.
Bell was the power behind the throne at the recent 80860 rollout,
as Intel used Bell add-in display hardware for all demos except
the one presented by IBM.  The company has a particularly strong
stake in the X Windows environment, and it signed a pact with
AT&T Co. earlier this year to develop a standard X.11
implementation for System V Release 3.2.  The X.11 implementation
runs on a variety of add-in cards Bell offers for the AT and XT
bus, including an on-board 82786 graphics coprocessor.

"The idea here was to bring in more Unix experience internally,"
said Nariman Karanjia, manager of Intel's systems marketing group
in Oregon.  "These guys had worked closely with [Richard] Wirt
[director of software technology at Intel] for quite a while, so
we started looking more favorably at acquiring the talent."

Intel and Bell had already signed a series of agreements prior to
the acquisition, including a March pact for third-party
maintenance of Bell products.  In additipon to its Unix software
and graphics cards, Bell also sells multiport cards, network
adapters and facsimile boards.

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Congrats, Dimitri...

     Steve

-- 
Stephen J. Friedl / V-Systems, Inc. / Santa Ana, CA / +1 714 545 6442 
3B2-kind-of-guy   / friedl at vsi.com  / {attmail, uunet, etc}!vsi!friedl

"California: the land of cute women, hot tubs, and no rust" - me