Spyglass Announces First Acquisition; Stonehand Strengthens Spyglass SGML, HTML, Unicode Technology Offerings; Spyglass and Stonehand Combination Will Facilitate Mission Critical Information on the World-Wide Web; Expands Opportunities in Financial, Government and Healthcare Markets.NAPERVILLE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 24, 1996--Spyglass Inc. (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on : SPYG) announced today the execution of a definitive agreement for the acquisition of Stonehand Inc., a privately-held company based in Cambridge, Mass. that develops and licenses high performance, embeddable text formatting tools for application and system software developers. Spyglass will pay $9.5 million in a stock pooling transaction in which Stonehand employees and operations will become the core of Spyglass' East Coast research and development organization. Douglas Colbeth, Spyglass president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. , cited a number of reasons the acquisition fits in with the company's business strategy and long-term goals Long-term goals Financial goals expected to be accomplished in five years or longer. : o Opens New Markets for Spyglass and Stonehand Technology -- One of the critical issues facing the Web today, particularly in the financial, health care and government sectors, is document integrity (ensuring that companies are delivering and receiving mission critical information, intact, without alteration, on the Web). The combination of Spyglass and Stonehand technology will facilitate the publishing of complex documents. o Synergy Between the Two Profitable Businesses -- A synergy between the businesses will ensure success - each is active in and support open standards Specifications for hardware and software that are developed by a standards organization or a consortium involved in supporting a standard. Available to the public for developing compliant products, open standards imply "open systems;" that an existing component in a system can be replaced efforts; both have proven SGML/HTML, internationalization The support for monetary values, time and date for countries around the world. It also embraces the use of native characters and symbols in the different alphabets. See localization, i18n, Unicode and IDN. internationalization - internationalisation expertise; both have long histories of profitability and a commitment to a partner-based business model. o Strengthens Spyglass core technology - Stonehand's HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. Viewer and Composition Toolbox will enrich Spyglass core component technology, particularly in text and presentation viewing features. o Expands and strengthens Spyglass R&D - Stonehand's operations will become a research and development facility for Spyglass concentrating on text formatting including further developing SGML SGML in full Standard Generalized Markup Language Markup language for organizing and tagging elements of a document, including headings, paragraphs, tables, and graphics. , HTML and Unicode (Internationalization features) tools for Spyglass products. "This is a significant move for Spyglass because it is our first acquisition and sets the tone for future acquisitions," Colbeth said. "The companies have a lot in common, particularly a deep commitment to supporting open standards for the Web. There is a real synergy between us and we think that synergy will pay big dividends as we work together to build better technology to meet the needs of new customers interested in Web enabling their applications. We are pleased Stonehand agreed to become part of Spyglass." "Spyglass and Stonehand have mutual goals," said Will Manis, president of Stonehand. "That was important to us when making the decision. We believe in keeping the Web open. Spyglass' open technology and open business model embodies that philosophy more than any other company involved in the Internet. The choice was pretty simple." Combines the Strengths of Leading Web Technology Suppliers According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Colbeth, the acquisition plays to the strengths of both companies and allows Spyglass to further strengthen its position as a leader in embedded Web component technology. o Stonehand Employees Form the Core of New East Coast R&D facility -- Forming the core of Spyglass' new R&D facility will be the 10 employees of Stonehand who will report to Tim Krauskopf, Spyglass vice president of Research and Development. They will concentrate on the development of text processing technology that will be incorporated in Spyglass' core offerings. o Adds Text Formatting, Open Standards Expertise -- Stonehand employees are leaders in core technologies including developing text formatting and internationalization technologies, such as SGML, HTML, DSSSL (Document Style Semantics and Specification Language) A style sheet and transformation language for SGML documents. It allows an SGML document to be formatted for presentation or converted into another structure. and Unicode. Stonehand personnel are very active in the open standards community and Glenn Adams Adams was the first round pick in the 1968 amateur draft of the Houston Astros (fourth pick overall). is a technical director of the Unicode Consortium The Unicode Consortium, the non-profit organization that coordinates Unicode's development, has the ambitious goal of eventually replacing existing character encoding schemes with Unicode and its standard Unicode Transformation Format (UTF) schemes, as many of the existing schemes , the creators of Unicode which is the world-wide character encoding standard. o Adds New Product Line to Spyglass; Incorporates New Technology into Spyglass Mosaic -- Spyglass will continue to sell on a standalone basis the Stonehand Composition Toolbox, a platform-independent text formatting library for desktop publishing or graphic arts applications. The toolbox permits developers to add professional quality, multilingual, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Pronounced "wiz-ee-wig." It refers to displaying text and graphics on screen the same as they will print on paper or display on a Web page. desktop publishing features to their application, cutting precious in-house development time. Stonehand HTML Viewer, an embeddable component technology designed to be integrated into new or existing browser or viewing applications, will be incorporated in Spyglass Mosaic core technology. o Stonehand Customers to Become Spyglass Partners -- The Stonehand acquisition will add many new significant customers to Spyglass' base of 56 OEMs. Among Stonehand's customers are Adobe Systems Inc., Broderbund Software Inc., Compuserve Inc., Fujitsu Ltd. and Sumitomo Metal Industries Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd. (住友金属工業株式会社 Ltd. "The Stonehand acquisition fits nicely within the framework of our business model and business goals," Colbeth said. "We're confident that the combination of Spyglass and Stonehand expertise will expand our business as we forge ahead to build a strong and valued enterprise in the Internet and Intranet marketplaces." Spyglass Inc. Spyglass Inc. (NASDAQ: SPYG) licenses World Wide Web client and server technologies. Spyglass technology is currently licensed by 56 customers, including AT&T, Digital Equipment Corp., IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Microsoft and Oracle. Spyglass technology has been licensed for use in over 145 Internet-based products and services. Spyglass' headquarters are located at 1230 E. Diehl Road, Naperville, Ill., 60563, with research and development facilities in Champaign, Ill., and Cambridge, Mass. and regional sales office in Cambridge, Mass., Morristown, N.J. and San Ramon, Calif. (Headquarters: telephone - 708/505-1010, ext. 504; fax: 708/505-4944; press email inquiries: rpitzer@spyglass.com; Web server, Internet: www.spyglass.com; Stonehand's Web address is www.stonehand.com.) -0- Note to Editors: Mosaic is a trademark of the University of Illinois University of Illinois may refer to:
CONTACT: Spyglass, Inc. Randy Pitzer, 708/505-1010 rpitzer@spyglass.com |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion