[More research]
Spectrum recently bought a Scottish company out of Edinburgh called 3L. For your reading pleasure, here's their website:
threel.co.uk
threel.co.uk
threel.co.uk
Don't miss the last one where it lists their customers.
Now, I admit I'm biased towards anything that comes out of the University of Edinburgh. I spent three months there, primarily at the National Library of Scotland, and I've never seen such a multi-national, multi-cultural environment anywhere. For reasons unknown to me, the university attracts some of the finest minds in the world, both in medicine and technology. Were it not for the fact they have 9 months of winter, I'd be tempted to move there. Vancouver must seem like the tropics by comparison.
Here's a bit on Parallel-C:
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We don't compete with Microsoft, Borland and Sun to sell mainstream tools for general-purpose computers. Instead, 3L targets special-purpose hardware that is optimised for parallel processing. At
present Parallel C, our main product, works with:
Texas Instruments' TMS320C4x Parallel Digital Signal Processor (PDSP), for radar, sonar, telecommunications, image and signal processing;
parallel-processing cards based on Digital's Alpha RISC chip, for scalable high-performance computing; the Inmos transputer, for low-cost embedded control applications.
Versions for other parallel processors are under development. In 1996, 89% of revenue came from C4x products, 10% from Alpha and 1% from transputers.
Channels
Most 3L software is sold to end users via vendors of the parallel-processing hardware on which the software runs. When an engineer specifies the purchase of a Texas Instruments C4x-based DSP card from companies like Hunt Engineering, Loughborough Sound Images, Pentek, Spectrum Signal Processing or Traquair Data Systems, our aim is that they should purchase Parallel C as well. We estimate that more than 50% of end users who want C4x run-time support buy Parallel C.
Strengths
3L's main strengths are: the depth of experience in the technical and management team a widely respected focus on product quality and robustness a high standard of technical support.
Our location in Edinburgh, capital city of Scotland and home to some of the UK's top universities, with national and international standing in computer science, is a continuing strength, providing access to a pool of technical talent and ideas. 3L is based not far from the Edinburgh Parallel Computer Centre (EPCC), a European-level centre of excellence.
People
Dr. Peter S. Robertson, Managing Director (CEO) of 3L, has 20 years experience in compiler and operating system development and was a founder director in 1981 of an Edinburgh-based ECAD start-up, now part of Cadence.
Alan Culloch, Technical Support Director, and Ian Young, Technical Director, have both worked with Peter for 15 years, initially doing bespoke compiler work, and latterly real-time kernel development.
History
From 1982 to 1986, the current 3L management team built a successful track record based on compiler development contracts with:
Concurrent Computer Corp. (Perkin-Elmer/Interdata) Acorn Computers Ltd. (ARM) Inmos Ltd. (transputer)
3L Ltd. was established as an independent business in 1987 to exploit new opportunities in parallel computing opened up by the transputer. 3L quickly became the dominant supplier of development tools for that processor family, including Parallel C, C++, Pascal and Fortran.
In 1990, 3L was approached by Texas Instruments to port Parallel C from the transputer to TI's then new C40 parallel DSP chip. The resulting product was launched in March 1992 at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany. In the light of a decision by Inmos to compete directly with its own third-party hardware and software vendors, and uncertainty over the future of the T9000 transputer, 3L refocused on the DSP market. By September 1992, C4x products were generating more than 20% of turnover.
With support from Digital Equipment Corp. a new technology was added in 1994, when Parallel C became available on a range of parallel-processing cards based on Digital's Alpha RISC chip, targeted at high-performance computing (HPC) users. Today Alpha products account for 10% of 3L's turnover and provide a useful balance to the main DSP business. There is a degree of overlap, since some HPC users are in fact doing signal processing.
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BTW, the stats on the company don't include the value of V.34. I've been told it's worth between $30 and 40M. Nice to know there's hidden value.
Cheers!
Pat
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