Dataflex awaits an uncertain future

Senior sales staff at Amstrad?s modem arm, Dataflex, are believed to be on the threshold of jumping ship before its imminent management buyout.

The atmosphere at the firm is understood to be tense owing to delays in delivering products. Amstrad?s PC division, Viglen, which is usually supplied by Dataflex, is in talks with other modem manufacturers.

Sources believe the struggling vendor could go under since it is a one-product company ? selling only modem cards manufactured in Taiwan with a stock of Sierra chips, which are now almost depleted.

Founder and technical director Jerry O?Prey and managing director Jacob van Houdt are allegedly engineering the MBO, said to be worth #800,000.

?The firm lost its way when Phil Benge left. It was controlled by a corporate that didn?t understand the market. Whether it goes down or not depends on who?s doing the buying,? one source said.

Another source said the firm was trying to position itself as a design and manufacturing company so the need for sales and marketing staff would be greatly diminished. Nigel Rix, sales and marketing director at Dataflex, refused to comment.

Amstrad bought the company from the liquidators for #375,000 in March 1995, beating the management-led team. The current buyout team is allegedly talking about developing a Web browser product.