Intel Invests in Two Communications Firms

Computergram International, April 23, 1999

Intel Corp has invested undisclosed amounts in two communications companies: TelesciCom Ltd of Holon, Israel, and Webridge Inc, of Portland, Oregon.

Three year-old TelesciCom is a broadband wireless system-on-a-chip development company with around 40 employees. Its has developed what it calls "Spreadulation" technology as a building block for low-cost broadband wireless systems, and its SkyGain chipset can provide 42Mbit/sec in the MMDS multi-point multi-channel market sector and 155Mbit/sec in the LMDS local multi-point sector. Its technology can also be used for home office radio frequency systems for data and voice.

TelesciCom says that its technology helps broadband wireless to compete with the robustness of landline systems, so that broadband can be used by CLEC competitive local exchange carriers to use as a last mile bridge from the POP to the customer premises. Evaluation systems are currently being delivered to major systems integrators.

Webridge Inc, which recently closed a second round of funding worth $8m, develops enterprise extranet systems for channel and partner management. It says its application suite uses a distributed object transactional web foundation and offers business process integration, so that companies can provide partners with secure access to targeted and customized information in real-time.

Webridge says it will work with Intel to tune its Mainspan extranet applications to Intel's 32-bit and future 64-bit microprocessors, and will use the new cash to expand its sales and marketing activities.