Xedex

Last updated
Xedex Corporation
Company typePrivate
IndustryComputer
FoundedJanuary 1982;43 years ago (1982-01) in New York, New York, United States
FounderHarris Landgarten
DefunctSeptember 24, 1982;42 years ago (1982-09-24)
FateAcquired by TU International in 1982; dissolved in 1984

Xedex Corporation was a short-lived American computer company based in New York active from 1982 to 1984. It was best known for the Baby Blue, a Z80 processor card for the IBM Personal Computer that allowed the PC to run software titles developed for CP/M-80, which numbered in the thousands at the time. Xedex developed a number of other hardware and software products before being absorbed into its sister company and manufacturing arm Microlog, Inc., in 1984.

History

Xedex Corporation was founded by Harris Landgarten in New York City in January 1982. [1] Landgarten had previously worked as a consultant for Lifeboat Associates, a large microcomputer software developer and publisher based in New York. The genesis for Xedex's foundation came in late 1981 when Landgarten's co-worker Mike Aronson came into Lifeboat bearing a prototype for a Z80 co-processor board for the IBM Personal Computer, designed to let the PC run the thousands of existing software titles developed for CP/M-80. [2] : 1  Despite Lifeboat itself being a major vendor of CP/M software and the card having the potential to open up the company to the large installed based of IBM PC users, [3] Lifeboat expressed no interest in commercializing the card. Seeing an untapped niche, Landgarten bought the rights to Aronson's prototype and founded Xedex the following January with $2.5 million in funding from Rockie Smith, an entrepreneur from Oklahoma whose primary trade was in energy services. Landgarten poached several employees from Lifeboat, including Alan Bowker, whom he named vice president of West Coast operations; Roland Joffe, whom he named vice president of sales and marketing; and Stephen Walton, whom he named head of technical writing. [2]

Xedex realized Aronson's prototype as the Baby Blue and released it in February 1982. An ISA expansion card, it featured a Zilog Z80B processor and 64 KB of RAM on-board. [1] The card was capable of running its Z80 processor simultaneously with the IBM PC's native Intel 8088. [4] Xedex bundled several of its own in-house CP/M-80 software titles with the Baby Blue, including The Boss, a financial accounting program, and Friday, a daily executive planner. [5] : 120  [6] Reviewed in the charter issue of PC Magazine , Larry Magid assessed the Baby Blue positively, albeit with the qualification that the product would soon become obsolete given the IBM PC's rapidly growing software library, with any specialized software title exclusive to CP/M soon to be replaced by an equivalent PC title. [3] Frank J. Derfler of InfoWorld agreed with Magid's assessment, although he gave high marks to its documentation, ease of use and set-up, and performance. [7] Tony Gold, president of Lifeboat Associates and Landgarten's former employer, responded to the Baby Blue with confusion: "It's kind of a step backwards. I find it strange that somebody would want to buy an IBM Personal Computer and then downgrade it to an 8-bit machine." [8] Nonetheless, the Baby Blue proved popular, [4] [9] with Xedex booking $1 million in orders and scoring multiple lucrative deals with resellers including ComputerLand, who stocked the Baby Blue at their brick-and-mortar stores. [2] : 5 

The working environment at Xedex began to unravel as Smith took umbrage with Landgarten and Joffe's expenditures for the company. By his estimate, the company went through $1.5 million of the initial $2.5 million startup capital in five months, with $40,000 of the company's $300,000 monthly spending solely going toward rent at the company's Avenue of the Americas suite. [2] : 1  In July 1982, Smith ousted Landgerten and Joffe and relocated Xedex to Suffern in upstate New York, closer to Xedex's sister company Microlog, which was responsible for the manufacturing of Xedex's products. [2] : 1  [10] : 38  Immediately afterward, Landgerten began mounting a buyout of Smith's interest in the company, although he was ultimately unsuccessful. [2] : 1  Xedex's spending was reduced to $90,000 per month, while the company began research and development of new, more diverse hardware products. [2] : 5  Smith replaced Landgarten as president of Xedex with Robert Watson. [11]

On September 24, 1982, Xedex and Microlog were acquired by Smith's shell company, Duke of Energy Corporation, based in Cushing, Oklahoma. [12] [13] Duke of Energy later renamed itself to TU International in 1983 after acquiring Terminals Unlimited, Inc., a terminal manufacturer based in Falls Church, Virginia. [13] [12] In October 1982, the company announced its second hardware product, Baby Talk, an expansion card for the IBM PC that allowed it to emulate a IBM 3270 terminal for communicating with IBM mainframes. [11] [14] In early 1983, Xedex released the Little Red Ram, a 256-KB RAM expansion card that was bundled with P.D.Q., a RAM disk configuration utility developed in-house. [15] : 462  [16] In February 1983, Xedex released Baby Tex, a Z80 coprocessor card for Texas Instruments' TI Professional Computer. [10] : 38  [17] : 106 

By 1984, TU International had consolidated Xedex into Microlog, with the latter taking over sales and marketing of Xedex's former products. In late March 1984, the company announced the successor to the Baby Blue, the Baby Blue II, which on-board serial and parallel ports and a greater amount of stock on-board RAM. [18]

TI International filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 1985. [19]

References

  1. 1 2 Ohe, Marianna (February 17, 1982). "New device expands programs usable by IBM microcomputer". UPI.com. United Press International. Archived from the original on September 15, 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wise, Deborah (August 2, 1982). "Management shake-up unsettles Xedex Corporation". InfoWorld. Vol. 4, no. 30. IDG Publications. pp. 1, 6 – via Google Books.
  3. 1 2 Magid, Lawrence J. (February–March 1982). "Baby Blue". PC Magazine. Vol. 1, no. 1. Ziff-Davis. pp. 48–53 – via Google Books.
  4. 1 2 Sandberg-Diment, Erik (October 19, 1982). "Souping Up the Power of a Plain Jane". The New York Times. p. C5 – via ProQuest.
  5. ↑ Staff writer (February–March 1982). "PC Marketplace". PC Magazine. Vol. 1, no. 1. Ziff-Davis. pp. 117–122 – via Google Books.
  6. ↑ CP/M Software Directory. R.R. Bowker. 1985. p. 149. ISBN   0835219690 – via Google Books.
  7. ↑ Derfler, Frank J. (August 23, 1982). "Baby Blue converts IBM PC to dual processor". InfoWorld. Vol. 4, no. 33. IDG Publications. p. 59–61 – via Google Books.
  8. ↑ Wise, Deborah (March 15, 1982). "Baby Blue lets PC run CP/M". InfoWorld. Vol. 4, no. 10. IDG Publications. pp. 1, 6 – via Google Books.
  9. ↑ Veit, Stan (September 1994). "What Ever Happened to ... IBM's PC Leadership?". Computer Shopper. Vol. 14, no. 9. SX2 Media Labs. p. 592 et seq. – via Gale.
  10. 1 2 Zoso (April 4, 1983). "U.S. government, IBM both drop misguided bombs". InfoWorld. Vol. 5, no. 14. IDG Publications. p. 37–38 – via Google Books.
  11. 1 2 Wise, Deborah (October 11, 1982). "Baby Blue manufacturer was offered IBM specs". InfoWorld. Vol. 4, no. 40. IDG Publications. p. 10 – via Google Books.
  12. 1 2 Moody's OTC Industrial News Reports. Moody's Investors Service. June 1984. p. 2460 – via Google Books.
  13. 1 2 Brown, Merrill (December 15, 1982). "Falls Church Terminal Marker Sold to Oklahoma Company". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 28, 2017.
  14. ↑ Chace, Susan (September 17, 1982). "Firms Allege Approach by Ex-IBM Aide Who Is Accused of Trying to Sell Secrets". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. p. 7 – via ProQuest.
  15. ↑ Valdez, Jose (February–April 1983). "PC: BlueBook". PC Magazine. Vol. 1, no. 10. Ziff-Davis. p. 460–482 – via Google Books.
  16. ↑ Becker, Ira (1983). IBM Personal Computer Handbook. And/Or Press. p. 114. ISBN   9780915904662 – via Google Books.
  17. ↑ Goodman, Danny (May 1983). "In This Corner... the TI Professional" (PDF). PC World. Vol. 1, no. 3. IDG Publications. pp. 100–107 – via Vintage Apple.
  18. ↑ McGeever, Christine (April 9, 1984). "Baby Blue has a sibling". InfoWorld. Vol. 6, no. 15. IDG Publications. p. 62 – via Google Books.
  19. ↑ Mayer, Caroline E. (September 7, 1985). "TU International Files for Bankruptcy". The Washington Post. p. C1. ProQuest   138525377.
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