DEC, Partner to Launch Firm

Digital Equipment Corp. and a venture capital group led by Sequoia Capital today are expected to launch TracePoint Technology Inc., a San Jose-based company that will build software development tools for Microsoft’s Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. The move would follow Digital’s announcement that the company is selling its ObejctBroker and DECmessageQ product lines to BEA Systems of Sunnyvale for an undisclosed amount. Analysts say the two announcements are a further sign of Digital’s ongoing disvestment from the software market. TracePoint would be an independently operated Digital subsidiary. TracePoint’s products would be based on a set of tools that Digital has developed for the Alpha 64-bit UNIX systems platform at its Western Research Labs in Palo Alto.