Attachmate Buys Wollongong To Expand Scope Of Software

BELLEVUE - Attachmate Corp., the state's second-largest software company behind Microsoft, is buying a California company that helps corporations link their computers to each other and to the Internet.

Bellevue-based Attachmate already focuses on that work - which explains its rapid growth in the past year - but will use the technology it is buying to combine many software features into the same product.

The company being acquired, The Wollongong Group of Palo Alto, Calif., makes corporate all-in-one software that lets computer users tap into the Internet, send e-mail and do other things. Attachmate intends to combine that with its products that let corporate computer users get into central mainframe computers and databases.

Attachmate recorded $390 million in sales last year and employs more than 2,000 people in more than 30 countries. The Wollongong Group has annual sales of $27 million and employs 165 people.