Thursday, June 12, 2008

Carlyle Group Flushes Tubes


Last year Carlyle affiliate Adesso Systems announced its revolutionary file sharing system called Tubes. It purported to revolutionize the way information is stored and shared. They even retooled it last fall, giving it a new look and improved features. But what a difference a year makes.

Carlyle pulled the plug on Tubes and secretly sold Adesso's intellectual property to Terraine, Inc. I say secretly as there is no mention of Carlyle ownership in the May 8th press release. The huge private equity firm's website still shows a current investment in Adesso.

It's not a mix up of similar sounding corporate names. Clicking on the Adesso logo on the Carlyle site, one gets a new window that says "DigitalFormz parent company, Terraine, acquired Adesso Systems intellectual properties on May 6th."

This came shortly after Boeing booted another Carlyle affiliate, Vought Aircraft Industries, from a joint venture for holding up production of its 787 Dreamliner. I guess some news isn't worth sharing. Who can forget Carlyle's claiming responsibility for 24 patient deaths in their LifeCare hospital post Hurricane Katrina? That story got stuffed as well. All to keep a good name...