AST Research Inc.: The Irvine-based company said...

AST Research Inc.: The Irvine-based company said Thursday it has agreed to sell the assets of two of its Northern California software units to a subsidiary of Ohio-based Telxon Corp. The purchase price was not disclosed.

AST acquired the PenRight! and FieldNet software units when it purchased Tandy Corp.’s computer manufacturing business last year and is now jettisoning them because they don’t fit with its core computer-hardware business.

In the sale, the Telxon subsidiary will acquire intellectual property rights, inventory and contracts for PenRight! software development tools and FieldNet wireless communications software. Telxon is a major developer of wireless portable computer communication systems.

Telxon said it will keep the marketing, support and engineering staffs of the two units, both in the Bay Area city of Fremont.

Terms of the sale give AST the right to continue selling PenRight!, and the company said it intends to bundle the software with its “pen-centric” computers, which use electronic pens instead of keyboards for data input.