AST Signs Deal With East German Computer Firm : Exports: The Irvine-based company secured a beachhead in Dresden one month after the easing of U.S. restrictions on sales of high-tech products to the Eastern Bloc country.

IRVINE —  AST Research Inc., making a direct entry into the potentially lucrative East German computer market, said Monday that it has signed a sales and distribution agreement with Robotron, a Dresden-based computer and electronics conglomerate.

The deal will enable Irvine-based AST to sell its personal computers, enhancement and data communications directly to large accounts, resellers, dealers and end-users. Previously, it sold computers through its distributors in Finland, West Germany and Austria.

The agreement comes just five months before the proposed unification of the two Germanies and barely a month since the U.S. Commerce Department opened the doors for the sale of most high-technology products to East German firms without export licenses.

Robotron, East Germany’s largest computer company, will distribute AST products through its sales division in East Berlin and its Anlagenbau division in Leipzig, which sells to East German data processing centers and universities.

“The relationship with Robotron offers AST an excellent opportunity to become a market leader in East Germany,” said Michael Whittington, manager of AST Research Deutschland GmbH, the company’s Dusseldorf, West Germany, subsidiary.

The pact calls for Robotron’s service division, which has some 8,000 employees, to provide on-site service and support for AST products throughout East Germany.

Robotron, a holding company for manufacturers of typewriters, personal and mainframe computers, and other electronic products, had revenues of $6.1 billion last year. Since talks of uniting the two Germanies began last year, the electronic conglomerate has shifted its focus from manufacturing to PC distribution, sales, service, support and software development.

Robotron, which has 69,000 employees working in 21 divisions and other service facilities, is a major supplier of PCs to the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries, said AST spokesman Joel Don. Last year, it sold 20,000 PCs to the Soviets, he said.

Commerce Department officials said reselling more sophisticated computers to Eastern Bloc companies other than those in East Germany will require AST to apply for export licenses.

“Under current regulations, if it’s a product originating from the United States, any PC with technology above the Intel 80386 microprocessors operating at 33 megahertz would require re-export authorization from us,” said Matt Andersen, export specialist at the Commerce Department’s Western Regional Office in Newport Beach, which monitors the export license activities of companies.

In anticipation of its reunification with West Germany, East Germany this month established an export control office in East Berlin.

In the last two years, AST launched sales efforts in Japan, the Soviet Union and the European Economic Community, resulting in higher international sales, which accounted for 36% of its total revenue last year.