OK, so King Louie is frustrated at the weakness of IBM Corp’s software business and its poor perception in the market, he’s got an $11,000m war chest (offset, though he often seems to forget it, by a very substantial load of debt) which could be used for acquisitions of the personal computer applications he is so conspicuously short of – what should he buy? Microsoft Corp is out of reach even for IBM, and despite the head of steam behind Notes, Lotus Development Corp could become a real star again but it presently looks past its best, Oracle Corp is not strong on the desktop, which seems to leave Novell Inc – everybody else is too small to make much difference: IBM could go for Novell, but the industry would hate it, particularly the idea of IBM o wning Unix and to a lesser extent NetWare (it should have bought Wordperfect Corp before Novell got there); Novell looks the best bet, so it will likely go for Lotus and run it into the ground.

Another – better – strategy for IBM Corp would be to buy something relatively small like Symantec Corp and use it to pick up a whole string of small companies with promising applications – including games, and build a big applications business that way: problems with that approach are that it takes an enormous amount of management time identifying and then checking out targets, the assets may easily all walk when they see their big pay-day, and IBM’s last round of investments in small US software companies was one of the company’s most dismal exercises of the past decade – it has now disposed of most of the holdings, and not one of those companies is in better shape now than when IBM bought in.

Of course when it comes to Lotus Development Corp, someone else may get there first: AT&T Corp and Lotus declined comment on a PC Week report that they were in talks that could lead to AT&T acquiring Lotus.

Dell Computer Corp cut prices on its Latitude notebook computers by 7% to 13%, with the biggest cut falling on the 50MHz 80486DX2-based dual-scan colour models which were reduced by $300; the 33MHz 80486SX-based dual-scan colour models and the 50MHz DX2-based active-matrix colour models were reduced by $200.

CompuServe Inc will cut connect-time rates by 50% from February 5: monthly membership rises $1 to $10.

The old order changeth with a vengeance: under the major reorganisation at IBM Corp (see front), the venerable IBM World Trade name will disappear on the grounds it is anomalous because it excludes the US.

South Korea’s Foreign Trade Association said five major memory chips makers – Samsung Electronics Co, Hyundai Electronics Industry Co, NEC Corp, Oki Electric Industry Co and Hitachi Ltd – are being sued in the US on charges they infringed the patents of American engineer Emmanual Hazani; no other details.

Hewlett-Packard Co is having to send users of 1.5m of its DeskJet 550C and 560C and DeskJet and DeskWriter 520 and 510 a roller repair kit because the improved paper pick-up roller gets so shiny after about six months’ use that it does not pick up the paper any more.

Siebe Plc reports that its Environmental Controls is investing ú1.9m in a joint venture agreement with a Shanghai-based company to make and sell indoor control systems in China: partner is Shanghai Automation & Instrumentation Corp, which is investing ú1.3m in the new Siebe Environmental Controls Shanghai Co Ltd, which is is Siebe’s third Chinese joint venture in the past 12 months and its fourth in total.

Phillip Samper will retire as president of Sun Microsystems Computer Corp at the end of next month after 12 months in the job: he is credited with turning the hardware side around and sharpening its focus; he will continue to consult for Sun.

Westborough, Massachusetts-based Arch Communications Group Inc has bought The Beeper Company of America Inc for $7.6m in cash and 395,000 new Arch common shares; the The Beeper Company has operations in Texas, California and Georgia and serves some 60,000 subscribers.

The R

epublicans’ a chicken in every pot sloganising of the 1920s – some attribute it to Herbert Hoover but John Bartlett finds a much earlier citation and has I want there to be no peasant in my realm so poor that he will not have a chicken in his pot every Sunday to Henri IV of France, Henry of Nevarre, 1553-1625 – has been largely achieved thanks to the Arkansas fowl farmers and their giant flocks, and today’s Republicans want to feed the mind as well with a laptop on every knee: House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich has come up with the idea of a special tax credit to enable the poor to buy a computer and avoid getting left on the slip-road of the Information Superhighway – or as the Los Angeles Times nearly puts it, everyone sho uld enjoy the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of a laptop.