It looks as if the ambitious plans of Thorn EMI Plc’s EMI Music to hoist itself and all its recording artists aboard the Internet will take a step forward today: IBM Corp is to announce a Digital Library intitiative for the world’s music industry in London this morning, in partnership with a leading international music company, and these days only EMI is headquartered here – even the Dutch Polygram NV is apparently now run from New York.
Sounds encouraging for British Telecommunications Plc’s ambitions – but also for Bell Atlantic Corp and Ameritech Inc: according to the Wall Street Journal, Belgacom NV chief executive John Goosens is telling anyone who’ll listen that he would prefer the Belgian phone company’s strategic partner to be a company that already has the experience of operating in a sufficiently liberalised market; the indications are a 25% stake might cost the buyer perhaps $800m – the state has valued the company at $5,630m, but that does not take account of big unfunded pension liabilities.
AST Research Inc has signed IBM Credit Corp to provide inventory financing for the wholesale purchase of AST products by resellers.
America Online Inc’s subscriber usage continues to grow and the service expects revenues for the fiscal fourth quarter to June 30 to surpass $140m, up from $106m in the third quarter, the company said.
Microvitec Plc, Bradford has appointed Barry Brooks as group finance director: he is currently financial controller and company secretary, and replaces Anthony Sampson who becomes managing director of the company’s display division.
Jeff Harrison, finance director of troubled Cray Electronics Holdings Plc, promised his head last month (CI No 2,672) after a dramatic profits warning, and duly delivered it yesterday: he is to retire on September 1 to be replaced by Domino Printing Sciences Plc’s Roger Dye.
Correction: the headline on our Radstone Technology Plc story in CI No 2,693 vastly inflated the hit that the Towcester firm will have to take in reorganisation costs; the correct figure, ú900,000, appeared in the body of the story.
MCI Communications Corp, which believes there will soon be too much capacity chasing too few subscribers, so does not want to own its own infrastructure, has begun offering cellular service for the first time under its own name: the MCI Cellular service is available in 10 major metropolitan areas under resale pacts with operators.
Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Apertus Technologies Inc has a letter of intent to acquire BlueLine Software Inc on undisclosed terms: Minneapolis-based BlueLine develops and markets a suite of products for centralised management of enterprise networks, including the Vital Signs VisionNet distributed performance management system for enterprise networks, and Vital Signs LOCKout network security product that ensures secure access between network-attached host resources and distributed users; it employs 70.
Texas Instruments-Acer Inc has became the first company in Taiwan to produce 16M-bit dynamic memory chips with the start-up of the joint venture’s second production line: the plant, in eastern Taiwan, will eventually process 15,000 8 wafers when maximum capacity is reached around this time next year; Acer Inc owns 58% of the joint venture and Texas Instruments 26%.
The US Supreme Court is to review the lower court ruling that allowed Bell Atlantic Corp to provide video programming over the telephone network in its own service territory, not with a view to overturning it but to consider the US appeals court ruling that declared unconstitutional the 1984 law barring telephone companies from entering the cable television business on the grounds that it violates the phone firms’ free speech rights; the Supreme Court will hear separate appeals by the Justice Department and the National Cable Television Association, the cable industry trade group, defending the law.
Harris Corp has won a multimillion-dollar contract to provide a ma
nagement system for Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, with help from local firm Sapura Holdings Bhd, and Tomen Corp of Japan for the first two phases of a three-phase, eight-year contract to develop the system for the $3,000m Pacific Rim airport; the Harris team will install a communications and information technology infrastructure linking all the new airport’s electronic subsystems.
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based HDS Network Systems Inc reports a supply contract from Government Technology Services Inc for X Window terminals, but it did not disclose terms: Government Technologies, of Chantilly, Virginia resells hardware, software and peripherals to the Federal Government.
