AT&T Corp, whose figures came in just below the Wall Street consensus (page seven), says that Global Information Solutions reported a 28% increase in sales of computer products and systems to $850m and that its total turnover grew 19 to $1,820m, but it still managed to make an operating loss of $143m for the quarter, up from a loss of $57m a year ago – increased sales of lower-margin products and strong price competition were key factors in the profit decline, and the company expects sales of higher-margin systems to increase later in the year; elsewhere, AT&T said it added more than 1m cellular phone customers in the year ended March 31 for a total of 4.38m, and first quarter wireless revenues rose 30% to total $652m.
Commenting on its figures (page seven) Electronic Data Systems Corp says new contract signings reached a first-quarter record of $2,650m and that business generated from sources outside parent General Motors Corp grew more than 36% from the year earlier figure, and accounted for more than 67% of its total first quarter turnover.
Revenues for our AViiON server line were flat, both year over year and compared to our first quarter, said Ronald Skates, Data General Corp president and chief executive after the company reported a second quarter loss of $11m (page seven): he said the company will be introducing new AViiON products later this year, which will be an opportunity to round up new customers.
Alcatel Alsthom SA has written Pierre Suard out of the script after the court affirmed his suspension over alleged overcharging of France Telecom: the board has appointed Societe Generale chairman Marc Vienot as interim chairman with responsibility for proposing a successor to Suard before July 31.
Prodigy Services Co has signed up BellSouth Corp, Nynex Corp and Pacific Bell Inc to offer ISDN services to its subscribers so that with IBM Corp’s 7845/ISDN WaveRunner modem, people in parts of San Jose and Woodland Hills, California, Boston and Nashville can connect to Prodigy at 64Kbps; the modem costs $500 to Prodigy subscribers, and subscribers will have to pay for their ISDN line.
Sprint Corp and Telefonos de Mexico SA de CV have definitive agreement to provide seamless telephone services between Mexico and the US.
Commenting on the company’s figures (page seven) MCI Communications Corp’s chief financial officer Doug Maine said first quarter net profit rose 31% before a $29m loss on equity investments and a $2m loss at MCI Metro: the vast majority of the $29m was due to Concert; he told Reuter MCI is planning to enter the wireless phone market during the second or third quarter, and may well end up partnering one of the regional Bells – We are in the final stages of negotiation with several of the large well-known wireless operators today, and we will be reselling services based on their network, Maine declared.
Harris Corp, figures, page seven, says it continues to expect strong earnings growth in the fourth quarter and for the year as a whole: strong operating results from the semiconductor, communications and Lanier Worldwide sectors are expected to do more than compensate for lower electronic systems earnings.
The Spanish cabinet is expected to discuss this Friday plans for a first stage sell-off of the state’s 32% stake in Telefonica de Espana SA this year, Reuter reports: the first stage is expected to involve the sale of a 15% stake in Telefonica, probably not before summer, and sale of another 10% next year. – o – Hewlett-Packard Co swept past Apple Computer Inc in February to become the number three supplier of personal computers sold through dealers in the US, Computer Intelligence InfoCorp reckons: it is the first time Hewlett has made the top three and it is also the fastest-growing vendor on the InfoCorp figures, with a 13% share in February, up 242% in unit sales since September; Compaq Computer Corp had 25%, IBM Corp was second with 21%; the numbers of course exclude direct sales.
Dell Computer Corp has cut
prices on its full PowerEdge server line by 9.4% to 28.4%; it also introduced the 75MHz Pentium-based PowerEdge SP-2 dual-processor server, available now, starting at $3,501.
Nissan Motor Co will invest the equivalent of $15m in a joint project with Structural Dynamics Research Corp to develop computer-aided design and manufacturing software to be used to design main components such as engines and transmissions, and shorten time taken to develop new vehicle models to about 20 months from three years today.
About 25m personal computers will be in landfills globally by the end of the year and within a decade, the number is expected to reach 150m, enough to fill an acre-wide hole three and a half miles miles deep, according to a study done in 1991 by the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science.
The UK isn’t the only country runing out of phone numbers, and in the US, toll-free 800 numbers are almost exhausted: they are to be supplemented by 888 numbers when the supply runs out late this year, provided the Federal Communications Commission agrees to the proposal.
Seagate Technology Inc is continuing its policy of seeking to pre-empt lawsuits by reaching patent cross-licence agreements before they arise, and has now signed such an agreement with disk heads specialist Read-Rite Corp: the pact covers some existing and future patents on magnetic heads, suspension assemblies and manufacturing apparati for the disk drive and storage industry – We are in the business of building and marketing data technology products, not extracting fees from competitors and suppliers to supplement our revenue, asserts Seagate’s chairman, Alan Shugart.
Shares in Psion Plc were up 12 penec at 292 pence on the back of the company’s application to move its shares up to the Full List of the London International Exchange.
Microsoft Corp remains coy about pricing for Windows95, but Bill Gates said on Tuesday that the upgrade price may be under $100 per copy – but not substantially.
Newbridge Networks Corp’s Newbridge Microsystems unit has launched the Spanner interface chip, a Peripheral Component Interconnect interface for the Motorola Inc 68040 microprocessor: it comes in a 225-pin plastic ball grid array at $39 a time when you but 10,000 or more.
Must get a bit wearying at times when you have built up the reputation of coming up with a pithy quote on demand: Tell them Apple reminds me of food, and the Mac sounds like a hamburger, Sun Microsystems Inc chief Scott McNealy told Dow Jones & Co when told that when choosing a name and logo for what became Mac OS, Apple Computer Inc wanted to avoid names like SunSoft since it sounds like a dishwashing liquid.
Having turned itself into a cash shell after its licence agreement with IBM Corp turned sour, and then used the cash to enter the networked CD-ROM business by acquiring Meridian Data, Scotts Valley, California-based former server builder Parallan Computer Inc has now changed its name to Meridian Data Inc.
