Another one runs into trouble: Bell Atlantic Corp says its video trial for 200 non-paying users in Dover Township, New Jersey, which had been pencilled in to begin this month, has been delayed by minor software problems and would start later in the year: the company gave no details of the glitch, and said the trial was still fundamentally on track; it will provide cable television-type services with some level of interactivity, and by 1998 is to pass within easy reach of 38,000 homes and 3,700 businesses.
Sounds unlikely, but over the next decade, IBM Corp expects Chinese business to grow while European business stagnates, so that by 2005, it sees sales in China surpasssing those of Europe, Henry Chow, general manager of IBM China Co Ltd, said; IBM’s business volume in 1994 grew 50% compared with 1993, Xinhua news agency quoted Chow as saying at the opening of an office in northeastern Shenyang city, but he did not put a number on it, and it will be under $500m; in Europe it does around $ 28,000m.
Sears, Roebuck & Co admits that a new executive team managing its stake in Prodigy Services Co is examining the retailer’s 50% stake in the service: We are assessing our investment in Prodigy as you would any strategic business said Sears.
Consumer anticipation of Windows95 is so keen that Microsoft Corp will ship 20m copies in the first four months, International Data Corp reckons, adding that corporate customers will be a tougher battle.
3Dlabs Inc confirmed that Creative Technology Ltd’s 3D Blaster board is powered by a new games version of the Glint three-dimensional processor chip co-developed by Creative and 3Dlabs: the games chip used on 3D Blaster was developed exclusively for use by Creative, and provides highly-interactive texture-mapped three-dimensional graphics cheaply enough for the home market.
Conner Peripherals Inc has upgraded its expansion plans in Singapore by deciding to install three platter production lines at a cost of $110m where it had planned to put in one.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association has asked federal judge Thomas Jackson to include Windows NT in the consent decree between the US Justice Department and Microsoft Corp: Judge Jackson is in charge of reviewing the antitrust settlement (CI No. 2,729).
Wide differences still exist between phone bills in Europe despite continued falls in average call charges across most of the continent, according to a report by Analysys Ltd, Cambridge: residential customers in Finland, France, the Netherlands and the UK are getting the best deals while Italy and Ireland are still lagging, and the report found Britain’s Mercury Communications Plc marginally outdid rival British Telecommunications Plc as the cheapest; phoning abroad from Italy proved the costliest.
Another one under its belt: Platinum Technology Inc has completed acquisition of Locus Computing Corp and the Inglewood, California firm is now a wholly-owned subsidiary.
Dutch postal and telecommunications monopoly Koninklijke PTT Nederland NV will cut long-distance rates to some northern European countries, the US and Canada by between 10 and 25 Dutch cents per minute from September 1: it said its alliance with Unisource NV has helped it reduce costs and pass savings on to its customers; it could not say how this would affect annual turnover.
The European Commission has cleared the proposed joint ventures between Cable & Wireless Plc and Veba AG.
Oceanport, New Jersey-based real-time Unix systems builder Concurrent Computer Corp expects a marginally profitable fourth quarter on sales of $30.5m, compared with third quarter sales of $30.3m: for the year to June 30, sales should come out to about $140m, it said.
The Indian government duly opened Internet access, previously only for government organisations and universities, to the public: state-owned Overseas Communications Corp set up the link through MCI Communications Corp; it costs individuals $160 for up to 250 hou
rs access, business users pay four times more.
Apple Computer Inc has now launched its eWorld on-line service in Hong Kong, and says it will roll it out in other Asian countries by the year end: it offers global electronic mail, news, entertainment, shopping and Internet access to Mac users, with mostly US content, targetted at home users, but Apple is talking to Asian content providers and looking at business markets as well; it costs $9.95 per hour, and a Windows version will be available early next year, the company said.
Who are the biggest winners so far in the Windows95 frenzy? The answer would seem to be first Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who wrote Start Me Up, and second, the rest of the Rolling Stones who perform on the record, which has been personally chosen by Microsoft Corp chief Bill Gates for the $150m television campaign at a reported cost of $12m – and the exposure should also make the record the biggest hit the Stones have had in years.
There is going to be a growing storm over the inability of US companies selling aboard to offer truly secure encryption because Uncle Sam wants to be able to crack all international traffic easily, and it has been heightened by the news that Damien Doligez, of Inria, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control in Le Chesnay was able to read a supposedly secure Internet message that had been sent using Netscape Communications Corp’s Navigator program – he needed a networked collection of 120 workstations and two supercomputers, but was only able to crack the message because the algorithm, licensed from RSA Data Security Inc, is limited to a 40-bit encryption scheme where in the US, 128 bits are used, which would have taken 10 to the power of 26 times longer than the eight days the 40-bit code took him to crack.
Founding owners of the new SmartCash Inc company formed to operate a Smart Card-based payments system US-wide are Banc One Corp; Bankamerica Corp; Chemical Banking Corp; Corestates Financial Corp; First Union Corp ; Gemplus SCA; KeyCorp; NationsBank Corp; Mastercard International Inc; National City Corp; Verifone Inc; Wachovia Corp; and Wilmington Trust Corp; the system, intended for transactions involving sums of under $20, was developed by Electronic Payment Services Inc, Gemplus, MasterCard and VeriFone.
After connection problems stopped its Personal Handy Phone enhanced Telepoint operations in Tokyo, DDI Corp said that services at 1,000 out of its 7,000 base stations will be taken down for about five days to fix the problem, and it will refund $0.89 for every day they are without service to the 20,000-odd subscribers affected by the outage.
British Telecommunications Plc has now launched its BT Online Information service, which will sell the company’s own branded and customised version of PhoneLink Plc’s Tel-Me software, providing database access via the telephone: alongside Tel-Me, British Telecom is also offering a business directory based on its own electronic yellow pages software, Phonelink chief operating officer John Lyon said; PhoneLink said in March when the deal was announced that the licensing part of the deal would be worth at least ú2.25m in gross profit and that sales revenue would be additional.
3DO Co president and chief executive Trip Hawkins says about 700,000 Interactive Multiplayers have been sold worldwide, up from roughly 500,000 a few months ago: the Multiplayer is now sold in more than 10,000 retail stores in the US, up from fewer than 4,000 a year ago.
So that’s all right then: Electronic Data Systems Corp founder Ross Perot has praised General Motors Corp’s decision to spin off the company – Making EDS an independent company is a brilliant business move by all parties involved, Perot said in a statement released to Reuters by his United We Stand political group – I have every confidence that EDS will continue to grow; it thrives in an independent environment where its people can be most effective, Perot said.
Tandy Corp is revamping its Radio Shack chain, which loses its space to become RadioShack: the retailer says it will feature IBM Corp’s line of Aptiva desktop and ThinkPad notebook computers in its electronics retail distribution network.
In a bid to dominate the industry for computer-aided design of integrated circuits, electronic design and automation company ArcSys Inc is to acquire Integrated Silicon Systems Inc, in a deal worth about $279m: ArcSys will offer 1.5 new shares, worth $68.43, for each Integrated Silicon out, adjusted for a two-for-one stock split on August 24; the announcement sent Integrated Silicon’s shares leaping $14.875 to $61.63 on Nasdaq, and ArcSys stock rose $0.88 to $45.63.
Paging Network Inc says it has reached a definitive agreement to buy the operations of Celpage Inc, based in south eastern US for about $7.5m cash: the agreement includes both local and regional licences.
Diversified Japanese maker of ceramics packages for chips Kyocera Corp has signed with the Australian government to make Sydney the Southeast Asia regional headquarters for its Information Systems Group: initially, it will develop and export video conferencing and printer software, and it will establish a plant to recycle toner.
