De La Rue Payment Systems, the cash handling systems unit of De La Rue Plc also seems to think that the Mondex crowd has shot itself in the foot by charging people to charge their cards: it says cash will remain king despite the increasing number of payment methods now available: De La Rue said it is so convinced of the continuing demand for cash that, as reported, it just bought Brandt Inc, a leading US maker of note and coin handling products, for $30m; 50% of all payments are made with notes and coins which offer consumers a quality of confidence that other payment mechanisms simply cannot match; it conceded that processing and handling cash is expensive, costing $3,000m a year in the UK.
Acer Inc says sales for the first six months of 1995 soared 79.3% at $960m; in the month of June, Acer’s sales jumped 61.1% to $170m, and it has its sights on $1,730m for the year; the whole Acer Group is aiming for $4,320m for the year.
The worldwide systems management software market will grow to $18,700m in 1999 from $10,300m in 1994 with a compound annual growth rate of 13%, industry watcher Input says in its Client/Server Systems Management Software report: it sees the US market growing from $5,600m now to $8,100m over the same period with a growth rate of 8%; Input believes the growth is due largely to a move from mainframes to networks; large software companies are rushing from system management tools to intelligent client-server managers which span enterprise applications.
Basildon, Essex-based GEC-Marconi Sensors Ltd claims to be the first manufacturer to achieve operational status for airborne digital radios that are designed to meet the requirements of the pan-European Terrestrial Flight Telephone Service standard: according to the firm, its Terrestrial Flight radios provide up to four callers with a simultaneous direct link to the ground telephone network, while up to 16 aircraft can communicate simultaneously with a single ground station.
Steve DeWindt, co-president of Computer 2000 GmbH, told attendees at the SPA Europe conference last month that the traditional dealer channel has not, as once expected, disappeared under the weight of colossal competition: For the last three to five years, we have been predicting the loss of importance of dealers; we had been seeing revenues for traditional dealers go down compared to other channels, but we have just recently seen that that trend has stopped, that it is stable – there was even revenue growth in some countries, he said.
With all the howls of anguish and growls of anger about the rulings of the regulators of privatised UK utilities such as British Telecommunications Plc and the regional electricity companies, and the rival interests of shareholders and customers, isn’t one set of stakeholders being forgotten? The American concept of balancing the interests of all the stakeholders in a company, a concept made much of by the old NCR Corp, identifies them as shareholders, customers and employees, and the one group of people more certain to be victims with every turn of the regulator’s screw is the employees – the tougher the regime, the more costs have to be cut, and in a utility that inevitably means getting rid of people.
Coming to the rescue of the multimedia personal computer industry, which is bemoaning the shortage of quad speed CD-ROM drives, the Panasonic Personal Computer Co unit of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd has begun shipping its OEM504, an internal SCSI-2 quad speed drive: the components for CD-ROM drives are still in short supply while manufacturers change their lines from dual speed to quad, but Panasonic said it has the advantage of using components from its parent Matsushita and expects to ship in excess of 250,000 units per month.
Food for thought: Jean-Marie Lecourtier, SAP AG R/3 development manager for Data General France SA, says The time to reflect on SAP is, at minimum, one year – the product is so complex, you have to think about the impact on the whole company; if no
t, you will be drowned in it; their strong point is the integration and it’s the only integrated product in multi-currency and multi-lingual status, which is important for multi-nationals.
Millicom International Cellular SA is to invest $2.1m in Mobile Telecommunications, a Lithuanian cellular telephone operator for an 18.5% stake: the Lithuanian company is expected to begin operations in the fall, and other shareholders of include Tele Denmark A/S, with an 18.5% interest, and three Lithuanian firms holding a combined 63%.
Anyone left hanging by the Computer Intelligence InfoCorp tale of the researcher left paralysed with his finger on the on-off switch so that a vast program could complete its work (CI No 2,702) can relax: the two most valuable tools in an office are masking tape and paper clips, and Dan Ness used one of the latter to jam the power button on until the program could finish; Wall Data Inc did eventually get back to say that, yes indeed, the program would have crashed had the computer been shut down, adding that while they are very sorry, the guys really should have called IBM Corp, maker of the computer, first.
Blockbuster Entertainment Inc’s computer on which it stores its videos by category has a strange cast of mind: you’ll be completely foxed if you look for one of the most excellent comedies ever made, Mel Brooks’s The Producers under comedies in the video store – it’s one of just three titles in the Alternative Lifestyles category…
