A third round of exploratory talks between Cable & Wireless Plc and AT&T Corp about the latter buying Mercury Communications Ltd has stalled because the offer was deemed to be too low, the Mail on Sunday reported: Cable & Wireless has rejected as far too low AT&T’s offer to buy its 80% stake in Mercury for around ú1,600m, which would be below its book value of ú2,200m; insiders told the paper AT&T is refusing to pay over the odds as it reckons Mercury is an ill company with its operations in shambles.
Deutsche Telekom AG yesterday howled for a rethink of the proposed liberalisation of the telecommunications market to enable it to compete on an equal footing when its state monopoly ends in 1998: in a commentary to government, Telekom praised the idea of liberalising the market but said Bonn should rethink a proposal to let new competitors focus on profitable sectors of the market while making Telekom provide a comprehensive range of services – that was the situation in the UK when Mercury Communications Ltd was unleashed onto the market, and British Telecommunications Plc managed to thrive; the situation in Germany differs in that there will be several competitors, but as they are expected to be licensed for different regions, the environment should not be very different; Telekom believes asymmetric deregulation that burdens individual competitors, for example Deutsche Telekom, while letting other purveyors concentrate on the most profitable areas could harm comprehensive service in Germany; the bid difference is that in Germany, the phone company is regarded as a state job preservation agency, and Telekom is demanding more flexibility to boost productivity as it makes the switch from government agency to entrepreneurial company – it wants to cut at least 60,000 jobs from its workforce of 230,000.
Frontier Corp, Rochester, New York has definitive agreement to buy Enhanced Telemanagement Inc for about $27m in cash, subject to adjustment depending on Enhanced’s cash balance on closing: the target is a privately-held company specialising in integration and resale of local and long-distance services to small and medium-sized business customers and is doing some $26m a year.
The CompuServe Inc unit of H & R Block Inc says the on-line service has surpassed 3m active accounts, and it is currently signing as many as 60,000 new members each week.
No early resolution of the suit brought by the US Justice Department to block the acquisition by Microsoft Corp of Intuit Inc is expected, which means that unless a counter-offer comes in for Intuit, the company will be somewhat paralyised until the issue is resolved – months, perhaps years, in court now loom, Associated Press reckons, and banks and financial institutions, caught with their guards down when the deal was reached last autumn, will have time to come up with products that could rival the plans of the pair in electronic commerce.
Kirkland, Washington-based Wall Data Inc has acquired Concentric Data Systems Inc, Westborough, Massachusetts provider of Windows and MS-DOS-based data access and reporting tools for desktop and client-service databases: its R&R Report Writer claims more than 200,000 users worldwide, and the report writer technology will be incorporated into the Rumba and Salsa software technology base; financial terms were not disclosed.
The Alcatel-CIT arm of Alcatel NV has a tough time ahead: it expects a 20% drop in the volume of orders from France Telecom this year, and 1996 will probably see a further fall compared with 1995 of 15%; the sales of the Alcatel Alsthom SA unit’s telephone equipment division are expected to drop by 30% as a result, and those of Alcatel-CIT as a whole will fall 15%, it reckons; Alcatel-CIT has pre-emptively decided to eliminate 542 jobs at two of its factories, in expectation of the sharp decline in its orders.
Last October, Unisys Corp signed a memorandum of agreement with Mitel Corp for a multimedia alliance to design, manufacture and distribute products to en
able cable television operators to offer local telephony services, combining Mitel switches and Unisys Government Systems Group high data rate microwave transmission kit (CI No 2,523) – then Unisys went and sold its defence side to Loral Corp – so the Kanata, Ontario firm has decided to tear up the agreement because it concluded the alliance was unable to provide the level of commitment required to satisfy customers in the near term.
Comdisco Inc bought in 300,000 shares of common stock from William Pontikes and related trusts for $27.4025 a share or $8.2m, a 3% discount from the closing price of the company’s shares on April 27.
Packard Bell Electronics Inc moved ahead as US personal computer market leader in the first quarter, as IBM Corp staged a moderate comeback and unit ships rose 23%, International Data Corp reckons: it gives Packard Bell 12.7%, up from 11.3% a year ago, while IBM, fourth saw its share hit 8.8% from 7.9%; Compaq Computer Corp with 11.4% and Apple Computer Inc with 10.2% stayed second and third; Gateway 2000 Inc came in fifth with 5.4%.
Southwestern Bell Corp’s shareholders approved changing the company’s moniker to SBC Communications Inc.
The computer industry feels it needs to have its say on the Digital Video Disk standards war, and a Technical Working Group formed by IBM Corp, Apple Computer Inc, Compaq Computer Corp, Microsoft Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co has been formed to push for the computer world’s nine requirements to be included in any standard to emerge.
Judge Harold Greene has ruled in favour of a Bell Atlantic Corp motion to be allowed to provide long-distance and data services to wireless phone customers: the ruling, which came as a surprise, will allow any regional Bell company to buy long-distance capacity from long-distance phone carriers such as AT&T Corp and resell it to its wireless customers; the decision is a blow to AT&T Corp and the Sprint Corp alliance with Tele-Communications Inc, Comcast Corp and Cox Enterprises Inc, currently the only ones that can offer bundled long distance and cellular services.
As well as the 4.7 version of their proposed dual layer digital video disk standard storing 7.4Gb on two layers, Philips Electronics NV and Sony Corp are also proposing a 3.1 variant of what they call the Multimedia CD, which would store 2.6Gb across the two layers; Acer Peripherals Inc, Alps Electric Ltd, Mitsumi Electric Co, Ricoh Co, Teac Corp and Wearnes Peripherals Pte Ltd have said they will build CD-ROM drives for computers that can play the MultiMedia CD disks; with Sony and Philips, these firms hold some 60% of the CD-ROM market.
Meantime the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co variant of the double-sided Toshiba Corp standard, which uses two layers to store 9Gb on what are being called Super Density Digital Video Disks (CI No 2,651) claims the support of 17 entertainment and consumer electronics firms: the standard now proposes a 5Gb single sided version, a 9Gb dual layer variant of that, and a 10Gb double sided disk – and an SD-18 storing 18Gb using both sides of a double-sided disk and a red laser diode – is being developed for future high-definition television applications – and even higher density disks using a blue laser diode are also planned; backers include Hitachi Ltd, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc, Pioneer Electronic Corp, Samsung Electronics Co, SKC Ltd, Time Warner Inc, Thomson Multimedia SA, Toshiba Corp, Turner Home Entertainment, Mitsubishi Electric Corp, and Zenith Electronics Corp and their affiliates.
Nokia Oy reports a Groupe Speciale Mobile network order worth more than $20m from the Fujian Posts & Telecommunications Administration.
Aura Systems Inc, the El Segundo, California company with the virtual reality vest that thumps you in time to the whops and zaps of video games, reports that MYS Corp, a Japanese audio speaker company, has ordered about $15.5m of Aura’s Neo Radial Technology audio speakers and Interactor cushions over a one-year period starting in th
e autumn.
Sunnyvale, California-based Global Village Communication Inc has won a bundling deal from Gateway 2000 Inc, which will include Global Village’s FaxWorks Voice 3.0 software for Windows with models of Gateway 2000’s desktop personal computers that come with modems that support voicemail included.
Racal Electronics Plc reports that its Singapore subsidiary had won a $7.7m maritime telecommunications deal under which the Indonesian ministry of communications and Racal Electronics Singapore will design, supply and install 15 coastal and 11 shipboard radio stations to ensure reliable communications between ships in distress and search and rescue authorities, Racal said.
