Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA waited until the Milan market closed on Friday before announcing its horrid 1994 figures, which saw losses balloon by 46%: the company says it expects an operating profit this year, but it has been saying that for some time now; the company insists that the losses were due largely to extraordinary costs and that on its industrial operations it was close to breaking even after four years in the red – it made a net loss on its industrial operations of $10m in 1994 against $123m a year earlier, and with sales rising 14% over the first four months of this year and further action to contain costs, it expects to meet its goal of an operating profit in 1995 – but the 1994 loss was higher than most share analysts’ forecasts, which were for the company to lose between $300m and $325m.
British Telecommunications Plc is looking at a possible joint bid for a minority stake in Belgacom, but no deal is imminent, industry sources told Reuters: the company declined to comment in detail on a report in Friday’s Financial Times saying that it was discussing a potential joint bid with Bell Atlantic Corp for the 25% of Belgacom the authorities are expected to offer to a foreign carrier – BT at any time is talking to dozens of international operators, the company said; the sources said, however, not to expect an instant decision; potential rivals for the Belgacom stake include Koninklijke PTT Nederland NV, Ameritech Corp and Stet SpA, observers are saying.
Southborough, Massachusetts-based Chipcom Corp shares slumped $11 to $21 on Friday after it warned that based on information available to date, it expects revenue and earnings for the second quarter of its 1995 fiscal year to be significantly below its first quarter results, mainly because of that old bugbear of almost all IBM Corp partners, lower than anticipated revenue contributions from IBM; Chipcom also now expects revenue and earnings for the balance of 1995 will be lower than it had anticipated – It is apparent from recent information and discussions with IBM management that we must modify our business profile to reflect lower shipment levels to IBM, said president Rob Held, adding that IBM and Chipcom remain confident of the overall, long-term strategic relationship.
Dell Computer Corp added P75 and P90 Pentium systems to its Dell Dimension line, priced from $1,600.
Time Warner Inc and US West Inc have fallen out already, the Wall Street Journal reports, and at issue is how to restructure US West’s 25.5% ownership in Time Warner’s entertainment businesses, executives of the latter told the paper: the two are locked in a battle over which side will end up with control of Time Warner’s cable systems – US West’s stake currently covers Time Warner’s cable systems as well as the Home Box Office pay channel and the Warner Brothers movie and television studio; Time Warner has been trying to take back ownership of all but the cable systems, but US West has an effective veto over any changes to the partnership, and is insisting on getting a stake of more than 50% in the cable business if it must give up ownership in the other interests.
Long-time chip partners NEC Corp and AT&T Microelectronics Inc signed an agreement on Friday for the joint development of a common process for manufacturing integrated circuits with features as small as 0.25 microns: the new agreement extends an earlier arrangement under which the two began developing manufacturing processes for 0.25-micron CMOS integrated circuits; they hope to complete the development by the end of next year, and both companies expect to have 0.25-micron chips in production in 1997.
Seagate Technology Inc is expected to pay Digital Equipment Corp between $25m and $30m for its Clonmel plant, Reuter hears, with creation of 500 to 1,000 jobs in prospect.
Commenting on its figures TeleVideo Systems Inc said that it managed a half-year profit primarily as a result of the sale of company property which resulted in a gain of $1.3m; the sale of the O
rdynka building in Moscow, which resulted in a gain of $1m, with additional revenue of about $1.5m expected this quarter; and the sale of the company’s 35% interest in Kabil Electronics Co of South Korea for $1.4m, of which it has received $300,000; the remainder of the sale price for Kabil will be received in installments throughout this year.
Motorola Inc is to serve as a corporate sponsor for both the 1996 Olympics and the US Olympic Team, and will contribute a leading edge wireless communications system to the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games for use in the southeastern US during the summer of 1996.
Haven’t they heard of hot standby and disaster recovery? A power failure on Thursday morning last week knocked out the air traffic control centre that handles high-altitude flights in the New York area, blacking out radar screens and severing all radio links to some pilots so that tens of thousands of people were delayed – and it was the third major failure in seven weeks at the control centre, the New York Times reported: it took nearly six hours to get the centre back to normal; power was restored and a back-up radar system came into service after 15 minutes, but the centre’s main computer system – presumably still one of those ancient 360-derived IBM Corp 5080Ds – and otherwise a 3081 – was down for another two and a half hours.
Compaq Computer Corp is seeking a whopping $450m in damages in its patent lawsuit against Packard Bell Electronics Inc, the latter says: Compaq has filed separate suits against Packard Bell in federal courts in Wilmington, Delaware and Houston, Texas, but Packard Bell wants them consolidated in the Delaware court; the patent suit claims Packard Bell personal computers infringe three of its patents for power conservation, video display, and high speed switching, and the other suit claims that Packard Bell sells as new computers that allegedly contain parts cannibalised from ones that have been returned.
It seems unlikely that Jerre Stead was tapped from AT&T Global Information Solutions by Legent Corp just to negotiate sale of the company, but he is making bullish noises about the proposed acquisition by Computer Associates International Inc and he can afford to be sanguine: his signing-on package included options on 700,000 Legent shares, about 1.9% of the company, and those shares are valued at some $34m under the bid, so he is expected to net about $12m from the sale – with a signing off fee taking the total to $15; he has decided not to stick around at Legent.
The Digiphone full-duplex telephone developed by Dallas-based Camelot Corp to enable Internet users to call anywhere at local rates, is to be distributed by Ingram Micro Inc.
Sun Microsystems Inc’s new mascot, Network the dog, was led on stage at SunWorld during Sun chief Scott McNealy’s keynote address last week, reports Unigram’s man on the spot, and was presented with four fire hydrants marked IBM, DEC, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, but these things never work out, and despite a few perfunctory sniffs, Network failed to deliver: He did it in rehearsals, said McNealy sadly, but I don’t suppose any of us would in front of 3,000 people.
