Waltham, Massachusetts-based Kurzweil Applied Intelligence Inc will issue 1.476m shares to settle its stockholder class action lawsuit; it has also made a cash payment of $250,000 to its shareholders and it has assigned to them any claims it may have against its former accountants, Coopers & Lybrand LLP.
Telephone coverage in China’s urban areas is now 13% with the total number of phones in the country at 39m, compared with 6.26m 10 years ago, reports the Xinhua news agency; the government is saying it intends to increase the figure to 105m by the turn of the century.
Telecom Finland told Reuters it plans to supplement its Groupe Speciale Mobile digital cellular network in a couple of years with a new 1.8GHz service in densely populated urban areas: its existing system operates in the 900MHz band.
The Newport, Gwent-based Newbridge Networks Ltd unit of Newbridge Networks Corp, Kanata, Ontario has purchased an additional 20,000 square feet of space in Maidenhead, to expand its European Research and Development: its current development base – already in Maidenhead – will move to the new premises; the existing site will house expanded sales and customer service teams.
Edinburgh, Scotland-based Spider Systems Ltd is now shipping the Basix 301 and 302 family of ISDN and leased line routers: designed to interconnect remote NetWare networks, the products are said to route IP and IPX traffic, and to support IPX/SPX Spoofing, and triggered RIP and SAP for high bandwidth efficiency; the 301 for leased lines is ú1,345, with the 302 for ISDN priced at ú1,445.
Beame & Whiteside Software Inc, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, says it is beta testing a 32-bit version of its Network File System client for Windows95: it plans to ship the product shortly after the August launch of Windows95.
China’s Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications has banned call-back services offering discount international telephone calling saying they are illegal: it gave no details of how the ban would be enforced and overseas callback operators told Reuters that they didn’t expect the ban to affect business.
Salt Lake City, Utah-based Dayna Communications Inc has announced the DaynaPort 10/100 NuBus network interface board, a Fast Ethernet-based solution for the Macintosh market: it will ship from mid-summer for twice the cost of 10Mbps boards according to the company.
We find it hard to understand what a satellite telecommunications operator is doing buying sports teams, but the Comsat Entertainment Group arm of Comsat Corp, which already owns the Denver Nuggets basketball team, is now stealing Montreal’s hockey team and spiriting it off to Denver: it is paying $75m for the Quebec Nordiques National Hockey League team, which is to be given a new name next season.
Kyocera Corp and Taito Co Ltd are to join forces to form a corporation to be called Kyocera Multimedia Corp which will provide consumer multimedia telecommunications services: Taito will hold 40% and Kyocera 25%, with 26 other companies including banks, shops, airline companies and securities firms holding 1% to 2% each; services to be offered will include distribution of information, karaoke and games over ordinary Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp telephone lines.
The MagyarCom consortium of Deutsche Telekom AG and Ameritech Corp, is looking to own a majority stake in Hungarian telecommunications company Matav Rt: MagyarCom currently holds 30.29% of the company and hopes to buy a further 20% in the second phase of privatisation.
FoxMeyer Canada Inc has bought a strategic minority investment in Abel Computers Ltd for an unspecified sum: Abel provides of doctor and dental practice management software in Canada, serving more than 6,000 physicians and dentists concentrated mainly in Ontario; financial terms were not disclosed.
State-owned PT Telkom and PT Indosat have launched a new $295m company called Telkomsel which will provide digital cellular service in Indonesia, the Jaka
rta Post reported: Telkomsel will be in direct competition with existing Groupe Speciale Mobile service provider, PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia and says it will soon look for a foreign investor; there has been speculation that possible bidders include Nynex Corp, France Telecom and Koninklijke PTT Nederland NV.
BellSouth Corp and newspaper publisher Multimedia Inc are joining forces in a joint venture to deliver electronic media services including news, information, and video-on-demand: it plans include a six-month trial in the Greenville, South Carolina area to test the market for interactive services.
Fujitsu Ltd affiliate Nifty Corp is to expand high-speed access on its on-line service, Nifty-Serve: the company, working with Fujitsu, says it will be able to offer 100 access points to its FENICS Road 4 service by March 1996, against the current 60; it says it is also planning a September launch of a new 28.8Kbps service to be called FENICS Road 5.
Doubt if even cash-ravenous Digital Equipment Corp has thought of this one: a gem from the International Herald Tribune relates that Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA is saving on the cost of gardeners and earning itself a little extra pocket money by letting the grass on the corporate lawn outside its celebrated Ivrea headquarters grow long so that it can be cut, baled and sold as hay.
