If NeXT Computer Inc reels in Hewlett-Packard Co as a licensee for OpenStep as part of a deal it expects to be able to announce in around six weeks’ time, won’t that rather make a mockery of its Taligent Inc investment? The company would simply say that it needs to keep all bases covered and all its options open until it settles on a firm object-oriented strategy.
Brussels-based European Internet provider EUnet BV is the first to introduce a commercial 4Mbps link between Europe and the US – in response, it says, to a massive rise in demand for international Internet services: it plans a further doubling of capacity by year-end.
Hewlett-Packard Co is working on massively parallel graphics options for the Precision Architecture RISC-based parallel processors it gets OEM from Convex Computer Corp.
Silicon Graphics Inc has completed its acquisitions of Alias Research Inc and Wavefront Technologies Inc.
Minneapolis-based Washington Scientific Industries Inc, which provides of high precision manufacturing services on IBM Corp’s 3390 disk drives, says sales to customers other than IBM rose by almost $2.6m in its fiscal third quarter, but that sales from the nearly completed IBM 3390 project fell $3.0m from the comparable 1994 period.
Fujitsu Ltd and India’s state-run Optel Telecommunications Ltd have entered into a joint venture to produce fibre optic systems and microwave communications equipment, the Press Trust of India reported: it says Fujitsu will hold a 61% equity stake in the new firm, which will be called Fujitsu Optel Ltd; Optel is owned by the government of the central state of Madhya Pradesh and the company plans to begin commercial production by November; outline agreement was announced way back in March 1994 (CI No 2,383).
Gateway 2000 Inc, North Sioux City, South Dakota is offering upgrades to Microsoft Corp’s Windows95 and will include lifetime technical support at no additional charge: all customers buying new Gateway desktop and portable personal computers as of June 13 will get Windows95 documentation at the time of purchase and will receive an upgrade at no additional charge when the product becomes available.
Vernon Hills, Illinois-based Zebra Technologies Corp reports sale of 1,200 of its new 90Xi printers to a large international application value-added reseller: the deal is described as multi-million dollar but the printers list for $4,295.
Hutchinson, Minnesota-based Hutchinson Technology Inc, which makes suspension assemblies that go into the hearts of disk drives, has signed a technology sharing agreement with IBM Corp under which the two companies will cross-license patents and co-operate in the development of suspension assemblies that would have electrical leads integrated into them; Hutchinson will make periodic payments to IBM over the next four years but will take the entire effect of these payments, of $0.31 a share, as an charge in its fiscal third quarter.
SITA, the Societe Internationale des Telecommunications Aeronautiques, which provides value-added network services to the airlines that own it, and has now gone commercial, has announced a $50m contract from AMR Corp’s American Airlines: through the contract, SITA will connect over 6,000 reservations offices and travel agencies that subscribe to American’s Sabre reservations system on its new Virtual Private Network service.
So what does the sales per employee figure look like? Cabletron Systems Inc, Rochester, New – no it’s Hampshire, not York – has appointed its 5,000th employee, and claims that it now has more staff than any other stand-alone networking firm.
Novell Inc is now shipping WordPerfect 6.0 for Unix for Silicon Graphics Inc’s Irix and Siemens Nixdorf Informationssyteme AG’s Sinix, the eighth and ninth to support it.
Staying home may not be so cheap after all: a report from Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester Research Inc estimates that the incremental expense to equip telecommuters is over $4,000 for t
he initial installation and $2,000 annually for the usage and upkeep.
The Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG connection begins to pay off: Gerling Insurance GmbH in Cologne, Germany is Pyramid Technology Corp’s first European massively parallel processing win; the company plans to run SAP R/3 applications on the new Reliant RM1000.
Northern Telecom Ltd claims to be the first manufacturer to obtain full certification of 1.9GHz Personal Communications Services network equipment from the Federal Communications Commission: its PCS 1900 radio base station is now certified as compliant with Parts 15, 24 and 6 8 of FCC rules governing the operation of RF equipment.
Oki Electronic Industry Co and NK-Exa Corp are expanding their Tuxedo transaction processing monitor middleware business and moving it on to embrace systems management: the software the two firms plan to develop will be based on NK-Exa’s network management tool, Dual Manager.
But Michael Walters of the Daily Mail has to have the last word on Tadpole Technology Plc here: on Saturday he wrote that it turned into a toad and almost croaked.
