Troubled Tadpole Technology Plc is thought to want to save itself more pain by finding a buyer for the assets of its P1000 Pentium-based portable computer line, which it had hoped to turn into a high-volume product: the problem is that a high-volume product does not fit in with its niche market Unix portable computers or its OEM boards business and requires different skills; the company has called in merger and acquisition specialists Broadview Associates Ltd to review strategic partnership alternatives aimed at maximising shareholder value; the company tries to reassure by saying that assuming it is able to eliminate monthly losses soon, it expects to have sufficient cash resources to fund its currently projected business levels from existing banking facilities and discussions with US-based lenders.
More trouble in the Dutch telecommunications paradise: the Enertel consortium, widely expected to be granted a licence for a second Dutch fixed telephone network is close to collapse as a result of the dispute among its shareholders (CI No 2,676), according to Nederlandse Spoorwegen NV, the Dutch state railway operator: it is in dispute with the cable television members of the consortium on how the network should be set up, and says A deadlock is looming and shareholders will have to take a decision this week which might result in the collapse of the consortium, in which BellSouth Corp is the foreign romantic interest; according to Reuters, the cable operators want a series of small regional networks instead of one big network offering full national coverage as favoured by the railway; if Enertel collapsed it would disrupt government plans to grant the group a licence to build and run the second national terrestrial network because Enertel is the only game in town, and the state is adamant that it will license only one carrier.
Good news from Radius Plc up in Hull: Ernst & Young LLP is to market its retailing industry software in North America, and Radius has opened a Toronto office, its first on the American continent, and according to Dow Jones & Co, Ernst & Young has the right to market the software in North America and has promised to provide additional product training to staff members.
Tandy Corp announced that it plans to open its next Incredible Universe electronics gigastore in Elizabeth industrial park, New Jersey.
Digital Equipment Corp is to establish a European Software Centre for Technical Support and Tele-ordering at its existing European Software Headquarters at Ballybrit, Galway: the ú3m investment, supported by the Industrial Development Agency, will will create 80 jobs over a three year period with 32 of these jobs to be created in phase one; the European Software Support Centre will be the sole site to provide multilingual software tele-ordering and software pre-sales technical support for DEC’s distributors, for value-added resellers and DEC’s key account direct sales arm.
Shares in Cable & Wireless Plc were ninepence higher at 446 pence in early Friday afternoon trading as a tale did the rounds that a British Telecommunications Plc mergers and acquisitions specialist ostensibly in Hong Kong for social reasons, was spotted fully equipped for business: the problem with tales like that is that a company like British Telecom is routinely prospecting opportunities across the globe at all times, and spotting one of its staffers leaving government offices in Timbuktu or Ulan Bator does not necessarily signal an immediate entry into Africa or central Asia.
Fundy Cable Ltd has signed a non-binding letter of intent to sell its British cable television interests for about $29.5m, but did not disclose the buyer: the interests include LCL Cable Communications Ltd which operates in Leicester, and other licences which it said were awarded to subsidiaries of Canadian company SaskTel, John Laing Plc and LCL; the franchises covering in total 450,000 homes.
They’re still far from happy, even with the higher bid: a shareholder of LSI Logic Corp’s Can
adian subsidiary has launched a class action suit in Delaware against the parent, charging that LSI has breached its fiduciary duty to the subsidiary’s minority shareholders: the suit, filed by Ethel Taylor on behalf of the public shareholders of LSI Logic Corp of Canada, alleges that LSI’s offer to acquire the 45% of LSI Canada it doesn’t already own is coercive in the extreme and grossly unfair to holders.
Pyramid Technology Corp is now offering Edinburgh Portable Compilers Ltd ‘s Fortran 77 compiler, graphical user interface and debugger on its R-series RISC-based servers, with prices from $2,300.
Hewlett-Packard Co last week discovered an unexpected downside to outsourcing last week when its Palo Alto headquarters and other facilities were picketed by the cleaners: hundreds of janitors and supporters of the Justice for Janitors campaign held demonstrations outside its premises trying to persuade the company to end its contract with Somers Building Maintenance Inc, a Sacramento firm that provides 300 janitors for Hewlett plants in Roseville, Santa Rosa and Corvallis, Oregon, on grounds that it allegedly condones unfair labour practices and sexual harassment, and has been sued for alleged sexual harrassment and other violations against its employees; eight people were arrested in Palo Alto a couple of miles from the company’s headquarters for blocking traffic at a busy intersection in the tiny town; Hewlett-Packard says that it has expressed concern about sexual hara ssment to Somers officials and believes the subcontractor has already taken disciplinary measures.
The European Commission has given would-be complainants 10 days to enter comments on the planned joint venture between British Telecommunications Plc and Viag AG to create Viag Interkom GmbH: there is no deadline for ruling on such agreements, but the Commission usually sends the companies concerned either a warning or a comfort letter after two months, and if it is the latter letter they can proceed.
Commenting on its figures, Boise, Idaho-based Micron Technology Inc says demand remained strong in the latest quarter for the 4M-bit memory chip, resulting in relatively stable pricing; it also notes that it was able to increase its memory production by about 67% over the year-earlier period and 20% over the previous quarter, thanks to its continued efforts to shrink the memory chip and improve its yields per wafer.
Burnaby, British Columbia-based Spectrum Signal Processing Inc has been signed by IBM Corp to incorporate multimedia personal computer boards into IBM’s new Mwave-based Multimedia Modem; the technology was developed by Spectrum and uses the existing hardware and software to provide users with various combinations of computer-integrated telephon y management, including speech and data communications and audio functions; no terms revealed.
Shares Sega Enterprises Ltd plunged 7.72% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Thursday on fears of mounting competition in the video games market after the Nippon Keizai Shimbun ran a piece suggesting that Softbank Corp and Microsoft Corp would set up a joint venture in Japan this month to develop and market games software that runs under Windows95 system for marketing worldwide, and that the venture would have capital of some $10m, most from Softbank; Softbank later admitted that it is ne gotiating with Microsoft Corp about some options related to Windows95 operating system, including setting up a joint venture company, but that now was not the time for them to make an announcement on what they are discussing – all of which suggests the story is substantially true.
The Telecommunications Reform Bill is blundering its way through the US Senate, but once it is passed, a bill also has to go through the House of Representatives, the two then have to be merged, which could prove impossible, and the new bill has to pass both houses before it goes to President Clinton, which is why we have not been wasting space on a blow-by-blow account, but one feat
ure passed in the Senate that looks likely to survive mandates a so-called Choice Chip in every television set with a screen 13 and larger, and requires broadcasters to include a code with any program for which it deems parental guidance advisable, so that parents can press a button and the screen will go blank when such programs – typically violent ones – are broadcast.
AT&T Corp’s AT&T Global Business Communications Systems unit is to sell, service and support Bay Networks Inc’s hubs, switches and routers immediately, with full US coverage expected by the year-end.
We’ve been saying it would do so this year for some time, and now Hewlett-Packard Co chief executive Lewis Platt has said he expects the company to achieve turnover of at least $30,000m this year to October, up from $25,000 last year, and he hopes to do $31,000m; he told Reuters in Singapore that profit margins have improved to 8% this year from 6.5% last, and business prospects are very good – we are very fortunate that we are growing very consistently and making profits as a number of our major competitors have stumbled, he said.
Ivory Coast – Cote d’Ivoire – plans to invite bids for state telecommunications company CI Telcom SA by the end of the year, Reuters reports – the state wants to keep about 35%, and 51% to 55% will be sold to an international operator, with 8% to 10% of that held by an Ivorian partner; another 8% to 10% will be sold to small private investors, and 1% to 2% to CI-Telcom staff.
