China is to invest the equivalent of $9,500m in posts and telecommunications in 1995, up 40% on the 1994 figure, the Xinhua news agency said: 17% of the urban population will have telephones by the end of the year and the number of mobile telephone subscribers would rise to 3m; China is to take in more foreign funds, advanced technologies and equipment, especially in the fields of Synchronous Digital Hierarchy, mobile digital communications, Asynchronous Transfer Mode and wide-band switching systems.
Jordan’s state Telecommunications Corporation awarded Alcatel NV a $11.2m contract funded by $10m of French aid in the form of a soft loan from its aid programme; the loan is repayable over 30 years with a grace period of 10 years; France is providing a letter of credit to finance the other $1.2m; the contract is for equipment for a local telephone exchange in Amman.
The Comvik International unit of Sweden’s Industriforvaltnings AB Kinnevik is in final negotiations on a $300m deal with the Vietnamese communications authorities for a mobile telephone system using kit from L M Ericsson Telefon AB; the agreement may be signed this week.
Alcatel Cable SA has signed to sell its North American copper cable telephone activities to Alpine Group Inc: the deal is expected to be finalised by April and the value of the transaction should total $100m; it covers Alcatel NA Cable Systems Inc and Alcatel Canada Wire Inc and will enable Alcatel to focus its development of telecommunications cables in North America on fibre optic technologies and data transmission cables for local area networks; its plants are in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Tarboro, North Carolina and Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Philips Electronics NV plans to invest at least $400m in India over the next four years: the Dutch group holds 51% in its subsidiary, Philips India Pte Ltd; Philips is interested in selling cable television equipment in India, which is in the middle of a home entertainment revolution led by a mushrooming growth of cable television; it is considering an entry into distribution of Indian movies; it cannot rule out acquisitions as part of its Indian expansion drive.
Digital Equipment Corp expects a quarter of its business to come from the Asia-Pacific region in the near future, vice-president and general manager Enrico Pesatori said: We believe that this area could very well represent in excess of 25% of the total business of the company, and we hope that we will be there in the next couple of years, he said; the firm currently derives around 15% of global revenues from the Asia-Pacific region.
Creative Technology Ltd has announced Video Blaster SE100, a video overlay and capture board expected to ship this month: the product, priced at $330, provides the personal computer with an interface to video devices including videocassette recorders, camcorders and laser disk players; the product comes bundled with applications from Asymetrix Inc and Aldus Corp.
Eight telecommunication companies from Asia, Europe and the US have formed an alliance to provide global telephone services, Telekom Malaysia Bhd said: it signed a memorandum of understanding in Seoul, Korea to form Skyways Alliance with the Communications Authority of Thailand, Comsat Mobile Communications Inc, PT Indosat of Indonesia, Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co of Japan, Korea Telecom Ltd, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co and Telecom Italia SpA; the International Telecom Authority of Taiwan also expects to join; the deal will provide global aeronautical satellite services to both airline and general aviation customers, including satellite speech and data.
Singapore-based Chartered Electronics Industries Pte Ltd has released a selection of Motion Picture Expert Group-compliant video products, called PrimeTime: PrimeTime Combo is a personal computer video board equiped with a television tuner to enable use of the personal computer as a regular computer; PrimeTime Oscar enables karaoke-type applications; and PrimeTime TV is a televis
ion turner board with improved Video Graphics Array support; Chartered Electronics Industries is best known for its OEM sales and custom design and manufacturing of video components. – o – Compagnie des Machine Bull SA’s Belfort, France-based printer maker, Nipson Printing Systems, launched Nipson 7000, a high-speed non-impact printer at CeBIT: it can print an image up to 18 wide, fixing the image at low temperature making it suitable for flimsy media like plastic; and in a twin engine configuration the printer can print verso and recto pages simultaneously; it will ship from September.
Irvine, California-based Future Domain Inc has made its first foray into the Enhanced IDE controller market with the launch of a family of single- and dual-channel controllers: the IDE-MCD Kit is a 16-bit single-channel version that can support two peripherals and costs $30; the IDE-AT VP Kit is a dual channel controller supporting two IDE peripherals per channel, at $50; the IDE-VL VP Kit is designed for multimedia applications that use the VESA Local bus and is $95.
Ham radio hits the techno age with Melbourne, Australia-based Rosetta Laboratories Pty Ltd’s WinRadio, a personal computer add-in board and software; once installed the personal computer is transformed into a world-band, sensitive radio receiver that enables the user to listen to exotic music from around the world or the maritime distress frequency bands; it comes with a database of the world’s radio transmitters; it needs a 80386, or better, computer, MS-DOS or Windows 3.1, or better, and is $1,000 – a mite pricey, even for a good radio.
Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, California is now offering version 2.0 of its Macintosh Application Environment for running Mac applications and services in an X Window under Solaris or HP-UX Unixes: it now supports AppleTalk, MacTCP and sound-based applications.
San Jose, California-based Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc has added the Stealth SE to its Stealth family of graphics accelerators: with a price of $120 for the 1Mb Dynamic RAM version and $190 for the 2Mb one, the Stealth SE is aimed at desktop use; it supports resolutions of 1,280 by 1,024 and is said to have flicker-free refresh rates of up to 120Hz; it’s available now.
Norcross, Georgia-based American Megatrends Inc launched a clutch of products at CeBIT including what it is claiming as the first Peripheral Component Interconnect-compliant RAID controller to support Fast and Wide SCSI: the MegaRAID uses an Intel Corp 80960 RISC with three NCR Corp 53C720 SCSI controllers and a custom circuit; it comes with management software with graphical interface and can monitor multiple RAIDs; other launches were an Atlas LPX Pentium motherboard; an Atlas PCI II Pentium motherboard with Peripheral Component Interconnect and AT slots; the Atlas PCI, described as a baby AT motherboard; and the Super Voyager PCI II motherboard with both PCI and AT slots.
AT&T Global Information Solutions has signed for Bellevue, Washington-based Midisoft Corp’s Presentation Partner software, released last October, which it will distribute on its multimedia desktop and portable computers: the software enables users to generate presentations that include sound, photos, video and animation for display in any Windows presentation program.
Bournemouth, Dorset-based Eurosoft (UK) Ltd has launched the CD-Check Diagnostic Disc, a dedicated multimedia hardware diagnostic product that tests whether personal computer’s CD-ROM drive complies with Multimedia PC Council standards; it can also check that the drive reads reliably; and it checks that hardware like memory, sound and Video Graphics Array boards are present.
Returning the favour for the vast 10-year facilities management contract from the Rochester, New York company and making it clear that it believes outsourcing its good for everyone, not just its customers, Electronic Data Systems Corp has given Xerox Corp a $500m five-year contract to operate and manage some 100 EDS print centres
worldwide.
As expected, India’s communications ministry extended the time for receiving tenders for cellular and basic phone services by several weeks, United News of India reported: the last date for receiving tenders to operate cellular phone services in several cities is put back to April 21 and for basic services to April 28, from March 30.
The UK Office of Telecommunications is investigating claims that British Telecommunications Plc uses anti-competitive behaviour in the supply of its branded telephone equipment after it received complaints from rival equipment suppliers that the telephone giant was offering its telephone equipment below cost both in the wholesale and the retail markets.
German personal computer distributor Computer 2000 AG plans a one-for-four rights issue, to be priced next month: majority shareholder Klckner & Co will take up its rights in full and Computer 2000 will use proceeds to finance rising volume, build up its computer systems and fund further acquisitions.
Trafficmaster Plc yesterday duly launched its Trafficmaster YQ portable unit, which fits on a car’s dashboard and gives live traffic information from 2,000 miles of UK motorways and some 400 miles oftrunk roads: the unit can now be bought from retail outlets UK-wide whereas previously it was only sold direct; as well as live traffic news the unit also provides text information, headline world news and a personal messaging service, and costs #150, plus #60 for six months or #110 for 12 months for the Smart Card that operates it.
Three banks in the US southeast, NationsBank, First Union Corp’s First Union Bank, and Wachovia Corp’s Wachovia Bank are to start issuing a Visa International Smart Card for small purchases this year, the New York Times reported: the first large-scale introduction of the Smart Cards is planned for the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta.
A lot of people have been planning conferences on the basis that, as we said (CI No 2,626), the week of May 22 was the one for launch of the PowerPC-derived AS/400 models, so there will be a lot of unhappiness that we now hear that the date for announcing the things has slipped to sometime in the summer; there has been muttering that the performance is not up to scratch.
The new Profound Inc unit of MAID Plc launched in the US yesterday, promising an on-line database service that makes business research easier and more afforable: Profound will deliver documents using Acrobat technology developed by Adobe Systems Inc which preserves the appearance of all documents; the service will scan millions of reports and news articles in seconds across a vast variety of publishers, using a common search language; Market Analysis includes more than 40,000 full-text market research reports, 4,000 newspapers, journals, trade publications and newswires and financial information on millions of private and publicly-traded companies, MAID promises, and will cost $20 a month plus $7 an hour for on-line usage charges.
Digital Equipment Corp cut US prices up to 20% on 20 models in its Venturis 80486 and Celebris Pentium personal computers: a Venturis with a 100MHz 80486DX4 chip and a 540Mb disk is now $1,880 and a Celebris 590 Pentium with a 90MHz CPU and the 540Mb disk is $2,600.
British Telecommunications Plc has signed heads of agreement with On Demand Information Plc to package and re-sell the company’s multimedia products to business customers.
Hitachi Ltd will double domestic production of personal computers to at least 20,000 a month in the year starting in April: this output is expected to be considerably higher, though, because the maker of electrical machinery and electronics equipment is stepping up overseas production of personal computer components to meet rising demand; Hitachi estimated it could produce a total of between 300,000 and 400,000 in the coming fiscal year.
Motorola Inc’s Cellular Infrastructure Group licensed Hangzhou Communications Equipment Factory and Zhejiang Techn
ical Import and Export Corp in the Peoples Republic of China to participate in the manufacture and distribution of its digital cellular equipment.
A Dutch company has created a battery-powered disposable nappy with a sound chip in it, the Daily Mail reports: the thing is designed to start playing a tune when moisture is detected – selections from the repertoire of Wet Wet Wet no doubt.
