All is conjecture until the US Justice Department makes up its mind whether it wants to sue to block Microsoft Corp shipping Windows95 with Microsoft Network access software and Web browser included, but Microsoft appears to have declared all-out war by saying that it has no contingency plans for removing the software, and will fight Justice in the courts: Justice will presumably seek an injunction preventing it shipping the software in the US, but its writ does not run in the rest of the world – would Microsoft go ahead and ship the thing in Europe, where the lumbering machinery of the European Commission is far too po nderous to get any similar injunction imposed this side Christmas – and in Australia, which is marked out as a sort of Microsoft Network test bed… and where, if the thing is a runaway success, Microsoft runs the risk that half a dozen Internet access providers have folded or are looking rocky by the end of the year, making Justice’s case for it…

Candle Corp looked like an obvious name to get Computer Associates International Inc off its Legent Corp VSE utilities hook, but it says it ain’t interested, so most eyes are looking to Sterling Software Inc, which was not available to say anything yesterday: dark horse in the field is Macro 4 Plc in Crawley, Sussex, which does have adequate international coverage and has a few VSE products of its own.

Why is Digital Equipment Corp so enamoured of Microsoft Corp’s Windows NT that it’s prepared to hand its entire customer base over to Redmond (see front)? Well Dave Cutler was the chief architect on Windows NT, and was earlier a leading light in VAX/VMS development…

The UK Office of Telecommunications has approved a series of new international accounting rates proposed by British Telecommunications Plc for use in settling with US carriers for calls between the two countries: I hope that, as a result of this reduction, customers will now benefit from cheaper calls to the US, director general Don Cruickshank said; US operators agreed cuts up to 25% in accounting rates for international call options.

Newtown, Pennsylvania-based Tseng Labs Inc warns that its board has voted to suspend the quarterly cash dividend of $0.05 per share in light of the company’s current level of net income; it may be restored if things start to improve.

H&R Block Inc reports that its directors have approved a series of investment activities for the company’s CompuServe subsidiary designed to enhance long-term competitiveness and take advantage of accelerating growth opportunities in the market for on-line services: the new initiatives, which are already in progress, will cost in total over $70m in fiscal 1996 and will reduce fiscal 1996 profitability starting with H&R Block’s first quarter to July 31 last; actions include launch of a consumer service aimed at novice computer users and users with special hobbies to enable quick access to areas of interest; it is expected to be priced lower than CompuServe and introduced later this year; H&R Block will also enhance CompuServe through a new marketing campaign, a simplified and less expensive pricing structure and a new interface.

Financially acutely embarrassed San Antonio, Texas-based Datapoint Corp wants to exploit one of its technologies more effectively than it can manage alone, and is to form a joint venture with merchant banking firm Vertical Financial Holdings to develop and market Datapoint’s Minx videoconferencing worldwide: Datapoint and Vertical would form two new companies to manage the licensing and development of the Minx business worldwide, with Vertical funding the working capital needs; as part of the arrangement, Datapoint expects to enter into strategic alliances with Shared Technologies Inc O and Arel Communications & Software Ltd, with Shared providing marketing and maintenance support and Arel handling the research and development strategy.

Acer America Corp recorded record sales of $601m in the first half of 1995, up 74% on first half 1994. >>N

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Oracle Corp has now completed its $100m cash purchase of Information Resources Inc’s Express on-line analytical processing software arm.

Hewlett-Packard Co has delayed the migration of its AdminCenter change management and configuration module to run under AIX and Solaris Unixes and NetWare, until October.

Micro Focus Plc will offer Transoft Inc’s U/SQL Open Data Base Connectivity database application programming interface to provide Micro Focus Cobol applications with access to Open Data Base Connectivity and SQL, from next quarter.

We were right that most of those antique IBM Corp 9020D air traffic control computers are still in service but the Federal Aviation Administration says it really does plan to buy new IBM Corp computers for five air traffic control centres to replace the 9020Ds that have failed 20 times in the past four months – but said there would be a limited competition for the needed software, with Loral Corp a bidder.

The semiconductor division at Digital Equipment Corp is still seen to be losing money, and will continue to do so until the company divests all or part of its Hudson, Massachusetts plant analysts are saying.

Tewksbury, Massachusetts-based Avid Technology Inc has begun shipping Release 5.5 of its Media Composer and Film Composer family of digital non-linear film and video editing systems: the new version of the Media Composer family extends the product’s on-line finishing capabilities to include support for seamlessly integrated real-time three-dimensional special effects and adds an integrated hardware-independent QuickTime coder-decoder and other features; Avid is also now shipping Avid Film Cutter, a new low-cost, 24 frame-per-second digital non-linear film editing system for independent filmmakers; Film Cutter is available at $32,500 for a complete system and is upgradable to the Avid Film Composer system.

Siemens AG is not confirming a report that Dresden is out of the running for its new chip plant, for which England, Scotland, Eire and Portugal are still in the running.

GTE Corp’s GTE Telephone Operations Public Communications said it plans to install 25,000 Northern Telecom Ltd Millennium pay phones in the continental US and Hawaii over the next three years: during the next six months, it will install 5,000 of the phones in Hawaii, California, Texas and Florida after trials at California State University, Long Beach; the Millennium terminals will feature visual and audible usage instructions, as well as a choice of language options it said.

Fremont, California-based Sigma Designs Inc reports that its Sigma Designs Imaging Systems Inc has sold substantially all its assets to Sigma Interactive Solutions Corp, a Delaware-registered firm.

Is Windows95 a 100 pound weakling masquerading as a 200 pound gorilla – the New York Times relates that although it ended up being code-named Chicago, it was originally going to be code-named Cleveland – and when W C Fields said that after New York, any other town was Pittsburgh, he chose Pittsburgh because he’d never heard of Cleveland…