The world’s first combined electronic organiser and cellular phone is being developed by Hewlett-Packard Co at its facilities in Singapore, and a worldwide launch is expected by the end of the year, Reuters reports: it is being developed with a partner but it will go out with the Hewlett-Packard name.
Baan Holding BV has reached a settlement of the acrimonious dispute with Computer Associates International Inc over the latter’s ManMan/X, which is based on Baan’s Triton product: the Baan-Ask Group licence agreement has been terminated and all pending litigations dismissed with prejudice, and the settlement gives Computer Associates the perpetual right to license, support and enhance Manman/X for current and future clients, using its own technology and the set of Triton Tools 6.0 that Baan delivered to customers as of June 23 1994 for purposes of supporting and enhancing Manman/X; it can also continue to use Triton 2.2/5.0 code and six Finance modules from the Triton Applications 3.0 code Baan delivered to Ask in May last year – all in connection with supporting or enhancing the Triton-derived components of Manman/X; Computer Associates will receive no other Triton code or support from Baan, and may not use any licensed Triton code or its underlying technology to modify any product other than the Triton-derived components of Manman/X; it has the right to license Triton Tools to clients in object code, but not source code; all the other aspects of the settlement will remain confidential.
Sun Microsystems Inc reports perhaps the biggest order yet for Solaris on iAPX-86-based personal computers: Edward D Jones & Co has given the company an order for up to 60 Sparcservers plus Solaris on custom-built Pentium servers for up to 3,200 retail locations for the US-wide retail brokerage chain; the agreement is valued at up to $30m.
Sun Microsystems Inc does not get all the business though – Tektronix Inc is to supply Edward D Jones & Co with more than 8,000 analogue video network desktop X-terminals for the same 3,200 branch offices: Tektronix will supply its TekXpress XP300V X terminals for the 200 branch offices and its headquarters campus in St Louis, Missouri under an agreement valued at up to $20m; the broker is investing $100m all told to upgrade its retail network; there will be at least two Tektronix X-terminals in each branch.
Motorola Inc’s Information Security Solutions unit is to offer organisations the means to secure their computer networks while also protecting sensitive data, financial transactions and messages sent over unsecured systems: the unit is a joint venture between Motorola Corporate in Schaumburg, Illinois and its Government and Space Technology Group based in Scottsdale, Arizona; the unit will offer computer security through Innersceptor, a network-access management system, and Signet, an electronic messaging security management system; other products, such as Survey, an internal security check, and consulting services and alliances with other companies, will round out the range of products and services offered.
IBM Corp is now expected to launch its PowerPC-based desktops and portables not this month but on June 19, which is a Monday; the PowerPC AS/400 models are expected to be annonced in the same week.
Time-Warner Inc shares have been bouncing on gossip that AT&T Corp will buy a stake in the company, but more informed speculation has it that AT&T has too much else on its hands to go for another big investment in the next few months.
LSI Logic Corp will be splitting its shares two for one on June 21.
Siemens AG is seeking a major acquisition in the UK according to The London Times: the paper quoted Siemens management board chairman Heinrich von Pierer saying the group had held talks on a possible acquisition 18 months ago, but these had come to nothing, and that he would welcome the chance to do more in Britain, highlighting the much lower labour and social costs.
The IBM Corp-Apple Computer Inc-Motorola Inc Com
mon Hardware Reference Platform white paper sets the baseline at the PowerPC 604 processor with 8Mb to 1Gb memory, capability to run native versions of AIX, Mac OS, OS/2, Windows NT, Solaris and NetWare, a standard boot ROM and slot for the Macintosh ROM, Peripheral Component Interconnect bus, and two system input-outputs, one for the Macintosh with Apple Desktop Bus, GeoPort, LocalTalk and SCSI interfaces, the other for people coming from iAPX-86 world with IDE, AT serial and parallel interfaces, IBM p ersonal computer keyboard, mouse and floppy controller, and SoundBlaster sound capability.
First the good news: Toronto facsimile software producer Delrina Corp has bought a significant minority interest in privately-held Ex Machina Inc for an undisclosed sum; Ex Machina, New York develops wireless messaging and paging software.
Now the bad: AudioFAX Inc has filed suit against Delrina Corp and its US unit in federal court in Atlanta alleging infringement of AudioFAX patents, copyright infringement, breach of a nondisclosure agreement and misappropriation of trade secrets: it seeks damages and an immediate injunction to prohibit further distribution and use of Delrina’s products with facsimile capabilities; it says the patents specify a broad range of enhanced facsimile capabilities having to do with store and forward technology.
Facing falling orders, Alcatel CIT SA is to shed 542 jobs from its total of 15,918 before the end of the year: it says it has informed its works council about it and wants to avoid forced redundancies.
Mike Maples, 52, Microsoft Corp’s top executive for product development and a member of the three-person Office of the President, plans to retire to a Texas cattle ranch.
The Common Europe, Common (USA) and Common Australia user groups for those with IBM Corp mid-range systems have decided they have so much in common that they are merging to form Common International, which will have an expected membership of over 30,000 system users worldwide; the group brings together users of the AS/400, System/36 and RS/6000.
Just what we’ve all been waiting for: Sonic the Hedgehog is to do his thing on Pentium-based personal computers in a CD-ROM version designed for Native Signal Processing-capable machines, Sega of America Inc announced, adding that Intel Corp assisted the implementation.
Lockheed Martin Corp has beaten Hughes Network Systems to the contract to build the $700m satellite mobile telephone system covering most of Asia: the partners commissioning the system are Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co, PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara of Indonesia, and Jasmine International PCL of Thailand, and the project will use a single geostationary satellite to enable people to use the same mobile telephone, and same telephone number, across 14 Asian countries; the bird flies in 1998.
Markham, Ontario-based Geac Computer Corp is using Motorola Inc’s PowerPC-based servers under its library automation systems these days, and reports that the Etobicoke Public Libraries in Etobicoke, Ontario has signed Geac Canada Ltd to upgrade its current Geac Library Information System to the Advance System, running on an MP601 server; the terms have not been disclosed.
IBM Corp’s parallel SP/2, of which some 400 have gone in to date, has had a change of name: IBM is now calling the thing the RS/6000 SP.
Rochester, New York-based Frontier Corp has definitive agreement with Schneider National Inc to acquire its Schneider Communications Inc unit and its 80.8% interest in LinkUSA Corp for about $127m cash; Schneider Communications, Green Bay, Wisconsin is a long-distance carrier serving about 11,000 customers in the upper Midwest, and LinkUSA, Cedar Rapids, Iowa is a wholesale enhanced services provider to the long-distance industry US-wide; the combined annualis revenue run rate for is about $90m.
QVC Inc is to offer a shopping service on the Microsoft Network.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co has followed ICL Pl
c and its parent Fujitsu Ltd in coming out with a personal computer in Japan with a built-in television tuner and a 650Mb erasable optical disk drive, and is calling the thing Woody PD; an initial production run of 80,000 has been set and it will be $3,750.
Electronic Data Systems Corp has acquired FCI Inc, a management and information technology services company based in New York, which serves the securities industry; terms of the pact were not given.
Network Computing Devices Inc has won an OEM agreement for its X terminals and software products from Takaoka Electric Manufacturing Co for the Japanese market; the financial terms were not disclosed.
Convex Computer Corp’s new PA-7200-based massively parallel Exemplar systems start at from $184,000 for two to 16 CPUs – the SPP1200/CD compact system – or $674,250 for the eight to 128 CPU SPP1200/XA.
