India’s Department of Telecommunications is now inviting bids from private firms to supply telephone services throughout the country: tender documents will be available from January 16 and the last date for submission of bids is March 31; the government wants to see 7.5m new lines installed by 1997, and expects the cost to be $13,000m.
GTE Corp’s Interactive Media unit and the US arm of Nintendo Co Ltd have a joint venture to develop and market video games and explore new technology and are already previewing FX Fighter, a three-dimensional game using Nintendo’s FX2 graphics enhancement chip; GTE Interactive will support the forthcoming Ultra 64-bit games system and gets access to Nintendo’s retail channels, and will help speed Nintendo’s entry into networked multi-user games.
Kurzweil Applied Intelligence Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts agreed to settle the shareholder class action suit brought against it last year, paying the plaintiffs shares worth $7m plus $250,000 cash, plus assignment of any claims it may have against its auditor, Coopers & Lybrand, and up $250,000 related to options held by a former officer.
Haifa, Israel-based Elbit Ltd has now completed its acquisition of Fibronics International Inc for $7.9m in shares: Elbit wants the networking equipment maker to propel it into the multimedia world.
Benefiting from the boom in the Malaysian telecommunications market, Alcatel Alsthom SA’s joint venture with Yayasan Bumiputra Pulau Pinang and Sensuasi Mahir Sdn Bhd, Alcatel Network Systems Sdn Bhd has won $390m of business just two years after opening for business: the deals include switching contracts, supply of cellular equipment and a $195m contract to build a Personal Communications Network and interconnecting microwave system for the MRCB Telecommunications unit of Malaysian Resources Corp Bhd, says Business Times, adding that Alcatel is negotiating three more big contracts.
Irvine, California-based State of the Art Inc completed its acquisition of Manzanita Software Inc, Roseville, California developer of BusinessWorks accounting software for MS-DOS and Windows, and the FlexWare Mac accounting package, paying 2m shares now worth $16.75m.
Wireless communications equipment and software developer Glenayre Technologies Inc, Charlotte, North Carolina is to acquire Western Multiplex Corp, Belmont, California for 500,000 new shares currently worth $19.75m: the target specialises in digital and analogue point-to-point microwave radio equipment and will operate as a Glenayre division under its current management.
Claris Corp plans to move its FileMaker Pro filing program upmarket by adding relational capabilities: a relational FileMaker Pro 3.0 for Macintosh and Windows is expected to ship later this year.
Sony Corp has formed Sony Computer Entertainment (Europe) in preparation for introduction of the compact disk-based PlayStation video games system in Europe and has announced the first 100 licensees in the US. to write software for the system.
Apple Computer Inc has unveiled theGeoPort Telecom Adapter Kit, which includes full-duplex speaker phone capabilities; a single source of spoken messages, facsimile and electronic mail; and a high-speed send and receive facsimile modem; elements include GeoPort Telecom Adapter hardware, Apple Telecom 2.0 software, Cypress Research Corp’s MegaPhone screen-based telephone software and Aladdin Systems Inc’s SITcomm Special Edition communications software; out next month, it will be priced by Apple retailers.
Shortly after forecasting that it expects to lose $43.6m in the year to March 31, Tokyo-based Teac Corp is asking 320 staff to take early retirement, by February 5: the predicted losses are larger than those made by Teac in November, which lost $68.6m last year; Teac blamed price competition and the high yen; the peripherals firm has a total workforce of around 1,600.
Fujitsu Ltd is launching a one-year trial of cable television-delivered multimedia services in Tokyo o
ver Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp’s phone lines, the first of its kind in Japan: according to Kyodo, it will include a near-video-on-demand service enabling viewers to watch movies they want among those broadcast on eight channels and a local information service; it will be available to some 300 homes subscribing to Yokohama TV Corp, a cable channel owned 19% by Fujitsu.
Xerographic Laser Images Corp has completed its acquisition of Relialogic Technology Corp,a privately-held California-based provider of speciality personal computers, controller boards, and CD-ROM players to resellers: for its first fiscal quarter ended September 30 1994, Relialogic recorded total revenues of $1.6m; Xerographic paid 4.98m shares for Relialogic and will also receive about $1.1m cash to fund development of its ASIC technology.
Cray Research Inc has sold and already installed a C90 supercomputer – they go from $4m to $7m – at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, which wants it for drug discovery research and molecular modelling.
Daimler-Benz AG is considering partnerships to develop multimedia and telecommunications products with some of Germany’s biggest media companies: last month outgoing Daimler chairman Edzard Reuter and his successor Jrgen Schrempp met Mark Woessner, chairman of Bertelsmann AG, and representatives of publisher Burda Verlag and of Bavarian Media tycoon Leo Kirch; Daimler’s Debis services subsidiary is already involved in cellular communications and software services and its Deutsche Aerospace arm has a stake in the Globalstar satellite cellular project.
A US Federal Appeals Court has upheld a lower court ruling that the ban on telephone companies offering cable television services is unconstitutional, giving US West Inc the go-ahead to offer video programming services in its 14-state region.
Cray Research Inc reports that the US Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Texas has ordered and installed an EL94, the first Cray supercomputer dedicated to chemistry education in the US: no terms.
Clearwater, Florida-based Medical Technology Systems Inc has signed a letter of intent to acquire Southampton, Pennsylvania-based Health Business Systems Inc, a private developer and supplier of computerised systems and services for pharmacies and the managed care industry; Medical Technology will be paying $3m in cash and common shares.
The Inxev computer trade fair in Brno, Czech Republic last year, attracted 120,000 visitors making it the largest fair in eastern Europe.
Columbus, Ohio-based developer of pen computing products Scriptel Holding Inc says its Scriptel Corp unit is adding wireless communications to its skills, and will develop and make wireless pen-based kit.
The dramatic initiative by the former Rochester Telephone Corp to open local phone service to competition in New York State will see it facing stiff competition: the New York State Public Service Commission has now approved comprehensive tariffs for AT&T Corp and Rochester Tel’s own Frontier Communications of Rochester Inc unit and tariffs for Time Warner Inc’s Time Warner AxS are due this month; AT&T and Time Warner have requested rates equal to or below those charged isrates for existing services charged by what is now Frontier Corp.
Harris Corp has won a $10.8m contract from the US Air Force to upgrade the tracking and communications systems for the flight training range at Luke Air Force base, Arizona; also working on the contract are Sequa Corp’s Kollsman and Black & Decker Inc’s PRC divisions.
Storming year-end figures from Motorola Inc confirm that there are currently two huge computer and telecommunications equipment companies that are really motoring – Motorola and Hewlett-Packard Co: the 51% jump in fourth quarter profits (page seven) was led by strong growth in its cellular operations, but the Semiconductor Products Sector sales rose 22% to $6,900m for the full year and the company has upped its forecast to 20% growth this year fro
m 15%; the communications business grew 19% to $5,800m; space and technology group sales fell 3% to $829m for the year; cellular equipment is included in the General Systems unit where sales rose by a whopping 64% to $8,600m.
McDonnell Information Systems Group Plc is now seen as a sitting duck acquisition target after the second major disappointment since it floated less than a year ago at 260 pence a share: with the shares now trading between 60 and 70 pence after its latest debacle (see page seven), the Evening Standard believes it is effectively for sale.
MCI Communications Corp has a seven-year telecommunications contract with General Electric Co Inc which it says is worth much more than its two largest previous contracts combined; each of those was for $250m.
Fremont, California-based SyQuest Technology Inc warns that first quarter sales and net profit will be below Wall Street expectations for profits of $0.34 per share: the cartridge disk drive maker expects sales of $66m for the quarter, up from $47.3m a year ago; it says about $9m of its disk drives were shipped in the first week of January which were billed and could have been shipped last quarter.
Oracle Systems Corp shareholders approved the company’s proposal to double the authorised share capital to 800m shares from 400m, which leaves the company with a large war-chest of unissued shares available for use in any big acquisition the company might want to make.
A federal court this week threw out the patent for a navigation and guidance device held by Litton Industries Inc, thereby nullifying the $1,200m jury award that Litton won from Honeywell Inc: the ruling by US District Court Judge Mariana Pfaelzer (not by a jury as it says in today’s page seven), reversed the jury decision, which found Honeywell had infringed on the patent and awarded vast damages.
Read-Rite Corp and Komag Inc are to exchange advanced prototype products and co-operate in developing improved disk-to-head interfaces: initial projects include optimising the disk-to-head interface between Komag’s new 1800 low noise hard disk medium and Read-Rite Corp’s latest recording head, the tri-pad.
Chilean phone company Entel-Chile SA is to shed hundreds of jobs as part of a major restructuring to reduce overheads: market sources told Reuter it was making between 200 and 300 employees redundant from a total of 1,600 to 1,700, with employees from all areas, from managers to messengers, affected.
Amstrad Plc has appointed the peripatetic Paul Bailey, peviously of Lotus Development Corp, before that of Digital Research Inc to be managing director of its new direct catalogue-and-phone computer sales arm Amstrad Consumer Electronics.
India has approved Unisys Corp’s request to be allowed to set up a wholly-owned holding company for its joint ventures in the Indian market, the Industry Ministry said.
Newbridge Networks Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co are to integrate HP OpenView and Newbridge’s new Management Executive, which is designed to simplify management requirements of complicated telecommunications networks so that users can tailor a system to provide end-to-end management, including local and wide area network applications.
Tucson, Arizona-based Artisoft Inc expects to see a pre-tax gain of $6m before expenses from the sale of the assets associated with its Eagle hardware arm to Microdyne Corp for $17.5m (CI No 2,577).
Milpitas, California-based NetFrame Systems Inc warns that it may report a loss for the fourth quarter after suffering a shortfall in revenues: it expects fourth-quarter sales be at least 10% below the $24.5m it did in the third quarter, up on the $20.1m it did a year ago.
Sprint Corp’s trial to offer interactive services over telephone lines has been approved by the US Federal Communications Commission: its Sprint/Carolina Telephone local operating company will offer the services in Wake Forest, North Carolina by mid-yer to 1,000 homes, enabling users to ta
p into services on their televisions or computers.
L M Ericsson Telefon AB claims that its new 6.9 oz DH338 digital cellular phone is the world’s smallest: the DH338 uses Time Division Multiple Access technology, offers automatic display and storage of up to 10 incoming numbers, message waiting indicator, and caller number identification; no price was given.
Apple Computer Inc says a faster version of AppleShare file and print software will be unveiled by mid-1995, claiming increased performance on a PowerPC-based Workgroup server 6150, 8150 or 9150: those buying a RISC-based Workgroup server can have the new software for a shipping and handling charge.
AT&T Corp has a contract worth over $150m to supply telecommunications equipment to Guangdong province in southern China: AT&T’s Network Systems group will supply the Guangdong Province Posts & Telecommunications Administrative Bureau with switches for local and toll exchanges, high-speed transmission systems, optical cable and other kit; the order is part of a $500m framework pact announced in September.
Motorola Inc’s international cellular infrastructure division has been awarded a $23m contract for Malaysia’s first digital cellular telephone system: the customer is Binariang Sdn Bhd and the order is for installation of the cellular base stations for the new network.
The Cambodian government has signed Indonesian satellite operator Indosat to a $15m 11-year contract to rehabilitate the satellite-based national network set up by the United Nations in 1993 and handed over to Cambodia last February: a new company, Camintel, is which Indosat will get 49%, will be formed.
Clarification: Belief In The Solution Ltd chose to use one screen rather than two for its virtual reality headset as it is designed to be used with any game on a personal computer with three-dimensional capabilities, rather than the usual two-screen headset, because if the stereoscopic headset is not properly set up for each game, the eyes are unable to reconcile the images and this can cause eye strain (CI No 2,552); the problem should not arise with stereoscopic headsets set up for a specific game or for which games are specifically written; although Belief’s headset will come with settings for some games, it cannot be set for all games, and hence Belief went for one screen.
Steve Jobs claimed to InformationWeek that NeXT Computer Inc’s object-oriented technology is so far ahead technically we could send our engineers on a four-year vacation and still be ahead: some say that’s what seems to have happened.
