Backing up our front page story today, Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based EMC Corp last night put out a release saying that mainframe users that have recently bought IBM Corp’s Ramac disk storage array are increasingly looking to unload them on the used market: EMC says that the number of calls it has received from dissatisfied Ramac customers is growing every week, adding We have had about 40 Ramac systems offered to us for trade-in credits against the purchase of new Symmetrix devices; the company also notes an increase in the price of used 3390 IBM disk subsystems.

A court in Nanterre accepted the recovery plan for Jacques Stern’s Acri Advanced Computer Research Instritute SARL submitted by Compagnie des Signaux SA and Defense Conseil International SA, for which the companies are planning an official announcement on Monday, a spokeswoman said: under the plan, Compagnie des Signaux will invest some $4m while Defense Conseil, held 49.9% by the state, will invest about $3m; fewer than half of Acri’s 120 employees – just 50 – will be retained in the new company; Defense Conseil says it is interested in ACRI’s operating system rather than its hardware, but the reorganised company hopes to capitalise on the know-how of Acri’s engineers to develop civil and military applications and to do some $20m this year, Yazid Sabeg, Compagnie des Signaux’s chief executive told Les Echos – and should be helped in reaching that goal with research contracts with France’s Ministry of Defence that are said to be under negotiation.

Even when IBM Corp finally launches its PowerPC-based Power Personal Systems on May 23, OS/2 for PowerPC will not be ready, Bloomberg Business News hears: the news agency says the machines will initially ship only with the option of either Windows NT or Solaris Unix, and that OS/2 will be given an availability date sometime in the summer.

Storage Technology Corp says an order for four of its Iceberg subsystems with a total capacity of 500Gb from the AG Communication Systems Inc Phoenix joint venture of AT&T Corp and GTE Corp brings total orders for the things to 500.

MCI Communications Corp has completed a high-speed fibre optic ring in Michigan that triples its communications capacity in the state and can instantly re-route customer service if a cable is cut.

Hewlett-Packard Co’s Greeley division, making ScanJet scanners in the Colorado town, will create about 50 full-time, permanent jobs in the next month and expects many of its temporary workers to fill the positions: the jobs will be in production as well as engineering and administration and reflect growing demand for the scanning peripheral.

Hutchison Whampoa Ltd reports that its UK Orange mobile phone service now has more than 130,000 subscribers and is growing rapidly: losses being incurred as it builds up its country-wide network should be considered as a strategic investment for the future profitability of this new business venture, it said.

DHL International Ltd has signed British Telecommunications Plc to a five-year global networking contract valued at an estimated รบ100m: the UK phone company will enhance DHL’s existing DHLNET by providing advanced high-speed voice and data communications services through its Concert joint venture with MCI Communications Corp; DHL will initially use Concert’s Frame Relay Service throughout Europe and the Concert Virtual Network Services for voice calls in the US, Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain.

Automatic Data Processing Inc’s ADP Dealer Services (Asia Pacific) unit has acquired the dealer management systems business of DataTec International Corp of Taiwan; no terms. – o – Dortmund-based electricity distributor Vereinigte Elektrizitaetswerke Westfalen AG is joining the rush to prepare for telecommunications liberalisation in Germany and said yesterday it would form a telecommunications unit which would later join a national consortium to offer telephone service: the new TelNet Gesellschaft fr Tele

kommunikations- und Netzdienste mbH will provide the infrastructure for other companies to offer telecommunications services and expects turnover of around $75m by 2002; it will offer a stake of up to 49% to partners, and will link its network with the national Deutsche Netz AG consortium of regional power companies planning a joint venture to combine their networks and offer a national communications infrastructure.

The second tranche of shares in Koninklijke PTT Nederland NV is due for flotation at the end of 1995 or early in 1996, the government said.

One of Intel Corp’s Hillsboro, Oregon plans reopened yesterday after being shut down on Wednesday when workers complained of flu-like symptoms: adjustments have been made to the building’s ventilation system, after an inspection showed very low humidity levels in the plant, and adjustments to the building’s air flow were made; workers at the Hawthorn Farm stuff processors and other components into circuit boards for personal computers.

MCI Communications Corp and the US Public Broadcasting Service are to team to integrate PBS programming with Internet, on-line and CD-ROM new media services: MCI has committed a minimum of $15m to the venture over the first five years, with the potential for much greater investment; initial offerings will include expansion of PBS Online and development of an Internet service to integrate public television content into interactive formats – We will integrate PBS broadcast and on-line services and link PBS directly to homes around the nation through internetMCI, said MCI, adding that the new joint venture will also develop, produce and distribute new multimedia projects and programming with children’s, family, science, humanities, business and educational themes.

Domino Printing Sciences Plc told the annual meeting that it has resolved technical problems with one of its products and printer production is currently running at record levels to meet strong demand: it adds that the technical difficulties plus start-up costs of new acquisitions will mean even larger disparity than usual between first and second half profit performance.

Driven by strong sales of multimedia personal computers, the pre-recorded CD-ROM market grew by 227% in 1994, according to Dataquest Inc, with Microsoft Corp shipping the most disks at 8.3m; total shipments reached 53.9m units in 1994, up from 16.5m platters in 1993.

The winner of this year’s international tender for a 27% stake in state telephone firm SPT Telecom AS may need to invest up to $4,000m by the year 2000 to modernise the decrepit Czech phone network, Economics Minister Karel Dyba warned.

Microsoft Corp chief Bill Gates has won himself such a ferocious reputation – nobody has been able to view former IBM Corp big wheel James Cannavino in quite the same light since reports of his encounters with Gates appeared in the Wall Street Journal last year – that Stephen Spielberg is quoted as saying that the DreamWorks partners were initially reluctant even to meet with Gates, but they were quickly won over once they did…