British Telecommunications Plc hit out at the Office of Telecommunications, saying at its annual shareholders’ meeting that the regulator did not nothing to stop preferential treatment of foreign competitors in the UK: Surely the time has come for the regulator to require our competitors to stand on their own feet without preferential treatment, chairman Sir Iain Vallance told the meeting, the issue being that while foreign-owned cable television companies are allowed to offer telephony as well, British Telecom is barred from offering broadcast entertainment on its lines – Sadly – but perhaps predictably – this crucial aspect of regulation did not even warrant a mention in Oftel’s agenda for the next three years published on Tuesday, Sir Iain told the meeting.
Clearing up the mystery of its plans for its systems for broadcasters, Sony Corp said that its Sony Electronics unit has changed tack and replaced its Destiny video and film editing system with two workstations that are designed to meet customers’ specific needs: the company noted that the switch had already been announced last month.
SAP AG does not expect its robust profit growth to stall during the second half of the year, but it will not be able to match the strong growth of the previous year, chairman Dietmar Hopp told Reuters: We do not have any reason to be pessimistic, he said, adding that it would unrealistic to think we could surpass the 67% advance achieved in last year’s second half.
Poland will grant three licences to cellular telephone operators, two in 1995 and one next year, ending the three-year old monopoly by the state-controlled firm in the business: We hope to have about 1m cellular telephone users by the year 2000, the ministry said; it will launch a tender for two licences for operators using Groupe Speciale Mobile technology in September, and will license an operator for the DCS1800 Personal Communications Network system sometime in 1996.
LSI Logic Corp holds 94% of its LSI Logic Corp of Canada Inc following its tender offer for the shares in the company it did not already own.
3Com Corp said that although its acquisition of Chipcom Corp would be initially dilutive to earnings, it expects it to turn neutral to slightly positive in the second half of fiscal 1996 ending May 31.
Novell Inc expects fiscal third quarter revenues and profits to be sequentially higher, the company said in response to a question: if results for the third fiscal quarter ending July 31 show some negative impact from the upcoming release of Microsoft Corp’s Windows95 they will be easily offset by higher sales in Novell’s core NetWare 4.1 product, the spokesman said.
Anaheim, California-based MTI Technology Corp has won a singular compliment from Fujitsu Computer Products of America Inc, which has licensed its portfolio of 28 RAID fault-tolerant and networking patents, which covers 392 claims.
3DO Co claims that the Interactive Multiplayer at the new price of $300 is the winner in the 32-bit games market: it says that since the price cut, sales have increased by more than 170% over a comparable period in recent months; it also claims 20 times more titles – 125 are out in North America, than comparable 32-bit systems and an upgrade path to 64-bit technology to deliver seven to 10 times more performance than current systems.
Maxis Inc is to release three of its games in native versions for IBM Corp’s OS/2 Warp: they are SimCity 2000, and two for children, SimTown and Widget Workshop; they will take advantage of OS/2 Warp’s new Direct Interface Video Extension to enhance speed and sound quality; SimTown, at $40, is due this summer; Widget Workshop will follow at the same price in the autumn, and SimCity 2000 costs $50.
The board of Comdisco Inc has voted to allow the Rosemont firm to spend up to $25m on buying in its shares.
QMS Inc, Mobile, Alabama may not have the brand recognition enjoyed by Hewlett-Packard Co, but it has a report from International
Data Corp to celebrate: the report rates the 33MHz MIPS R3000-controlled QMS 4525 Print System as having the lowest cost of ownership for a high volume printer, ahead of all other print systems in its 30 to 45 page per minute class when measured in high-volume print applications at maximum duty cycle; the QMS 4525 is a 45 page per minute multi-network-capable print system using the QMS Crown architecture, with stapling, mail bin sorting, duplexing, n-up printing, and booklet printing with a 650,000 page monthly duty cycle; prices go from $58,000 to $60,000.
They know their national geography at the San Jose Mercury News – the state of Delaware (right coast, hang a left in DC), it says, reporting that the state most favoured by US companies looking for a congenial domicile in which to register, plans to become the first state in the Union to wire all 7,000 of its classrooms (no, Delaware is not exactly big – by-pass Wilmington and you missed it) to the information superhighway: the state legislature has voted to spend $30m to lay the fibre optic cable necessary, and a spokeswoman for the school system says they want Silicon Valley companies to know that they’re looking for people that know how to lay the stuff.
Writing in the latest issue of Upside, chip guru Michael Slater asks himself whether he’s willing to write off any of the RISC processors yet, answering himself that he would put Sparc at the top of the list as the most endangered.
Viacom Inc’s Paramount Television Group has formed Paramount Digital Entertainment to develop interactive, multimedia and on-line content for the studio and its advertising partners: its first relationship is with Bristol Myers Squibb Co, for which it will develop an on-line offering addressing women’s health, fitness and beauty issues in an entertaining format the firm said.
Eden Prarie, Minnesota-based Middleware and network specialist Apertus Technologies Inc is opening a new office in Stuttgart on the back of recent wins with the German Finance Ministry and alliances with Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG and Comparex Networks GmbH.
French C++ tools specialist Ilog SA is integrating its Rules development tool with New Era for developing real-time applications.
You’d have thought the public telecommunications business was fairly sensible, consisting of sober-sided companies selling and using serious products, but while computer companies have been cutting back fiercely on all the showbiz hype and dross that used to infest big trade shows, because the Geneva Telecom show comes round only once every four years, companies vie to put the Cannes Film Festival in the shade, and the Evening Standard reports that the accolade for the most ridiculously overblown stunt this October is likely to go to Alcatel NV, which is hiring the Orient Express from SeaContainers – but because there are no railway lines anywhere near where it wants to park its corporate hospitality suite, it is transporting the thing coach by coach by road and reassembling it on the site – at a cost that is rumoured to be ú900,000…
