Microsoft Corp-Intuit Inc has looked an acquisition too far almost from the moment it was proposed, and the US Justice Department has subpoenaed companies in the computer industry to give testimony about the planned $1,500m deal, the Wall Street Journal reported: the paper hears that Justice requested information from Lotus Development Corp and America Online Inc among others and people familiar with the subpoenas told the paper they are unusually broad in scope, seeking documents and competitive information on consumer and financial software, on-line services and networks in an effort to determine how Microsoft could build on the dominance of Windows to foreclose competition in the emerging on-line industry; after Microsoft and Intuit complete Justice’s requests for information, the government will have 20 days to challenge the acquisition, let it go through, or reach a settlement that would impose conditions on it.
Ascom Holding AG, still trying to stabilise its business, is cutting about 220 jobs at its Ascom Timeplex operating division as part of an overall restructuring of the Ascom Enterprise Networks division: We hope Timeplex no longer will be in the red in 1995, it told Reuter; the 220 jobs account for some 12% of Timeplex’s worldwide workforce; the company said more than 100 job cuts had already been announced in the US and the job reductions would be completed by April.
Securicor Group Plc’s Securicor Datatrak unit has been awarded the fifth licence to provide radio-based public mobile data services in the UK, the Department of Trade & Industry announced yesterday.
Shares in Vodafone Group Plc fell 12.5 pence to 175.5 pence after the company warned that it looked as if current year profits would be below expectations: Vodafone said it connected 49,000 net new subscribers in January, and while recent subscriber growth would lead to significantly higher profits next year, they would drag this year’s earnings below market expectations, because of the corresponding growth in connection commission payments; gross new subscribers were 93,000.
Concurrent Computer Corp chairman and chief executive John Stihl warns that he expects the company’s third-quarter revenues will fall below current second-quarter levels (figures are in page seven), and it is likely to have to take restructuring charges this quarter.
Commenting on its storming figures (page seven), EMC Corp says orders increased in all of the major geographies; Harmonix revenues exceeded its goal; and revenues for the Symmetrix 5500-9 rose by over 100% for the second consecutive quarter; all that did nothing for the share price because analysts were concerned a lower profit margins compared with the second and third quarters.
The state of Michigan signed a master contract making General Motors Corp’s Electronic Data Systems Corp its sole provider of personal computers and services to all of the state’s executive departments and agencies: existing contracts with others will not be renewed when they expire; the bidding process, with 12 contenders, lasted a year.
The IBM Corp board has been busy with housekeeping affairs, and as well as setting the share buyback and recommending an unchanged dividend, it has decided to hold this year’s annual meeting down in the damp greenery of Charlotte, North Carolina on April 25, and elected Lucio Noto, chairman and chief executive of Mobil Corp to the board.
Toshiba Corp’s Toshiba America Information Systems Inc said it is making price cuts of between 8% and 22% on some notebooks: the T4700CT, T4800CT and T4850 CT performance notebook computers, the Satellite Pro T2400C and T2450 CT series and the Satellite T1960C are affected.
The European Commission is again proposing rules aimed at ensuring that telephone users across the European Union have access to high quality service as telecommunications markets are liberalised: the draft Open Network Provision directive, still to be approved by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers
, is intended to ensure that both individual consumers and competitors to state telecommunications organisations can gain access to public networks in a transparent and non-discriminatory way, requiring national authorities to set targets for installation deadlines and quality of phone service, publish transparent tariffs, publish phone books regularly and install a reasonable number of public pay phones; the Commission will ensure that standards are drawn up for a single Europe-wide phone payment card and asks national authorities to encourage the introduction of pay phones using those standards; December 31 1995 is the deadine.
In an unusual move, Mexicana Airlines has switched back to Unisys Corp from IBM Corp for its passenger reservation and departure control systems: the switch came only five months after the airline switched to the IBM-based BaBs British Airways Booking System reservation system, and Mexicana gave Unisys the order to begin work converting back to the USAS system in October.
Gateway 2000 Inc says unit shipments topped the one-million mark for the first time in 1994, totalling nearly 1.041m units worldwide.
Compagnie des Machines Bull SA and Wang Laboratories Inc have now completed the transaction under which Wang takes over Bull’s worldwide workflow and imaging business, its US government systems integration business, its US customer service business, and its sales and service subsidiaries in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada; Wang paid Bull $110m in cash, a $27.2m subordinated note, and 1.65m shares of Wang stock, representing some 4.9%. – o – Fujitsu Ltd slashed prices of 25 models of its FMV series desktop personal computers by up to 33%.
The Keidanren Federation of Economic Organisations now estimates that the damage from the January 17 Kobe earthquake is as high as $130,000m.
Sun Microsystems Inc has named SunSoft Inc chief Ed Zander to the vacant post of president of Sun Microsystems Computer Corp: Zander told Reuters he aims to bring his marketing experience to the job and spread the word that Sun is the network computing company of choice for corporations and financial institutions: We’re the best-kept five-to-six billon-dollar [secret] company in the industry, said Zander – We’ve got to get the word out who this company is, he added.
Siemens AG is to set up a joint venture with Shanghai Video & Audio Electronics Co to make telephones: it says it aims for a 10% share of the Chinese market by early 1998.
Those that celebrated the news that European Community press conferences are henceforward to be conducted in English as well as French may soon be thinking again when they see the kind of mangling English gets in the Berlaymont building: reporting from Brussels on an impenetrable decision to revive a draft directive that would provide free and non-discriminatory access to monopoly speech telephony infrastructure, Reuters reports airily that the parliament, Commission and Council have reached a modus vivendi that gives the parliament more input into comitology procedures in general, smoothing the way for a new ONP text to go forward.
