The European Commission confirmed that it is currently examining whether Microsoft Corp’s Microsoft Network could harm competition in the European Community; Microsoft said earlier that it had not heard from the Commission; the US Justice Department also requested the co-operation of the Commission’s competition services in its assessment of the case, but there have not been any complaints that could have triggered the Commission’s probe; while the Commission would be unlikely to block or ask for changes in IBM Corp’s acquisition of Lotus Development Corp if the US as expected nods it through, it is quite conceivable that with the European on-line services market so under-developed, and at a time when several European groups are preparing launches, Microsoft could well find that it is permitted to bundle the access software in Windows95 in the US, while being required to market it separately in Europe, a situation that could create big problems.
The UK Department of Trade & Industry has duly awarded IPM Communications Plc, the wholly-owned unit of Italy’s IPM Group SpA that is to take over Mercury Communications Ltd’s payphone sites, a licence to operate a public payphone service in the UK: IPM will call its service Interphone and has signed Mercury to install new equipment at over 1,500 Mercury sites; it launches next month with a coin-only service and a credit card option will be introduced later this year; calls will be charged at a similar rate to British Telecommunications Plc, but fivepenny pieces as well as 10s will be taken by the phones.
Intel Corp may be rushing to the P6, but it has not finished goosing the Pentium yet: according to PC Week, it is working to have samples of a still-unannounced 167MHz Pentium ready by the fourth quarter, with volume seen early next year.
After today’s page two went to bed, Cable & Wireless Plc came back to say that it had indeed bought more shares Bezeq Israel Telecommunication Corp Ltd, picking up another 3.01% to take its stake to 10.02%.
3Com Corp announced yesterday that it is planning to invest about $16m to expand its Blanchardstown facility in Ireland, and will add 200 jobs to the existing 175-strong workforce: the investment will double the size of its existing 60,000 square foot production facility and add a further four production lines to the existing five at the plant.
Sybase Inc’s shares put on $3 at $28 late Wednesday to a crescendo of takeover gossip, but slipped yesterday when nothing happened: the rise is as big as the one that anticipated IBM Corp’s announcement of its bid for Lotus Development Corp, but the names in the frame – Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc, IBM Corp – didn’t make much sense and Microsoft denied any interest while Sun repeated that it never comments on such things; if a bid is coming, it is more likely to come from a foreigner or from another software company such as Dun & Bradstreet Corp’s Dun & Bradstreet Software subsidiary.
Novell Inc duly formed a new Systems Group to focus on accelerating development of its operating systems: the new unit combines the formerly separate NetWare Systems Group and Unix Systems Group USG, and accounts for some 55% of Novell’s business; it will focus on de velopment of a single network operating system that combines the best capabilities of NetWare and Unix and eliminates boundaries between local and wide-area networks.
Vodafone Group Plc yesterday signed up its two millionth subscriber.
The France Telecom monopoly seems to have got the message about its exploitative national telephone tariffs (CI No 2,284): it said yesterday it would cut its national tariffs for long-distance calls by just over 10% from June 29, by lengthening its price unit to 21 seconds from 19 seconds; UK operators now charge by the second.
Gateway 2000 Inc is the first personal computer manufacturer to take sides in the digital video disk standards war, coming down on the side of the less-fancied Sony Corp-Philips Electronics NV
proposals.
Coda Group Plc reports from its Manchester, New Hampshire base that it has won a world-wide marketing agreement with Cincom Systems Inc, Cincinnati, under which Cincom will resell Coda’s Coda-OAS client-server financial accounting suite; Cincom will be marketing it as Control: Financials from CODA.
Westborough, Massachusetts-based VMark Software Inc expects to take a one-time charge of $5m to $6m against second quarter figures from its acquisition of Easel Corp; it completed the $24,7m share exchange acquisition of Easel on Wednesday.
Epson America Inc, Torrance, California has decided to share its favours around and is previewing personal computers using Cyrix Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Intel Corp processors at PC Expo.
The foreign share of Japan’s semiconductor market fell to 22.8% in the first quarter of this year, from 23.7% in the 1994 fourth quarter: US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said he was disappointed that foreign chip makers were unable to maintain upward momentum.
Computer People Group Plc is changing its name to Delphi Group Plc, a name with apparently no real significance, but another computer-related Delphi to confuse us: the various recruitment consultancy and training business in the group will continue to trade under the names Computer People, The Span Consultancy, VNG, St Martins and Interskill; chief excutive Tony Reeves told the annual general meeting that the group is trading ahead of both our plans and expectations.
RAD Technologies Inc has been showing Sun Microsystems Inc’s Java and Hot Java integrated with its PowerMedia multimedia authoring system: PowerMedia 1.0 is from $2,500 on Sun, Hewlett-Packard Co and Silicon Graphics Inc boxes, and the company is promsing Windows and Mac versions later this year at from $1,000.
Correction: Maxtor Corp points out that it has shipped 21m hard drives this year; the company, in which Hyundai Electronics Co Ltd has a 40% stake and effective control – with the other 60% of shares widely held, it would be well nigh impossible for any other holder to mobilise enough support to outvote Hyundai – also predicted sales of its Durango 1.0Gb drive will be superseded by the 1.6Gb model in the fourth quarter this year, and wants to clarify that each platter within the newly launched Durango range of drives has a 270Mb capacity on each side of the platter; Maxtor also said it will be launching a new range of four-platter hard drives later in the year (CI No 2,681).
