Telefonica de Espana SA has launched the trial of a computer network access service called InfoVia in Madrid and Barcelona, which will enable each of Telefonica’s 15m customers to access all types of information services on computer networks for the price of a local phone call or about $1.04 an hour from all over the country, eliminating long distance penalties: the service will start in 1996, and Telefonica plans to have 60,000 customers after the first year of operation; the company said it would be completely neutral about inf ormation service providers and would supply a free communications software package specifically designed for InfoVia users; the service is currently compatible with both MS-DOS and Windows operating systems and will shortly be available for Macintosh, OS/2 and Windows95.
The UK Office of Telecommunications watchdog has extended its scheme for approval of metering and billing methods by British Approvals Board for Telecommunications to include cellular operators Cellnet Mobile Communications Ltd and Vodafone Group Plc: the two companies are required to submit metering and billing systems used in their analogue services to the approvals board; fixed network operators British Telecommunications Plc, Mercury Communications Ltd and Kingston Communications Ltd are already in the Oftel meter approval scheme.
Time Telecommunications Sdn Bhd, subsidiary of Time Engineering Bhd of Malaysia, has taken a 5% stake in South Africa’s Plessey Corp Ltd, Plessey said in its pre-listing prospectus: Plessey is due to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on September 27 and said the deal strengthened its push into South East Asia and said it had recently won a contract from Time to project manage the $14,000m installation of Malaysia’s first all fibre-optic based telecommunications network; the price paid by Time was not disclosed, but Plessey said that after the listing, Genbel Investments Ltd will also hold 5%, and Sankorp Ltd’s 100% shareholding will be diluted to 55%; the public offer will be 5.4m shares at $4.80 each.
Interleaf Inc, San Jose document management software developer that turned a modest profit last fiscal quarter after reorganising and cutting costs, said it expects another profit in the current quarter: Interleaf turned a profit of $0.03 a share in the fiscal 1996 first quarter versus a loss of $0.59 for the same period last year after five quarters of disappointing results, and revenue for the first quarter was $23.1m, compared to $19.2m last time; the company has cut staff by 25%, reduced costs by about $15m a year and closed 19 offices; the firm is moving toward open systems from proprietary ones.
Anglo-French information technology firm Sema Group Plc has raised its interest in South African company Paradigm Pty Ltd to 45% from 24.9%, although it has not disclosed financial details: Paradigm, which turned over $12.5m last year, develops and markets EPMS, an engineering and managing software for logistics systems, particularly in the defence sector; Sema said that the move is part of its strategy to get into the global defence sector.
PC Quote Inc will provide marketdata for a new interactive online service venture on the Internet between MCI Communications Corp and News Corp Ltd: the joint venture, known as News Corp/MCI Online Ventures, will provide consumers and businesses with a wide range of interest-based offerings including original news coverage from its newsroom, a guide to the Internet, video conferencing and specialized content from News Corp companies; the service begins later this year.
Hutchison Max Telecom Ltd said it has permission from India’s Department of Telecommunications for its interface with Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd’s network: it plans to set up a cellular phone network in Bombay, and the interface will make it easier for subscribers to make or receive telephone calls through Mahanagar’s land-based network.
NEC Corp will increase production of 16M-bit dynamics to 10m parts a month from the 5m
it does currently, by mid-1996: an existing production line in Kyushu, southern Japan, will be expanded to meet the growing needs, and a new production line will be built in Hiroshima; details of costs were not given.
Internet service provider Unipalm Plc hotly denied a report in the Financial Times that it had made an announcement on Monday that its takeover talks were the subject of delay: the company did not say yesterday that there was a delay, Unipalm finance director Chris Batterham said – As we said at the outset, we were at a very early stage of discussions when we made the original announcement, which we did because of the move in the share price, and we expected it to be some time before we made a further announcement, he said; we still see it taking several weeks; the likely time of a further announcement will be in the late September, early October time-frame and we can’t add much to the original statement; the company said it was still optimistic that a transaction could be completed successfully.
Mercury One-2-One Ltd will introduce new Bronze, Silver and Gold service packages on September 18 designed to accelerate its growth rate and increase revenues: the three new service packages eliminate free off-peak, local weekday calls offered by the existing service, but maintain free local weekend calls; they bring forward the start of the off-peak period to 1800 local time from 1900 and introduce per-second billing, which it says typically will save users 15%.
General Instrument Corp’s CommScope Inc subsidiary will launch a joint venture in Australia with the Olex Cables division of Pacific Dunlop Ltd to make coaxial cables: the new company, Vision Cables Pty Ltd, will be capitalised at $9m and be 51% owned by Pacific Dunlop, 49% by General Instrument; it will manufacture and supply coaxial cables for cable television and other broadband services in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region and is expected to be open early next year.
Out of the mouths of babes – but perhaps that is the age group at which the thing is really pitched… the Houston Chronicle has been polling its readers to find out how they are getting on with Windows95, and as well as the usual horrors – don’t even think of calling the Microsoft Corp help-line, it’s always busy, and the kids at the other end don’t really know enough seems to be the consensus – it lighted on Asher and Pat Gil and their nine-year-old son David, who Windows95 himself and says it was much easier to install than MS-DOS 6.1 or Windows 3.1; I mostly program multimedia applications in Visual Basic, he says, adding that he has been programming since he was seven; Pat Gil says even her youngest, a four-year-old son, is now using the new program – He said, ‘Come sit down right here, Mommy, and let me teach you Windows 95.’
