Tandem Computers Inc says it ducked out of the South Korean business won by AT&T Corp’s Global Information Solutions unit because The Koreans wanted our software source code, which is our crown jewel and a 20-year investment, Tandem told Dow Jones & Co: Our chief executive said no way, and so we bailed. – o – Some personal computer manufacturers are already testing samples of Intel Corp’s 133MHz Pentium, Infoworld reports: general availability of the 133MHz chip is expected this summer; Intel has also suggested it may raise the CPU bus speed of a version of the 150MHz Pentium to 75MHz, enabling manufacturers to raise the transactions-per-second performance on their servers; the highest CPU bus speed for any Pentium is currently 66MHz.
Bell Atlantic Corp will begin its northern Virginia video trial in May, offering services such as VCR-style movies on demand and home shopping: its goal is a full rollout of its interactive video service starting in 1997, with the network infrastructure passing by 1m homes a year after that date.
Largest creditors named in Cray Computer Corp’s bankruptcy filing are Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc, owed $243,900; Colorado Springs Utilities, $234,358; Advanced Visual Systems Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts, $200,000 and Cray Research Inc, owed $157,766.
Novell Inc’s Wordperfect is taking quick advantage of Borland International Inc’s court victory over Lotus Development Corp, and will put back the Quattro Pro spreadsheet feature that enables the program to be used with 1-2-3 commands – it will be available in 90 days.
Microsoft Corp and MCI Communications Corp are negotiating a deal to offer a service that would rival Lotus Development Corp’s AT&T Network Notes, Infoworld reports: the deal is one of several that Microsoft is seeking with carriers to deliver managed network services running with its Windows NT-based BackOffice suite, Microsoft officials confirmed to the paper; Microsoft and MCI would begin by offering their new service to common customers that use Windows NT and BackOffice at dispersed sites linked using MCI’s existing services.
Santa Clara, California-based SunDisk Corp, one of the pioneers of PC Card technology in which both Seagate Technology Inc and NEC Corp have stakes, has launched what it is claiming as the largest Flash memory storage card available: uncompressed, the Type III card can store 175Mb and with compression software this rises to 350Mb; the card will be available next quarter at OEM prices of $3,245 and it will be available in lower capacities.
Bell Atlantic Corp is to take a charge of about $18m against its first quarter figures to write down the value of its $1,040m investment in Grupo Iusacell SA, Mexico’s largest cellular-telephone company in the wake of the crumbling peso: Bell Atlantic has also imposed a 70% cutback in its construction budget for Iusacell, which had been set at $250m for 1995, and is waiting to see what happens to the peso in the months ahead before deciding the fate of the 1996 construction budget which had been set at $300m.
A four-company Nordic-Asian consortium including Tele Danmark A/S has submitted a bid for a mobile telephone licence in Hong Kong, the Danish carrier reported; other partners are Norway’s telecommunications operator Telenor, Hong Kong property investment company Hysan Ltd and China’s telecommunications company China Unicom, and the partnership calls itself Honeycomb.
Minneapolis, Minnesota-based J3 Learning Corp, created by the merger of Minneapolis-based Learn PC Inc and Burlington, Massachusetts-based Hands on Learning, is opening a London office to support and market its software throughout Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa; the company specialises in computer education software and services.
Late next month, IBM Corp will upgrade its ThinkPad line with a model offering a 10.4 600 by 800 resolution active matrix screen, 75MHz Pentium processor and Lithium ion battery, sources close to the company told I
nfoworld the 755CX will cost the same as the 755CE, which has a list price of $7,500 and a $5,936 average street price; the 755C, 755CE, and 755CD models will be discounted when the 755CX ships, the sources added, and the company also will offer a $1,450 Pentium upgrade to owners of other ThinkPad 755s when the 755CX ships.
Microvitec Plc has now put a #1m value to the French deal it alluded to in its end of year results (CI No 2,614): the company will provide 6,000 colour monitors over the next 12 months to Societe Industrielle d’Automation Bancaire SA, manufacturer of automatic teller machines.
Akron, Ohio-based Quatech Inc has launched the DAQP-12, a PC Card Type II data acquisition adaptor with eight differential or 16 single-ended analogue input channels that can be expanded to 256 channels with expansion cards: it has software drivers capable of supporting languages such as C/C++, Quick Basic and Turbo Pascal, with a Dynamic Link Library enabling support for other languages under Windows; it’s shipping now at $600.
South Korea’s communications ministry announced that Seoul and Washington had finally settled their simmering row over the low US penetration of the South Korean’s telecommunications equipment market: the two countries agreed at trade talks in Washington that AT&T Corp’s 5ESS 2000 digital telephone switches should be subject to utility tests – which AT&T opposed, and that Seoul would in return exempt AT&T from performance tests when it tenders later this year to supply switches for state-owned Korea Telecom; similar agreements were made for other US companies.
El Segundo, California-based Computer Sciences Corp acquired Weston Group Inc, a US management consulting firm specialising in business, sales and marketing strategy based in Westport, Connecticut: Weston has a staff of 44 professionals and annual revenues of around $10m; terms of the deal were not given.
IBM Corp issued a statement saying that contrary to assertions made by EMC Corp, there is no flaw in its Ramac Array controller: the snag is not a flaw as such, it is just that the thing is not man enough to support more than 180Gb disk capacity at adequate speeds (CI No 2,630).
Chatsworth, California-based Micropolis Corp has won an OEM contract with Motorola Inc’s Motorola Computer Group for its RAIDION fault-tolerant disk arrays for sale with Motorola’s PowerStack family of PowerPC server and desktop systems.
Intel Corp has agreed to settle class-action lawsuits brought against over the Pentium flaw by compensating companies and end users that can document damages caused by the Pentium floating-point bug: the agreement awaits approval by the Santa Clara County Superior Court, and under it, Intel will pay for expenses and losses related to the use of flawed Pentium processors, at a potential cost of $1,600m, although any actual payments will likely be insignificant; the settlement allows Intel to examine each claim on a case-by-case basis, with a jointly appointed arbitrator determining damages.
Privatisation of state-owned Sri Lanka Telecom will now take place only towards the end of this year: the government has said it plans to sell 20% of Sri Lanka Telecom to local and foreign investors; the government plans to spend almost $600m in the next four years to improve telecommunications and has invited foreign firms to set up their own networks on the island.
Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire-based Psion Dacom Plc has added Gold Drive, a PC Card drive that slots into any 3.5 disk drive bay enabling desk top users to use any type of PC Card: it sells for #130.
IBM Corp yesterday announced the IBM MPEG-2 I-Frame Encoder, which compresses video pictures frame by frame, and a companion MPEG-2 Decoder chip: the encoder, to be ready in July, will cost $700 when you order 50 or more, the decoder, to be available next month, will cost less than $35 per unit in set-top box quantities, the company added.
Trafficmaster Plc has formed an equally-owned
joint venture with Independent Television News Ltd to supply national traffic and travel information to television and radio: the new Travel News Ltd will have 25 staff and start in mid-May.
As well as selling Pick64+ to Sequoia Systems Inc (see front), Alopha Microsystems Inc says it is to divest its Veterinary Systems Operation to its largest customer, Veterinary Centers of America Inc.
Microsoft Corp is working with PictureTel Corp to develop interoperable data conferencing products for the Windows operating systems: the software will enable Windows users at remote sites to work together, transferring files, using a common white board and share applications.
Compaq Computer Corp has been running a satellite office since last year in San Mateo, California focusing on software technology for personal computers, the company told Reuters, responding to a report in Computer Retail Week that Compaq has been building an independent business unit to develop, market and promote a line of multimedia software and peripherals for home personal computer users: Their charter was to look at software technology that would enhance the value of our products and that’s what they’re continuing to do, both on the portable and the desktop side for commercial and consumer products, she commented.
BCE Inc’s Bell Canada Ltd plans to reduce its workforce by 22%, 10,000 jobs, over the next three years, at a cost it estimates at $1,200m.
AT&T Corp is suing Martin Marietta Corp for more than $250m because the aerospace company failed to correct known defects in the Telstar 4 series of satellites.
The United States Display Consortium has received new funding of $25m from the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense, which is actually worth $50m since participants are required to put up matching funds.
Stac Electronics Inc, Carlsbad, California has bought Remserve a NetWare back-up, archiving and data recovery program developed by Crossware Development Inc and marketed by Rememory Corp: Michael Harris, president of Costa Mesa, California-based Rememory, will serve as director of Stac’s new Backup Product Group, and John Matze, founder of San Diego-based Crossware, will serve as principal architect for the new Stac group; the terms have not been disclosed.
Sanderson Electronics Plc is so keen to expand by acquisition that it took out a big classified advertisement in the Financial Times yesterday trumpeting the fact that it is after computer-related businesses with annual turnover of #5m to #25m – and no hiding behind box numbers: the company is asking people to write to the Sheffield firm at its Aston Science Park address.
British Telecommunications Plc chairman Sir Iain Vallance yesterday accused Germany and France of doing nothing to ensure fair market access in the run-up to European telecommunications liberalisation, set for 1998 at the latest: speaking in Brussels, he urged governments to agree on a plan for the convergence of timescales for liberalisation at the next Group of Seven meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is scheduled for June.
The European Commission is looking into the planned Scandinavian joint venture called TBT Communication AB between British Telecommunications Plc, TeleDanmark A/S and Telenor A/S, which has been formed to offer domestic and international telecommunications services in Sweden.
Sounds as if Chinese import duties are penally high and excessive: three out of four desktop computers in China are smuggled in, robbing the treasury of tax revenues, competing unfairly with local manufacturers and slowing investment inflows, the Guangming Daily said – losses to the treasury for the first half of last year are put at $166m, which rises to $297m when smuggled printers and other equipment are included, the paper said.
Still unclear is where 3Com Corp’s acquisition of Sonix Communications Ltd leaves Sonix’s relationship with Cabletron Systems Inc: last July Sonix said Cabl
etron would market the Sonix Remote Arpeggio Ethernet ISDN Bridge across Europe.
Looks as if it’s all over for the gerontocracy in Peking once the kids get on line and find that they are not alone in thinking that the Chinese police state is intolerable: a new China Internet, now undergoing testing by the Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications, will include links to the Internet, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
German publishing group Burda Verlag GmbH says it plans to create five independent companies that will provide specialised services and information for the German-language part of the Europe Online network: Burda, which holds a 26.9% stake in Europe Online, says the five information units will be Money Line, Health Line, Traffic Line, Office Line, and Learn Line.
India says that it is now up to one telephone for every 100 people and it is now aiming to have the world’s 10th largest telephone network by 1997, from 13th place now.
Compact Hong Kong already has four cellular operators competing for business in a place where mobile phones are a way of life, but another six are to be licensed to offer Personal Communications Networks in competition with the four – and there is no shortage of contenders with 14 consortia putting in bids: the resident four are Hutchison Telephone Co, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd with Motorola Inc, which has 30%; the Hongkong Telecom CSL subsidiary of Hong Kong Telecommunications Ltd; Pacific Link Communications Ltd, 60%-owned by First Pacific Co, 32% by Vodafone Group Plc, 8% by SHK Hong Kong Industries Ltd; and SmarTone Mobile Communications Ltd, which brings together Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd, AT&T Corp’s McCaw Cellular unit, ABC Communications Lt d and the Chinese Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications; penetration of mobile phones is currently 5.2% of the population, a little behind the 6.5% of the US, but ahead of UK, where it is put at about 5%.
IBM Corp is famous for rewriting history by subtly changing its product names and making it as if the original name had never existed – Conversational Monitor System for Cambridge Monitor System for example – but it’s not often that one catches the company in the act of doing it, as happened this week: if you read the electronic version of the printing press release, you find that AFP stands for Advanced Function Presentation, and it’s as if the old name never existed, but on the early paper version we received late Monday night, while the text refers to Presentation, at the end of the release among the asterisks where IBM lays claim to its trade marks, it still appears as good old Advanced Function Printing.
