Borland International Inc’s new president, Gary Wetsel, confirmed that the Scotts Valley, California company will announce a restructuring involving dramatic reductions in staff in the next two weeks: he told Reuters the restructuring would involve cutting at least 500 jobs from Borland’s current 1,700-strogng payroll as it narrows its product lines to focus solely on selling to software developers, and the restructuring is intended to bring costs in line with the revenues it sees from the new strategy; the new plan lends wright to suggestions that the company will seek to sell its database products. – o – Huntsville, Alabama-based Intergraph Corp has won a monster $120m eight-year contract with The Bureau of Emergency Services Telecommunications of Victoria, Australia to provide and operate a new computer-aided despatching system that runs to the end of 2002: the system will assist police, fire and ambulance services in responding to emergency calls, and Intergraph reckons it to be the first contract of its kind in the world, and one of the largest public safety awards ever. – o – Compagnie des Machines Bull SA sales for 1994 rose 5.8% to the equivalent of $5,641m; the company says the increase was 7.9% when calculated at constant exchange rates and for comparable business perameters: it is the first time since 1989 it had reported revenue growth – the average decline over the past four years has been 9%; it says it reckons the net loss for 1994 will come out to about $375m. – o – Digital Equipment Corp’s video server has won it another contract, this time with Adlink, the second-largest cable television advertising distribution service in the US: the Digital Media Studio will distribute advertising to over 2m cable subscribers in Southern California; the pilot installation ties a video ad insertion system in a cable television head-end with a Media Studio at Adlink headquarters, and Adlink plans to deploy 53 of the Digital systems to its affiliated cable companies in the Los Angeles area under a $9m contract.
Hambrecht & Quist Inc analyst Bruce Lupatkin says he sees Apple Computer Inc as a takeover target and reckons Oracle Corp could put the company into play, but that the end game would see IBM Corp acquiring Apple, according to Cable NBC’s Dan Dorfman; Lupatkin said the ultimate price for Apple will be $60 a share or about $7,000m; – Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette analyst Thomas Rooney said he does not believe IBM is interested in buying Apple and that while large acquisitions will play a role in IBM’s future, Apple does not meet the profile of a company IBM would be interested in acquiring – dilution to IBM earnings would be as high as 15%, and IBM has invested so much in its OS/2 Warp operating system that $6,500m to $7,000m is a lot to pay for Apple’s Macintosh operating system when it represents no more than 10% of the market; as we have said in the past, up to about three years ago, Apple would have been a very good acquisition for IBM, but changes in its business since then make it less attractive each year.
Cisco Systems Inc has now bought the assets of LightStream Corp. – o – And how many will it just sit on and not attempt to exploit? IBM Corp says it received 1,298 US patents in 1994, a new record for any one company in any one year.
The Newbridge Microsystems unit of Newbridge Networks Corp has an agreement with Motorola Inc for the development of a new line of interface chips that will enable computer designers to adapt their 68000 microprocessor designs to support Peripheral Component Interconnect. – o – San Rafael, California-based Autodesk Inc is reorganising into five market groups – the Architectural, Engineering, Construction/Facilities Management market group, Data Management, Geographic Information Systems, Mechanical Computer-Aided Design, and Multimedia and each market group incorporates product development, quality assurance, technical publications, and product and industry marketing; a new Engineering group consolidates the former CAD and Core Technology teams und
er one umbrella organisation, which will develop and market core technologies and products, such as AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT and AutoSketch; an Advanced Products Group has been formed to focus on new market and technology opportunities that fall outside the scope of the others. – o – Silicon Graphics Inc is to be added to the Standard & Poor’s Corp S&P 500 Index, which reflects prices of the shares of a representative set of 500 of the leading US companies: the news put $1.375 on the share price at $32.50 – many institutions run funds that track the index, and some trusts have covenants restricting them to investment in S&P500 companies, and this tends to raise demand for shares in a newcomer. – o – Dell Computer Corp’s Japanese subsidiary plans to double its staff to 200 by January 31 1996, and move this month into larger offices in Tokyo, reflecting the rapid growth of personal computer sales there.
Hewlett-Packard Co has established a subsidiary in the Philippines to provide sales, marketing and support services: the unit is its fourth in the region, after ones in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
Keane Inc acquired the information services business of Bedford Data Systems Inc, Bedford, New Hampshire for an undisclosed cash sum: the unit is a $1.8m firm that specialises in software planning, development, maintenance and training for mid-range computers, Keane noted.
Abilene, Texas-based Pittencrieff Communications Inc has sold its network of communications towers throughout Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, to Castle Tower Corp for $17.2m and will use the proceeds of the sale to reduce bank and other debt, and to finance further acquisitions.
Attachmate Corp, Bellevue completed acquisition of Digital Communications Associates Inc, Alpharetta to create the seventh-largest personal computer software company: it will trade under the Attachmate handle.
The US Semiconductor Industry Association’s preliminary European book-to-bill ratio for December was 1.10, compared with a revised figure of 1.07 for November, showing Europe booming even more than the US; the body gives the number to its subscribers but does not make a formal public announcement of it. – o – Tandy Corp plans to open a 185,000 square foot Incredible Universe store northeast of Indianapolis in the autumn: it already has nine.
Prodigy Services Co provides material unaltered in content from the Dow Jones & Co newswire, but for some inexplicable reason, it goes through it all and laboriously converts it to a perverse house style that ignores journalistic conventions by replacing two with 2, seven with 7 and so forth: irritating but tolerable, but what are we to make of people that render 650 miles per second as 650 miles per 2d?
