Santa Clara, California-based DSP Group Inc reports that an advanced version of its TrueSpeech technology submitted by its Israeli partner AudioCodes Ltd with France Telecom, and the Universite de Sherbrooke has been chosen by the International Telecommunications Union as part of the speech compression technology for its future standard for multimedia visual telephony over the public telephone network: the advanced version of TrueSpeech is combined with the Technology ACELP coding technology of Universite de Sherbrooke in Canada and related technology from France Telecom; the new speech compression technology is to be designated G.723; it operates at data rates as low as 6.3Kbps and 5.3Kbps to produce a substantial improvement in compression ratios over existing standards – while maintaining high quality.
The NTT International Corp unit of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp has been awarded a $25m contract by Vietnam Posts & Telecommunications to construct telephone networks for 25,000 subscriber lines in Hanoi.
AT&T Corp and the Office Nationale des Postes et Telecommunications of the Kingdom of Morocco have signed a memorandum of understanding on plans to co-operate in the development of a modern telecommunications infrastructure for the kingdom: the objective is to double the existing capacity of the network with a digital infrastructure that supports broadband and satellite technologies; the kingdom presently has only four phone lines per 100 people.
Videoton Holding Rt of Hungary says that it recorded preliminary 1994 pre-tax profits equivalent to $270,000, on turnover of $125m; since the early 1990s, Videoton has increased its exports to the West to 70% of its sales, but is still troubled by a big debt load and difficulties in acquiring parts.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Norand Corp is to sell IBM Corp’s wireless modems integrated into the Norand Pen*Key 6000 Series mobile computers, and claims to be the first firm to provide this type of wireless capability for mobile computer systems for the industrial market.
Acer Latin America Inc announced record sales of over $214m for 1994: the company surpassed its original target by 63% compared with the $130m sold during 1993; Central America and the Caribbean sales increased 650%, Colombia witnessed an increase of 182%, Argentina’s sales increased by 182%, Peru 125% and Paraguay 107% to round up the first five places; Acer obtained 12% market share in the Latin American region and right now it is number one in countries such as Mexico, Chile, Panama, Uruguay and Bolivia, as well as top three in the rest of the region.
Acer Laboratories Inc has a new 64-bit graphics accelerator chip that runs Windows benchmarks more than 25% faster than its predecessor and other graphics accelerators currently on the market, the firm claims: the chip provides a direct interface for VL and PCI bus designs without extra logic, and includes drivers for Windows 3.1 and NT as well as OS/2 versions 2.X and 3.0; it is priced at $9.50 in volume.
Emeryville, California-based Sybase Inc plans to develop Open Client and Open Server application programming interface software for IBM Corp’s MVS/Open Edition mainframe operating system for delivery in the first half of 1996, to make the dinosaurs more accommodating in client-server networks; IBM has also supplied Sybase with a new System 390 Model 9672-R11 mainframe at a discount to be used for development, testing and tuning.
Rosemont, Illinois-based Comdisco Disaster Recovery Services Inc is finding demand for disaster recovery on Hewlett-Packard Co Unix machines is soaring, and to meet the clamour, has more than doubled the recovery capacity of its client-server supersite in Carlstadt, New Jersey, adding a new HP9000-T500 with more than 50Gb disk space and a full complement of tape and communications, and upgraded the existing machine to an HP 9000 Model I70, fitted with over 20Gb.
L M Ericsson Telefon AB reports that Spain’s Airtel consortium is about to order its
cellular telephone system, going for Ericsson switches and base stations, but it is not putting a value on the deal – but it has a similar deal in Japan with Central Japan Digital Phone Co worth a total of 50m.
Data General Corp’s two-year-old disk array business is becoming a growing part of the company’s overall revenues, and will more than double sales of some products in 1995, Bill Wilson, corporate vice-president of Data General told Reuter: the CLARiiON unit scored $50m of revenues from non-Data General systems in 1994, and that will more than double this year.
Unisys Corp’s Unisys Philippines is to market Sequent Computers Systems Inc machines in the nation of islands, where it claims to be the second largest computer firm in the country after IBM Philippines; it looks for at least $17.5m business this year, up from $9.7m last year.
IBM Corp is putting Santa Cruz Operation Inc Open Server on its new PC Server 320 and 720 machiness, along with OS/2, OS/2 LAN Server, NetWare and Windows NT.
GenRad Inc has sold the majority of the assets of its Structural Test Products Division to Spectral Dynamics Inc and GenRad received cash and retained receivables for about $2m; the sale agreement also includes a provision for royalty payments; Spectral Dynamics, of San Juan Capistrano, California, has purchased all of the assets of the US domestic business and some assets of its European business, and assumed some related liabilities.
Powerbuilder is now Sybase Inc’s core application development tool, replacing Build Momentum: the object-based Enterprise Momentum is discontinued – and responsibility for modelling and applications generation from models is passed on to Sybase’s Powersoft acquisition.
We hear that IBM Corp has actually formed a separate development group recruited from AIX, OS/2 and Workplace teams to put the Spec 1170 application programming interfaces up on OS/2 Workplace, but it is still the case that no-one seems to know which division owns the group.
Fremont, California-based Credence Systems Corp has completed acquisition of memory tester manufacturer EPRO Inc in an exchange of shares.
Palm Computing Inc has announced PalmConnect, a fast, easy-to-use Windows connection product for Hewlett-Packard Co’s palmtop computers; developed in co-operation with Hewlett-Packard, PalmConnect features HotSync!, which automatically backs up and synchronises the palmtop computer with a Windows desktop computer, updating both with the user’s latest data; PalmConnect for Windows will be out in April for $130; system requirements are an 80386 computer, Windows 3.1; 4Mb RAM, 4Mb hard disk space, free serial port and an Hewlett-Packard 100LX or 200LX palmtop computer.
Toshiba Corp has brought to the US market its first notebook computer with an integrated 5.25 CD-ROM drive: the new Satellite Pro T2150 CD series is equipped with a hot plug for an external floppy disk drive, so users can simultaneously use a CD-ROM drive and a floppy disk drive; a higher-end model with active-matrix colour screen, which comes standard with a hard disk drive capacity of 520Mb is $4,900.
Bingham Farms, Michigan-based ALC Communications Corp completed the previously announced acquisition of ConferTech International Inc, Colorado provider of teleconferencing service and audio bridge equipment.
Hummingbird Communications Ltd has opened a sales and marketing office in Paris to increase its penetration in the European marketplace: in addition to its European headquarters in Geneva, it also has offices in Germany and here in UK.
Although Hewlett-Packard Co is not on the acquisition warpath, it is certainly not against making an acquisition that might make sense, chairman Lewis Platt told Bloomberg Business News, but Packard Bell Electronics Inc is not in its sights: I can honestly say we are not talking to them, he declared, adding I don’t know where the Packard Bell thing got started.
Microsoft Corp is working o
n a new Personal Digital Assistant operating system code-named Pegasus, due in 1996, PC Week reports: it will be a subset of Windows95 but will require a ridiculous 4Mb of memory; it will include wireless capabilities and a personal information manager, which can be synchronised with the desktop operating system.
Time Warner Inc is expected to become a shareholder in Interactive Digital Solutions Inc, the company established last year by AT&T Corp and Silicon Graphics Inc to develop software and servers for delivering video and interactive programming to homes and businesses: AT&T and Silicon Graphics were important partners in the development of the company’s Orlando, Florida test site, and investing in the company is seen as a means for Time Warner to recoup some of its big outlay.
The soaraway yen strikes again: Tooshiba Corp is to start transferring production of cathode ray tubes for monitors to Thailand this summer because making them in Japan is no longer competitive: Toshiba plans to make 1m 14 and 15 tubes at its Toshiba Display Devices (Thailand) Co factory in 1995; the plant was set up in 1988 to make colour tubes for television sets.
Commenting on its figures (page seven) Cap Volmac Groep NV says it is well-placed to benefit from a positive market trend in 1995, but that the development of new products would hold back the rate of profit growth, adding that the improvement in its 1994 results was achieved as a result of the reorganisation carried out in 1993, better market conditions and excellent results from the IP/Informatica and GimbrSre & Dohmen subsidiaries; it wants a link-up with a consultancy bureau and said its turnover in this segment could jump to 25% in two to three years from 14% now – it would like to work closely together with sister company Gemini Consulting or another consultancy firm; Cap Volmac is 58% owned by Cap Gemini Sogeti SA, which has 34% of Gemini Consulting.
Intel Corp should be able to write back some of that $306m in charges it took to cover the costs of the Pentium recall: about $150m was for trashing stocks of unsold flawed parts, but it appears that no more than 20% of users of old parts have asked for replacements, so up to $120m may go back into treasury.
Colorado Springs, Colorado-based ferro-electric memory pioneer Ramtron International Corp has cut 33 jobs, or 28% of its work force, in a reorganisation of manufacturing.
Entex Information Services Inc is the latest inward investment win for Ireland’s Industrial Development Authority: the Rye Brook, New York company will establish a European headquarters for technical training, support and network design in Dublin, creating over 100 jobs over four years in personal computer network design and implementation, systems maintenance and teleservice Help Desk assistance.
Microsoft Corp says it spent $600m on Asynchronous Transfer Mode-related activities in 1994, including the Tiger video server, and it plans to spend even more this year.
Word from the field is that ACT Group Plc’s ACT Management Services facilities management and disaster rocovery business has been sold ahead of completion of the acquisition of ACT by Misys Plc – a done deal with some 82% acceptances; most of the Management Services business went to Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA’s Syntax business, but some disaster recovery interests went to Sema Group Plc’s Cap RS venture.
DreamWorks SKG, the film studio formed by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg says Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen will invest $500m in it to become its biggest outside investor.
Compania de Telefonos de Chile SA, Santiago has changed its name to Compania de Telecomunicaciones de Chile SA so as to reflect the scope of its business more accurately.
Judge Harold Greene granted Bell Atlantic Corp the required waiver to allow it to provide video programming services across regional calling area boundaries, but analysts said the waiver was expected and was a small step
in a complex process to develop such a network; Pacific Telesis Group Inc and Nynex Corp were granted similar waivers.
Texas Instruments Inc has a device that gives voice to telephone Caller ID services: Spoken Caller ID enables the caller’s name to be announced over the subscriber’s receiver, enabling the subscriber to know the caller before deciding to accept or reject the call; the subscriber can then use spoken commands ands to take the call, refuse it with a pre-recorded message or route the call on to voice mail.
IBM Corp is still not saying whether it bid to increase its stake in Compagnie des Machines Bull SA, but Sequent Computer Systems Inc confirmed that while it considered bidding, in the end declined to make a bid, because it couldn’t come up with an arrangement that was satisfactory to us in the context of what the government and the other partners were looking for.
The Intel Philippines unit of Intel Corp is investing more than $350m on an expansion programme which in-cludes assembly and testing of the Pentium computer chip and Flash memory products (CI No 2,560): President Fidel Ramos hailed the project as one of the single biggest investments made in the country; Intel aims to double its value-added export sales to $117m by the the year end and over $156m by 1996. – o – Siemens AG expects sales in its automation division to grow 10% to the equivalent of $5,000m this fiscal, with orders also up about 10%: the division, which has cut its workforce about 10% in the past two years, will cut around 500 German jobs this year in the division, which develops and markets robots, control systems and other factory automation equipment, and is benefitting from an upswing in cylical sectors such as machinery, cars, electronics and chemicals.
France Telecom is expected to decide before the end of the month on a new supply contract for public switching systems, ending months of suspense at its main supplier Alcatel CIT SA, sources told Reuters: the new deal will be for one year only, will call for fewer phone lines than before, and will seek much lower prices; the only other contender for the business is Matra Ericsson Telecommunication SA.
Ricoh Co Ltd and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd have settled their dispute over facsimile machine patents and Samsung has agreed to pay licence fees to the Japanese company.
Welcome to the on-line revolution: according to the Financial Times, soaring demand for newsprint, which is being diverted to the Far East where buyers are prepared to pay more, has forced News International to curtail print runs of the Times, Today and the Sun by up to 15%.
