IBM Lotus Corp, a subsidiary of IBM Corp (it says here), has signed a software applications and development agreement with a computer institute affiliated with China Aerospace Corp, the Xinhua news agency said: the Peking Institute of Computer Application & Simulation Technology is the first Chinese partner of the Armonk, New York company although Lotus is of course in Cambridge: the two will co-operate on a number of projects involving development, application and sale of Lotus Notes and provide consultancy and training for Chinese customers.

Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire-based Madge NV now has definitive agreement for its acquisition of Lannet Data Communications Ltd: the agreement will see Madge paying $27.50 a share in Madge shares for Lannet, valuing the firm at $300m.

Hewlett-Packard Co is expected to add NextStep to its price list on its Precision Architecture RISC and iAPX-86 machines; the object-based operating system is currently supplied by NeXT Computer Inc itself.

Bedford, Massachusetts-based Computervision Corp has won a three-year service contract worth over $9m from Rover Group Plc: its consultants will help the British car maker accelerate and spread its use of Computervision software throughout the company and its suppliers.

Sequent Computer Systems Inc has won itself a tidy $6.7m contract with the UK Employment Service for six Symmetry SE70s, each configured with 12 100MHz Pentiums and 1Gb RAM: the systems will run a 90Gb CA-Ingres database engine, with two sets of three-node clustered SE70s.

Japanese trading giant Itochu Corp is to take a 1,5% stake in RPG Cellular Services Ltd, cellular operator formed by India’s RPG Group Pvt Ltd, 51%, Vodafone Group Plc 20% and Airtouch Communications Inc, 20%: New Delhi-based RPG Cellular Services starts offering cellular services in Madras in September.

NeXT Computer Inc has resolved its naming quandary: NeXTstep will become OpenStep for Mach 4.0 in its next major revision due in the first quarter of next year, around the same time as SunSoft Inc’s own fully-fledged OpenStep implementation dubbed Crescendo, is expected.

Digital Equipment Corp says there will be one or two more dot releases of its Digital Unix before the Spec 1170 version with a default Common Desktop interface appears: now slated for the first quarter of next year, what had been anticipated as Digital Unix 4.0 may also get ren umbered, the company declared.

So you’re feeling pretty peeved because you just installed Windows95 and it carefully went round your disk screwing up all your existing applications, which will no longer run under Windows 3.1 or Windows95, but Microsoft Corp knows just how you feel and has installed some fun stuff in the Funstuff directory to put the smile back on your face: there’s the Weezer video to Buddy Holly that dumps the group into the middle of Happy Days (no doubt chosen because it’s so fuzzy already that no-one will notice a bit of further degradation) and also folk-rocker Edie Brickell wandering the streets of New York with Barry White on back-ups, singing Good Times; there is also a 150 second trailer for the movie ‘Rob Roy starring Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange – but don’t look for Funstuff on the floppy version, it’s only included on the compact disk one.

Turns out that the 9020D air traffic control computer complexes are so small in today’s terms that mid-range – and superseded – IBM Corp 9121s are big enough to replace them: the US Federal Aviation Administration says it plans to buy 9121s for five air-traffic control centres that have had increasing problems in recent months as the antique 360s found the summer heat too much to take – 9121 computers will be installed at Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington, Cleveland and New York at a cost of about $65m, the Administrator said, although development of software and purchasing requirements could still delay installation of the new equipment until 1997, by which time 9121s will look decidedly ageing.

Mala

ysia is unusual among fast-developing countries in that it has a serious labour shortage, and it has told Indian businessmen that they are welcome to invest in the country if they bring high technology ventures requiring few workers, the Bernama news agency said; India is Malaysia’s largest trading partner in South Asia, with bilateral trade soaring by 56% last year to $945m.

America Online Inc and M/A/R/C Group Inc have formed a joint venture company called Digital Marketing Services Inc, which will offer on-line marketing and custom market research services: Direct Marketing will help advertisers reach America Online users, the companies said.

Dell Computer Corp is taking orders for its Dimension desktops with Windows95 preloaded, and will be shipping the systems on August 31.

The Megahertz Corp Salt Lake City subsidiary of US Robotics Corp launched the CruiseCard PC Card modems specifically designed for all PowerBooks made by Apple Computer Inc fitted with PC Card slots: the 14.4Kbps CruiseCard is $250 and the 28.8Kbps CruiseCard goes for $400.

Ambitious Nynex Corp may not quite be asclosesasthis to its southerly neighbour Bell Atlantic Corp, but the two have a number of major alliances on the go, so would Nynex perhaps like to acquire Bell Atlantic? According to Dow Jones & Co, Nynex chief executive Ivan Seidenberg, was asked the question last month and he dismissed it with They’re not big enough for us…