Seeking to make its peace with what appeared to be its bitter foes at its Learning Co Inc acquisition, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based SoftKey International Inc has hired Les Schmidt, formerly chief operating officer of Learning Co, for the new post of chief operating officer of SoftKey; Schmidt will take over North American sales and marketing and will continue to oversee educational product development, as he had already done at Learning Co.
South Korea’s LG Information & Communications Ltd and Naray Mobile Telecom Inc have joined an international consortium to invest in paging and radio systems in India: LG will have a 15% stake in the venture called Nice Telecom and Naray 10%; their partners are India’s SM Electronics & Services with 33%, Esquire Electronics Inc of the US with 32% and Koninklijke PTT Nederland NV with 10%; the venture will have total paid-in capital of $1.77m, LG said; it said that Nice Telecom will operate paging systems and trunked radio systems in India.
A Telecommunications Ministry official confirmed that three consortia, Polkomtel, Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa and C-Line have filed applications for Poland’s two available licences to build and operate a Groupe Speciale Mobile phone network: several companies had earlier withdrawn from the race for the licences following fears that Poland’s state phone company Telekomunikacja Polska SA may charge exorbitant rates for use of its terrestrial network to any cellular operator; the three consortia all have foreign partners; Polkomtel is 19.25% owned by Poland’s largest single oil refinery Petrochemia Plock, and three other companies, Poland’s large copper producer KGHM Polska Miedz AirTouch Communications Corp of the US and Tele Danmark A/S, also hold 19.25% each; the rest is with state electricity grid Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne, Stalexport SA, Weglokoks SA, Telenergo Sp zoo, Telbank SA and Bank Inicjatyw Gospodarczych BIG SA.
The Philippine state-owned National Power Corp plans to lease its fibre optic cable system to a group of new telecommunications players and says the $84m network being put up for its internal use may be leased to Telecommunications Infrastructure of the Philippines consortium, which is composed of ICC Telecom of Benpres Holdings Corp, Globe Telecom, Smart Communications Inc Metro Pacific Corp and Pilipino Telephone Corp; at present, only dominant player Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co has a nationwide telecommunication backbone; the 1,440 mile cable network between major cities, should be ready in a year.
AT&T Corp’s announcement that it will cut 40,000 jobs (CI No 2,821) is expected to be the first of many in the telecommunications industry, as it ushers in an age of greater competition, the Wall Street Journal suggested: analysts estimate that the regional Bell companies will have to cut 50,000 employees in the coming year; the seven Bells that provide local service have shed 130,000 jobs since 1984; GTE Corp, which also provides local telephone service, has eliminated about 20,000 jobs since 1994; greater competition is expected to lower prices, but companies, which will have to increase spending to enter new markets, would have to cut costs to reflect the lower prices; also, the telephone companies are expected to face competition from cable television operators, while phone companies are also investing in broadband networks to challenge the cable companies; improved technology, mergers and alliances should enable the companies to lower cuts and make gains in efficiency, the paper concluded.
Israel’s electronics exports in 1995 rose 14.5% to $4,300m, accounting for 73.5% of the industry’s sales, the Association of Electronics Industries said: total sales in 1995 rose 12.5% to $5,850m; the Association sees exports in 1996 growing 17% to $5,000m but said this forecast depended on a weakening of the shekel against the dollar; a strong shekel in 1995 prevented exports from rising further and hurt profitability; employment in the industry, which currently totals 39,200 wa
s up by 3% in 1995.
Capitalising on the growing mountains of old computer equipment, Digital Equipment Corp is turning techno-trash into treasure through a recovery programme, and already has a $15m to $40m business in salvaging and recycling parts and materials from old computers including cost savings from not carrying old inventory, Reuter reports: in 1995 there were already 26m personal computers ready for scrap worldwide, and that could reach 37m units by 1998; DEC said that for every three computers bought today, one is turned in for disposal and the ratio will rise to one for one in 10 years; old computers used to be dumped into the ocean or waste sites but the Federal Superfund programme started in the 1980s to try to curtail build-up of harmful waste made manufacturers more environmentally conscious; DEC keeps an audit trail of dismembered parts that can protect manufacturers from Superfund liability, since it decrees that a company whose products are dumped illegally can be held liable if the parts are traced back to them; DEC recycled 30m lbs in weight of computer-related equipment in fiscal 1995 to June and expects that figure to rise 10% to 20% annually until the year 2000.
Yes but… what kind of protest is that? – if that homosexual rights group is going to protest German attempts at censorship on the Internet buy pouring German beer down a sewer (CI No 2,823) won’t the group have bought the beer first?
