General Instrument Corp turned to Microware Systems Corp, Des Moines, Iowa for its OS/9-derived David television set-top box operating system after Microsoft Corp fell behind schedule in developing such an operating system itself and the project has been shelved: General Instrument, Microsoft and Intel Corp teamed up two years ago with a view to creating an 80386-based second-generation box by the middle of last year (CI No 2,143); Microsoft, which was unable to make its first attempt at Modular Windows work satisfactorily, is working on a new version, Dow Jones & Co says.
Harris Corp president Phil Farmer told Reuters the electronics and defense contracting company expects a very good fourth quarter for three of its four business sectors, which would push fiscal 1995 earnings to the highest level in five years: analysts are going for between $3.80 and $3.93 a share for the fiscal year to June 30, up from $2.82 per share last year, and I’d be very disappointed if we weren’t in the upper part of that range, said Farmer; We expect profits to grow faster than sales in fiscal 1996, he added; of Harris’s four business units, only its electronics systems operations have failed to improve this year; Farmer blamed the weakness on slower-than-expected development of a new electronic controller for electricity firms.
Ingram Micro Inc, the big Santa Ana, California distributor has teamed up with ITT Commercial Finance to form Resellers Credit Corp which will provide customised financial services to resellers, enabling them to improve their cash flow and designed to provide them with new opportunities to expand their businesses – and has also formed Ingram Financial Services Co, which will manage additional credit and financing programmes, which include accounts receivable management, bad debt management and a Repurchase Support programme; initially, Resellers Credit will offer an Asset Based Lending and Purchase Order Financing programme, the first being designed for corporate and value-added resellers with annual sales in the $1m to $10m range, which Ingram finds are not serviced by traditional industry financing sources or banks; they will get 100% financing on all inventory purchases, and up to 85% financing on accounts receivables; the Purchase Order programme is for smaller resellers that get the odd chance to make big sales to a large end user, and the financial standing of the end user as well as the reseller, is reviewed for credit approval, and if all is well, Resellers Credit will finance 100% of the sum, interest-free for 45 days.
Alcatel Alsthom SA says it is prepared to invest up to $1,000m in Brazil in telecommunications and basic infrastructure in coming years, adding that it is confident about Brazil’s future: chief executive Franois de Laage de Meux said Brazil must expand and improve its infrastructure, especially telecommunications, energy generation and highways, railways and urban transport systems, all areas in which the French giant is active.
As planned, RasterOps Inc is to ask shareholders to approve a formal change of name to Truevision Inc: the Santa Clara company’s primary focus will be to compete in the desktop digital video market with its cross-system video processing and authoring products, and will maintain the RasterOps brand name for a product line that will consist of high-performance, high-value graphics acceleration products.
China’s computer industry is expected to grown by 35% this year, the Information Centre of the Ministry of Electronics Industry said: about 1m personal computers are expected to be sold on the domestic market this year, the Xinhua news agency quoted analysts at the centre as saying, with 80486 machines taking 64% of the market, the Pentium 5%; 80386 machines are expected to take 30%, which seems to leave just 1% for Apple Computer Inc and anyone else not using iAPX-86 chips.
The good news is that the thing runs for 15 hours between charges, the bad is that it costs $400: Smyrna, Georgia-based AER Energy Reso
urces Inc says it has done a version of its long run-time rechargeable zinc air battery for Toshiba Corp’s portable computers: the AER Energy PowerPro offers 150 Watt-hours; it is designed to power several models of Toshiba’s current portable line for up to 15 continuous hours between charges.
Morris Plains, New Jersey-based Physician Computer Network Inc has acquired the assets of privately-held Practice Management Systems Inc, Needham, Massachusetts, on undisclosed terms: the deal gives Physician access to some 53,000 office-based physicians – Practice Management, with over 6,000 doctors using its software, is regarded as a premier vendor of information systems designed for physicians.
Spectrum Information Technologies Inc has decided that John Sculley’s choice of Manhasset for the corporate headquarters was too lavish, and is decamping to cheaper quarters in Purchase, New York; its Spectrum Global unit also leaves Manhasset, moving to Lake Success.
Tandem Computers Inc has signed up Moscow-based value added reseller IBS which will market Tandem’s computer systems to Russian banks.
I happened to stop by the OS/2 Warp shoot-out booth when Bill Gates and a couple of Microsofties walked up to see what was going on, a Comdex/Spring gossip told PC Week’s repository for chit-chat: after looking on for a minute or two, they went on to check out the new ThinkPads and just moments after walking away, the OS/2 demo machine in the shoot-out area that was closest to Gates completely locked up and had to be rebooted.
