Internet service provider Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc, San Jose says it now has 400,000 subscribers. It signed 81,500 new subscribers in the quarter to March 31, up 27% from the previous quarter.
One third of US adults over the age of 55 own a personal computer, and 28% use either the Internet or one of more of the proprietary on-line services regularly, according to SeniorNet, the San Francisco-based on-line education and training organization. That compares with just 11% of all US households that were found by other surveys to both own a computer and go on line.
SCI Systems Corp, the Huntsville, Alabama contract manufacturer that is buying Apple Computer Inc’s Fountain, Colorado factory, has already built Macintosh Power 100, Power 120 and PowerWave clones for Power Computing Corp. And MacWeek speculates that as well as building the real thing for Apple under that three-year contract (CI No 2,889), the plant will now also build Mac clones for designers that use SCI.
Siebe Plc has sold a majority interest in Ramon Knitting Co for for #3m including repayment of debt under a management buyout. Ramon manufactures and distributes cleaning cloths and related home care products, and the disposal is part of Siebe’s strategy of selectively divesting of non-core businesses.
Motorola Inc says that while it is delaying some of its long-term projects to expand its semiconductor manufacturing capacity, it has not canceled any proposed plants.
A Seattle company, Windup Technology Ltd, has launched Briton Trevor Baylis’s BayGen Freeplay clockwork radio to the US at $150, touting it as just the thing for people living in areas where hurricanes and tornados are liable to put the lights out, whereupon you always find the radio batteries are flat. The radio, made by BayGen Power Ltd of Cape Town, South Africa, is of course designed for use countries where the cost of batteries means many people cannot afford to run a radio – 30 seconds of winding is good for 40 minutes of music or talk. Windup says BayGen has other products in development, including a clockwork torch – flashlight – and a clockwork Walkman-style radio, but a clockwork laptop sounds nice.
