The pattern set by Sybase Inc looks as if it is going to be followed all over the place this reporting season: Convex Computer Corp’s shares plunged more than 25% after the company said first-quarter results would fall below analysts’ estimates and the shares shed $1.625 at $4.75 in early trading yesterday; the company had warned that sales for the quarter were expected to about $35m, 20% above the first quarter of 1994 but below the previous quarter’s results, and that this could result in a loss of about 35 cents per share compared with a loss of 62 cents per share in the first quarter of 1994; analysts had forecast a loss of only 11 cents a share for the company; it said shipments of the Convex C4 product line had been disappointing after a strong 1994 fourth quarter.
Chipcom Corp responded to heavy trading in its shares by saying it expects its first quarter earnings per share to range between $0.44 and $0.46 on revenues of about $86m, and that in the year-ago quarter, Chipcom reported earnings of $1.9m, or $0.16 a share, after a $5.1m charge, and that sales were $51.9m; what it doesn’t say is that its forecast profits are shy of the 47 cents a share reported for the fourth quarter, and that it has slammed into the buffers on growth – sales were $82.9m last quarter; the shares had been off $4 at $31.50 ahead of the announcement.
Huntsville, Alabama-based contract manufacturer SCI Systems Inc built many of IBM Corp’s earliest personal computers and still manufactures for the company in Scotland: it says it has executed an agreement with an element of an existing domestic customer to produce a new family of computer products, adding that the customer is a large multinational who will not be named; initial order releases in excess of $100m have been received, all of which sounds as if the IBM Power Personal Systems Division has signed SCI Systems to make its first PowerPC personal computers, limiting the risk in case they flop – but we wouldn’t go so far as to put the housekeeping money on it.
AirTouch Communications Inc says it will have substantial capital needs in 1995: with its triple-B-plus implied credit rating from Standard & Poor’s Ratings Group, the cellular operator can support about $2,000m in debt in 1995 and expects to put a fairly large bank facility in place soon, with access to the public markets not far behind.
Ma Bell and two of her orphans are squabbling bitterly: SBC Communications Inc has filed suit accusing AT&T Corp of stifling competition, while AT&T made a similar charge against Bell Atlantic Corp; SBC wants AT&T prevented from using the 1982 antitrust settlement to quash competition as the Bells try to get into the long-distance business, and AT&T filed a countersuit against Bell Atlantic alleging that it tried to stifle competition in the local toll-call business in violation of federal and state antitrust laws; it is in response to a Bell Atlantic lawsuit seeking to block AT&T from advertising discounted rates for local toll calls.
Sun Microsystems Inc and Oracle Corp announced a marketing agreement for selling Oracle client-server database software for use on Sun’s Sparcserver and Sparcstation computers and personal computers: the plan calls for SunIntegration to become customers’ single point of contact for buying and getting support for the full range of Oracle client-server database and enterprise management software offerings for the Sparc machines and personal computers; the two companies will also be offering a range of products for transaction processing and decision support systems.
Koniklijke PTT Nederland NV reports that it now has 100,000 subscribers for its digital cellular network, up from 75,000 on January 1; it also has 360,000 on its analogue net.
Tandy Corp will open a 185,000 sqaure foot Incredible Universe in the greater Charlotte, North Carolina market by the end of 1995: it has nine, and eight more are now scheduled to be opened this year.
Sunnyvale, California-based ParcPlace Systems I
nc warns that it expects to report fourth quarter profits of between $0.01 and $0.04 a share on sales of about $9.8m, compared with $0.12 a share on sales of $8.0m this time last year.
Mercury Communications Ltd is outsourcing its director inquiries service to Excell Agent Services Inc under a three-year agreement: staff working on contract for Mercury at its Glasgow directory assistance centre will transfer to Excell but Mercury says it will continue to develop and market directory services and also provide international directory services and the other operator services.
S’pose that means the band Half Man Half Biscuit will have to change its name to Half Man Half Wafer if it’s still around: Sun Microsystems Inc’s head of research Michael Deering tells today’s edition of Computing that a new breed of hybrid humans – part human being, part computer – may be more than science fiction, and that chip-grafting could create such hybrid humans; Stanford University has already grafted silicon chips into the legs of rabbits, Deering says, and prisoners in some Scandinavian jails have volunteered to take part in research assessing how chip grafting works on humans… haven’t they heard of heart pacemakers?
Hewlett-Packard Co’s mid-range light emitting diode printer, the HP 5000 Model C40D launched the other day (CI No 2,638), comes from Boulder, Colorado-based Kentek Information Systems Inc; to the basic high speed printer Hewlett-Packard adds compatibility to its LaserJet printers and an internal hard disk; the C40D is part of the D class of the HP 5000 line of printers and has print speeds of up to 40 pages a minute; the S-class high-end models in the line, available since 1991, are also a light-emitting diode printers and go to 210 pages a minute for continuous feed paper, and are supplied OEM by Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG.
Australia’s Telstra Corp Pty Ltd is investing $60m to lay a fibre optic cable that will connect Vietnam with Thailand and Hong Kong under a 10-year agreement signed with Vietnam Posts & Telecommunications.
Remember the IBM Corp envelopes saga a year ago, when chief financial officer Jerome York was finally energised to get to grips with the fact that the company had four classifications of confidential envelopes – IBM Internal Use Only, IBM Confidential, IBM Confidential Restricted, and Registered IBM Confidential (that actually meant Top Secret, cleverly disguised so that only IBMers would know it), and two sizes for each level of security – to meet its requirement of 4m envelopes a year, plus a rule book to spell out which level of bureaucracy had access to each level of confidentiality? York finally blew his top when he received a particularly tame memo sealed in an IBM Confidential Restricted envelope, and 12 months later, IBMers finally have only one category of secrecy – IBM Confidential, and only one size of envelope – but why did it take so long? Well the old envelope contract didn’t run out until July and then a migration plan had to be set up to help employees declassify hundreds of electronic documents – and anyway, notes Dow Jones & Co, it is going to take a while to use up all the old envelopes…
