Pioneer Electronic Corp, long tipped as a Mac OS licensee is to announce its plans in Tokyo with Apple Computer Inc on Wednesday: it is expected to make Power Mac clones.
AST Research Inc has now confirmed that it is discussing with third parties, including Samsung Electronics Co, a potentially significant minority investment in AST and possible strategic business arrangements, but doesn’t intend to comment further until either agreement is reached or the talks are terminated: word has been that Samsung would pay $80m to $100m for a 20% stake in AST (CI No 2,585).
Mitel Corp shares have been bubbling of late as word gets out of the company’s plans to introduce a line of computer telephony devices to marry the telephone with the computer, and its expectation that it will reach a deal with a major personal computer maker on incorporating its telephony technology into its machines: the new Mitel product line could have a number of uses, including enabling data to be pulled up on the screen the instant a call comes in from a customer.
Milford, Ohio-based Structural Dynamics Research Corp is to cut another 70 jobs, including 39 at its Milford headquarters, and expects to record about $1m in restructuring charges against first quarter figures to cover the cost; the cuts should save about $3m in labour costs for a net savings in 1995 of about $2m before taxes, it said.
Westborough, Massachusetts-based Proteon Inc – figures in CI No 2,600 – says that while it expects to be modestly profitable in the current quarter, it expects profits substantially lower than the record net income from ongoing operations seen in the fourth quarter 1994.
Emeryville, California-based Sybase Inc and Powersoft Corp say shareholders of both approved the planned acquisition of Powersoft by Sybase at meetings on February 9 and completion is seen for today.
A spokesman for AT&T France finally confirmed that AT&T Corp has not submitted an offer with Quadral SA to take a stake in Compagnie des Machines Bull SA, although he didn’t exclude AT&T as a potential partner for Quadral, which has submitted an offer to buy 40% of Bull – as reported, AT&T conditioned its participation on getting equal access to the French telecommunications market (CI No 2,580).
Don’t hold your breath for Samsung Electronics Co to firm up plans for a memory chip plant in Europe – it is third on its list of investment matters after the US and further expansion in its home region, and we are looking at 1997 or 1998 – but the company told Bloomberg Business News that it has taken a cursory look at possible production sites in Germany, Spain and the UK – and is leaning towards the UK.
Andover, Massachusetts-based FTP Software Inc has agreement in principle to acquire Keyword Office Technologies Inc of Calgary, Alberta, for about $2.8m cash: Keyword develops protocol-independent document interchange and viewing software, including KEYpak, PostFAX, and KEYview, which provide support for files in electronic mail, Internet, document management, workgroup computing and client-server computing environments; Keyword will remain at its Calgary base.
Rochester, New Hampshire-based Cabletron Systems Inc says it plans to unveil its new framework for migrating users from traditional router-based internetworks to switched-based virtual networks at the Networks Expo 95 in Boston this week.
Network Systems Corp, faced with a minority of dissident shareholders, including at least one that has bought shares just to dissent, is determined to go ahead with the proposed acquisition by Storage Technology Corp, despite the fall in the latter’s share price since the deal was announced: it insists the deal is fair to, and in the best interests of, the Minneapolis company and its shareholders; its holders will now vote on March 7.
Omnitel-Pronto Italia SpA, the Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA-based cellular licence holder, says it hopes to have around 3m subscribers by 2000: Telecom Italia SpA, the state compan
y that has a monopoly until Omnitel gets its network built, already has over 2m subscribers; Omnitel hopes to have its phones on the market by the end of this year.
Hyundai Electronics Industries Co really has taken full control at Maxtor Corp, where its nominee, C S Park, has taken over as president and chief executive from Larry Smart, who resigned last week: Park has been corporate executive vice-president of Hyundai Electronics and head of its workstation maker, Axil Computer Inc, since 1993.
Fearless Provo, Utah-based Lantec Inc, which last week sued Novell Inc over its acquisition of Wordperfect Corp, alleging it to be anticompetitive (CI No 2,596), has now filed a notice in opposition to the proposed consent decree between Microsoft Corp and the US Department of Justice: Lantec asserts in its notice of joinder in the Microsoft case that, in addition to Novell’s unlawful merger with Wordperfect, the nature of the antitrust violations practised by Novell in the network operating systems market are similar to those asserted against Microsoft in the desktop operating systems market; it insists that both firms should be prevented from using their monopolies in their respective systems markets to compete unfairly with developers of applications.
Cable & Wireless Plc is in competition with only one other contender, Deutsche Telekom AG in the bidding to buy a 25% stake in PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia, Dow Jones & Co reports: known as Satelindo, the company was started two years ago with $50m, but has been valued at more than $2,000m by the suitors; Cable & Wireless is said to have bid $540m, and Deutsche Telekom originally bid less, but then increased its differently structured bid to value it at more than $600m; Nynex Corp and France Telecom have apparently now both been seen off.
The US government has charged 17 people with using confidential information about AT&T Corp’s plans to acquire four companies between 1988 and 1993 to make $2.6m in illegal profits by trading in the shares of the targets – NCR Corp, Paradyne Corp, Digital Microwave Corp – that one was aborted before any announcement had been made – and Teradata Corp: a US grand jury indicted six men, including a former AT&T employee, on 16 counts of securities fraud, and a civil lawsuit was brought by the Securities & Exchange Commission charging 17 people including the six criminal defendants, with insider trading.
Eunetcom GmbH, the telecommunications services and management joint venture between Deutsche Bundesport Telekom and France Telecom, expects turnover to hit $100m in 1995 with around 5% coming from the Asia-Pacific region, but Asia is expected to contribute 20% to 30% within the next few years and will expand into the emerging markets in the region.
Linguistic inflation seems to have stalled with the absurd verb ‘to leverage’, which was no doubt created because to lever didn’t sound important enough – but why stop at leveraging when you can inflate to leverageationing and then on to leverageationicitying? Not in Computergram you don’t…
