Wall Data Inc has invested $1.6m in SoftCop Corp, Burlington, Ontario, which develops software and provides of services to the software publishing industry, and which has a marketing deal with Wall Data.
Hewlett-Packard Co introduced the HP DeskJet 660C printer for Windows personal computers, and the DeskWriter 660C model for Apple Computer Inc’s Macintosh: they are aimed at the fireside market and are expected to sell for about $500; the DeskJet 660C replaces the DeskJet 560C, and the DeskWriter replaces the DeskWriter 560C model; the DeskJet 660C prints black at four pages per minute and colour at up to 1.5 pages – twice as fast as its predecessor, and the black print cartridge uses a new pigment-based ink that produces a richer black and smaller, more defined dots for sharper print, it said.
Eastman Kodak Co is offering comprehensive support on the lot for its high-volume copier customers that also have Xerox Corp copiers: it is initially offering the service in New York, Chicago and northern New Jersey but if there is enough interest, Kodak will expand the programme to other cities later this year, Dow Jones & Co reports.
The Cegelec SA arm of Alcatel Alsthom SA has finalised an agreement with AEG AG on a joint venture in industrial controls: Cegelec AEG Drive Systems will be 51% held by Cegelec and 49% by the German, taking assets from AEG and being managed by Cegelec; it has annual sales of nearly $1,000m and employs 3,700, mainly in Europe and the US.
Seagate Technology Corp chief executive Alan Shugart says robust worldwide demand for disk drives will likely outstrip the computer industry’s 1995 growth forecast of 20% and demand is so strong that Seagate may have to build more plants, he told Reuters: Seagate has invested $300m to expand its production capacity in the Asia-Pacific region in the last 30 months, and a new plant in Wuxi, China is expected to be operational later this year; another $135m facility catering to design, development and manufacturing, will also be operational in Singapore by the second quarter of next year and it has also started construction of a component-making plant in Malaysia; its target is now to double its annual turnover to $6,000m by 1999.
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire-based software house S&S International Plc has established a US division, S&S International Inc, in Burlington, Massachusetts and opened a sales office in California to support North American customers.
Tiny Singapore is beginning to spawn a host of ambitious home-grown companies – IPC Corp Ltd suddenly emerged on the world stage when it turned up on the list of bidders for a stake in Compagnie des Machines Bull SA, but Creative Technology Ltd, Aztech Technologies Ltd and Wearnes Group Pte Ltd were already well-known – and with a population that can trace roots all over Asia, it acts as a magnet for entrepreneurs whose home markets are too insular for their ambitions and one such is Arvind Agarwalla from Calcutta, who runs a business as rare as hens’ teeth in Asia – an international software company: according to the Wall Street Journal, Fact Software International Pte Ltd writes its real-time update accounting software for Windows-based personal computers in India but markets it from Singapore, where sales have risen to $1.8m, largely from the local and the Malaysian markets, from just $108,000 when it arrived in 1992, and Fact is looking for $7m this year; it is not saying, but the US market must be in its sights for entry in two or three years’ time.
Siemens AG reports that it has won a $300m order from Deutsche Post for 178 letter-sorting machines.
In a further earnest of its determination to make a success of its laptop and notebook computer business, Texas Instruments Inc has tapped Steve Lair, a key Toshiba Corp executive, to improve its notebook computer business: Lair is credited by industry executives as being a key figure in Toshiba’s rise to the top of the notebook computer market last year, and he will become Texas Instrument
s’s executive director for its mobile computing products.
Daimler-Benz AG’s Debis AG services unit has no ambitions to be a network operator: it will simply continue to be a services provider in the field of telecommunications.
Alcatel Bell SA, Belgian unit of Alcatel NV, says 1995 to 1996 could be more difficult than 1994: the level of orders in 1994 did not reach its objective, and some key markets, including China and Mexico are under pressure, while a fall in prices is hitting profit margins so turnover could be lower in 1995.
Informix Software Inc is preparing a new easy-to-use and install, two- to 32-user version of its parallel database called Informix-OnLine Workgroup Server, which it says will be ready for Windows NT in the fourth quarter, and for Santa Cruz Operation Inc’s Unix and UnixWare in the first half of next year.
Racal Network Services Ltd has been chosen by the UK water company Wessex Water Plc, to manage the utility’s voice and data network, in a three-year contract worth ú3m.
All the new communications media don’t help if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time: most Wall Street telecommunications analysts were severely wrong-footed by the MCI Communications Corp-News Corp Ltd deal – they were at a Sprint Corp briefing over in Kansas City.
