Newsbytes - Internationa…ews 1983 May to 1994 June/Newsbytes - International Computing Industry News 1994 Edition - May 1983 - June 1994 - Wayzata Technologies (5045) (1994).iso/pc/text/mac_text/1990/nb900831

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(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(BRU)(00001)

TECHNOLOGY STOCKS: Market Report, Friday Aug 31
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Wall Street
finally broke its four-day winning streak and fell, something
that is normally reserved for Mondays. The Dow Jones Industrial
average fell to 2593.23, down 39.11 for the day. The average
had risen by 17.58 on Wednesday.

The situation in the Middle East kept things quiet on the
Eastern front, but blue chips fared badly with IBM falling by
$2.125 to $101.75, AT&T down $1 to $31.50 and Nynex down
$1.375 to $70. Bell Atlantic fell by $2 to $41.125.

On the OTC market, include MCI Communications, down $1.675 to
$31.75, Microsoft down $2.375 to $60.50, a far cry from the
$70 level with which the company has been flirting. Intel is down
67.5 cents to $35 and Apple Computer is down 87.5 cents to
$37.25. 3Com took a dive and ended down $3.875 to $8.75.
Apparently the company is experiencing financial problems and
is extremely volatile.

Other issues include Oracle Systems down 75 cents to $11.675 and
Novell down $1 to $49.50.

(John Verhelst/19900831)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(BRU)(00002)

TECHNOLOGY STOCKS: Quarterly Results, Friday Aug 31
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Companies
in the news this week include: SULCUS COMPUTER, WARRANTECH,
ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY:

[] Trading was halted and later resumed on SULCUS Computer
pending certain news from the company. The price at the halt
was bid $1.125, ask $1.375. Later in the day, good news
about the financial state of the company arrived and stock
trading resumed.

[] WARRANTECH announced that the company's common stock
has been approved for trading in the NASDAQ national market
system, commencing on Tuesday, September 4. The company's
stock market price will be available in publications
such as Wall Street Journal, Newsbytes' business reports, and
in various National Market Systems listings. The company
administers service contracts for consumer electronic
products and home office equipment.

[] ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY acquires ACT II for $4.5 million. This
will add about $11 million in ACT sales to the financial
balance of ET which makes consolidated revenue stand at $21
million. Income would be in the range of about 70 cents per
share. The company manufactures high quality electronic
assemblies.

(John Verhelst/19900831)


(NEWS)(IBM)(TYO)(00003)

OKI LAUNCHES AX NOTEBOOK AND COLOR LAPTOP COMPUTERS
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Oki Electric Industry has
released an AX, or Japanese IBM PC/AT-compatible PC line-up --
the 32-bit notebook-sized "if NOTE" and the 32-bit color laptop
"if386 AX51LC."

if NOTE comes with a 16 megahertz 386SX central processor, which
is faster than the 12 megahertz 386SX, the NEC 98NOTE SX.
Optional extension units enable it to be configured
to several systems, including networks, the company says.

Like Toshiba's Dynabook computers, there is a resume
function which returns a user to the exact spot in the exact
application that was onscreen when the unit was turned off.

The display is a backlit, paper white 8-gradation
LCD (liquid crystal display) with a resolution of 640 by 480
pixels. For those who wish to see their data in color, the
computer can be connected to a color CRT (cathode ray tube)
monitor, also of AX architecture, Oki claims. An optional modem
is available for the machine. The fully charged battery runs the
computer for about 1.2 hours. The machine is the size of an
A4 file folder, and weighs about 3 kilograms.

Prices range from 238,000 to 398,000 yen ($1,600 and $2,700)
depending on disk drive options and main memory capacity, as
well as the display.

Shipments start at the end of October, and Oki expects to
sell 20,000 units in the first year, mainly to corporate users.

The color laptop if386 AX5LC has a high-quality and
high-contrast backlit TFT (thin film technology) color display
with a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels. The number of
displayed colors can be switched by one touch to either
16 or 8 colors from a palette of 64 colors. The central
processor is a 16-megahertz, no-wait 386DX, and an optional
numeric coprocessor 387DX can be inserted. The color laptop
comes with a 3.5-inch 40-megabyte hard disk with disk cache
and a standard 2-megabyte main memory expandable to a
maximum of 4 megabytes.

The price for the color laptop is 1,100,000 yen ($7,300).
Oki starts shipping at the end of November, and expects to
sell 3,000 the first year.

(Ken Takahashi/19900830/Press Contact: Oki Electric Industry,
03-501-3111)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TYO)(00004)

PIONEER/IBM TO SELL LASERDISK PLAYERS IN U.S.
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Pioneer Communications of
America (PCA), one of the wholly owned U.S.-based subsidiaries
of Pioneer, has signed a partnership agreement with IBM.
The deal calls for IBM to sell Pioneer's industrial laserdisc
(LD) players under the Pioneer brand name to its customers.

While IBM has received industry-use LD players from PCA for its
touch-screen interactive systems, this time IBM will sell
interactive systems which include the LD player. Since the
LD players will be sold under Pioneer brand name, PCA will
take care of shipment and servicing for purchasers.

The alliance allows IBM to offer complete interactive systems for
business and training to its customers. IBM customers will
be able to extend their multimedia systems by connecting the
LD players, a convenience which the two firms expect will
increase sales of multimedia equipment.

The IBM deal will enable PCA to expand its distribution. PCA
sells industry and business use picture instruments, optical
memory products, CATV (cable television) instruments, via
its own distribution channels in the U.S.

(Ken Takahashi/19900830)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TOR)(00005)

NEW PRODUCT: Printer Link Works Over Electrical Wiring
RESTON, VIRGINIA, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- The United States
office of GEC-Marconi Software Systems has acquired North
American rights to a printer connection that sends signals over
electrical wiring.

The Verran DataLink and Dedicated Printer Sharer (DPS) were
launched in the United Kingdom last year and were later
introduced to the rest of Europe, GEC-Marconi's general manager,
Susan Boers, told Newsbytes. GEC-Marconi is "just ramping up now"
to sell them in North America.

Connecting a computer and a printer requires two DataLinks, each
about the size of a portable compact disk player. The devices are
not limited to personal computers, Boers said, but can be used
with almost any computer. The DataLink can be connected to a
serial or parallel port.

To communicate, two DataLinks must be plugged into the same
electrical circuit. The devices should be within 100 meters (300
feet) of each other, Boers said.

The DPS allows as many as seven computers to share a single
printer. It also acts as a print spooler.

Boers said the technology is essentially the same as that used in
"smart home" devices that let a computer control home appliances
through devices plugged into electrical outlets.

The Datalink sells for US$345, while the DPS is priced at US$395.

GEC-Marconi is a subsidiary of General Electric of Great Britain.

(Grant Buckler/19900828/Press Contact: Susan Boers, GEC-Marconi,
703-648-1551; Jenny Young, KSK Communications for GEC-Marconi,
703-734-1880)


(NEWS)(IBM)(TOR)(00006)

NEW PRODUCT: Indigo Ships JetForm Server for OS/2
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Indigo Software has
begun shipping its client-server forms software for OS/2 LAN
Server 1.2. JetForm-Server for OS/2 joins an existing DOS version
of the product.

Eight-year-old Indigo launched its first forms product in 1985,
and unveiled the first of the JetForm line in October, 1988,
spokesman Barry Gillespie told Newsbytes.

JetForm-Server monitors a system for forms data submitted by
users. When it receives data, it select the correct form and
fills it out. The server software works with Indigo's
JetForm-Design, JetForm-Filler and JetForm-Merge software.

JetForm-Server for OS/2 has a suggested retail price of US$995.
The DOS LAN version has the same price.

(Grant Buckler/19900827/Press Contact: Barry Gillespie, Indigo
Software, 613-594-3026)


(NEWS)(IBM)(TOR)(00007)

NEW PRODUCT: Toronto Firm Aims 486 At Multi-User, CAD Markets
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- 3D Microcomputers
has announced the IPC-486 personal computer, a tower-style system
using a 25-megahertz Intel 80486 microprocessor.

Chuck Yeung, 3D's vice-president of marketing, told Newsbytes he
expects the system to sell mainly as a multiuser machine and to
users who need its power for computer-aided design (CAD) work. 3D
will ship the machine with the MS-DOS operating system, but said
it will also run OS/2 or Unix System V.

The IPC-486 is available now in Canada. Yeung said the company is
"not geared up" as yet to sell the machine in the United States,
though 3D does have two offices in California. These offices are
concentrating on reselling components at present, he said, but 3D
hopes to launch the IPC-486 in the United States in about three
months.

In Canada, 3D has six branch offices across the country, with a
seventh scheduled to open later this year, Yeung said. The
company's subsidiary Evertek Manufacturing builds the IPC-486
machine.

The IPC-486 comes with one full-height and six half-height drive
bays, 230-watt power supply, one parallel and two serial ports,
eight expansion slots and a VGA monitor and adapter. Four
megabytes of RAM, a 180-megabyte hard disk and 1.2-megabyte and
1.44-megabyte diskette drives are included in the standard
configuration, priced at C$7,200.

(Grant Buckler/19900828/Press Contact: Chuck Yeung, 3D
Microcomputers, 416-494-5250)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(TOR)(00008)

NEW PRODUCT: NCR Unveils SCSI Laser Printer
DAYTON, OHIO, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- NCR has launched a
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) laser printer that it says
can print 15 pages per minute.

The printer is compatible with the HP LaserJet line, using the
HP-PCL-5 page description language, said John Ast, director of
printer products for NCR. He said the unit is aimed at
departmental and network situations and is intended more for
standard office printing than for desktop publishing.

The key to the printer's speed is the SCSI interface, Ast told
Newsbytes. The SCSI is designed to operate up to seven times
faster than a standard parallel port and 100 times faster than RS
232 serial port, according to NCR.

Now available, the NCR 6436-0301 SCSI Laser Printer has a
suggested list price of $7,995.

(Grant Buckler/19900827/Press Contact: Patty Dan, NCR,
513-445-5236)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00009)

SOUTHWESTERN BELL OPENS SMALL BUSINESS ADVISORY PANEL
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Southwestern
Bell has started an advisory panel of small businesspeople to
help it meet their needs. The company said it has 660,000 small
business customers, representing 93 percent of the company's
business total, and 50 percent of SWBT's $2.2 billion annual
business revenues.

SWBT defines a small business as having one to six business
lines at a single location.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19900827/Press Contact: Scott Hilgeman,
Southwestern Bell Telephone, 314-247-4613


(NEWS)(IBM)(ATL)(00010)

NEW FOR IBM: Samna Announces SmartText Document Construction Set
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Samna has said it
will release SmarText early in September. SmarText is a new
application for creating and accessing reference materials.

The program creates software documents that are easier and more
efficient to read, search, maintain, update, and customize for
specific audiences. The program analyzes documents to assemble
outlines, indices and hypertext links to let readers locate
information quickly and easily. Its Microsoft Windows 3.0
interface lets text, pictures and graphics be presented in a
traditional printed book metaphor. Readers simply double-click on
the topic or word they want to locate within text and SmarText
displays it on-screen.

The SmarText Builder, which creates documents from a variety of
text and graphic files, costs $495. The SmarText Reader, which
lets users access created by Builder, costs $99. The program
converts documents of up to 2 gigabytes of size, working at a
conversion rate of 300 text pages per hour. It supports ASCII
text as well as file formats from Ami, Ami Professional,
Microsoft Word and WordPerfect. Graphics files supported include
.PCX, .TIFF and .BMP.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19900827/Press Contact: Beverly McDonald, for
Samna, 404-876-4482)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(EWR)(00011)

NEW FOR MACINTOSH: Word Processor File Conversion Utility
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- The publisher of
popular file-conversion utility for the MS-DOS world has shipped a
Macintosh version of its product.

Word For Word/Mac supports more than 25 different word-processing
formats, including five Macintosh formats, said Lise Lambert, VP
marketing for Mastersoft.

The Macintosh product, released as version 1.2, does not use the
Apple File Exchange (AFE) program, supplied as system software with
the Mac. The market-leading MacLink Plus conversion utility is sold
on the Macintosh as a set of conversion filters that work with AFE.
In addition, MacLink Plus also converts data and graphics files,
while Word For Word/Mac only works with word processing files.

"What we're finding is that while every user has AFE," Lambert told
Newsbytes, "many users don't like it. There are some advantages to
using a stand-alone program. You can do batch translations very
simply and very quickly."

Mastersoft, active in the OEM market, has been selling Mac
translation modules for over a year and a half, Lambert said. They
will shortly appear in the company's MS-DOS product.

Word For Word/Mac retails for $149.

(Daniel J. Rosenbaum/19900830/Press Contact: Lise Lambert,
Mastersoft: 203 264 9490)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(SFO)(00012)

MICROSOFT FORMS CONSULTING SERVICE
REDMOND, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Microsoft says
it has formed a consulting service to help corporations
build complex information systems with Microsoft products.

Information Technology Integration Services (ITIS), is
headed by Robert L. McDowell, formerly a partner and national
director of strategic business systems consulting at Ernst
and Young. The new group will perform executive education,
planning, design, custom development, and systems and applications
support.

(Wendy Woods/19900831/Press Contact: Kathryn Hinsch, Microsoft,
206/882-8080)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SFO)(00013)

HP SHIFTS EMPHASIS OF ENGINEERING DIVISION
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- HP says
it is changing its strategy within its Engineering Applications
Group (EAG) to focus software development on the mechanical-
engineering and data-management markets and phase out
development of HP's proprietary electronic-design-automation
(EDA) software.

HP says Mechanical Design Division (MDD), which creates
applications for mechanical computer-aided-design (ME-CAD) and
product-information management, will operate as an independent
software division, effective immediately.

It will have a dedicated sales force and will be free to make
its products available on any hardware platform, HP says.
The division's software is available today on Intel 386- and
486-based computers that use the MS-DOS operating system in
addition to the HP workstation family.

The Electronic Design Division (EDD), following a new release
of EDA software planned a fall release, will undergo a two-year
transition away from developing its proprietary EDA software in
favor of strengthening relationships with third-party companies.

HP says the transition will mean lay-offs at the 165-person
EDD, which is based in Fort Collins and has operations in
Colorado Springs, Colo.

HP said today's announcement reflects the momentum of the open-
systems movement, a computer-industry trend of which HP is one
of the industry's most aggressive proponents.

"Our customers are making separate buying decisions for hardware
and software," said William G. Parzybok, HP vice president and
general manager of EAG. "They want software that runs on
multiple types of hardware as well as industry-standard
hardware that operates in networks of different types of computers."

MDD, based in Boeblingen, West Germany, has operations
in Fort Collins, Colo., will continue focusing on ME-CAD and
product-information-management software.

(Wendy Woods/19900831/Press Contact: Paul Reese, HP,
303/229-4421)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(WAS)(00014)

ROUNDUP: Stories Carried By Other Media This Week
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Roundup is a brief
look at some computer stories carried in other publications
received here this past week.

Wednesday's Wall Street Journal carried a short note saying that
Hewlett-Packard is replacing free-of-charge all the defective
power supplies on 70,000 of its LaserJet IIP printers sold since
last fall.

Also in that issue of the Journal is a story questioning the
ability of Steven P. Jobs to infuse some life into his expensive
NeXT computer with the expected introduction of a new model.

The September 15th anniversary issue of Byte has comments by 63
major figures in the computer industry from Seymour Papert (Logo)
to Rear Admiral (Ret.) Grace Murray Hopper (COBOL).

August 27th's Computerworld reports that Virginia Polytechnic
Institute will require all incoming computer science students to
purchase a Commodore Amiga 3000 running AT&T's Unix System V.4, a
changeover from a three-year standardization on Macintosh
computers running Apple's AU/X version of Unix.

This week's issue of Computerworld also carries a story reporting
findings by two University of Evansville (Indiana) assistant
professors, Douglas Covert and Caroline Dow, that the 16
kilohertz audio tone which some monitors emit may cause
considerable annoyance, especially to women workers, resulting in
a drop in efficiency. Women can normally hear slightly higher
sound frequencies than men of the same age.

Monday's WSJ reports that some analysts see possible
profitability for Data General since a 17 percent staff cut.

(John McCormick/19900829)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00015)

AT&T ANNOUNCES NEW CONTRACTS
BASKING RIDGE, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- AT&T
has released details of some of its new networking contracts
with Avis, Caterpillar, ITT and Textron.

Avis Rent-A-Car signed a 5-year, $35 million contract for a
custom voice and data network, linking its rental locations with
its reservations center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Caterpillar gave AT&T
a 5-year, $25 million contract to link over 100 domestic and
international locations, including manufacturing plants,
dealerships, marketing offices and distribution centers in Hong
Kong, Singapore, Japan and Australia. ITT signed a 3-year
contract under which AT&T will provide a customized voice and
data communications network linking 850 offices worldwide, valued
at a minimum of $37.7 million over three years. Calling card
services are also included. Finally, Textron signed a 3-year
contract for an undisclosed price to provide service at 500
locations in 40 states. A Textron executive estimated the
contract will save his company $2.5 million per year.

An AT&T spokesman denied the news releases were in response to
Sprint's recent ad blitz, and said the releases were routinely
done in conjunction with customer representatives. "It's just
that these all came through the same day," he said.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19900831/Press Contact: Bob Garnet, AT&T,
212-605-7460)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00016)

GENERAL DATACOMM, MCI EXTEND SUPPLY AGREEMENT
MIDDLEBURY, CONNECTICUT, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- General
DataComm extended its supply agreement with MCI for two years,
under which it supplies a range of networking management
equipment to the #2 long-distance phone company.

Included are data sets, T-1 and time division multiplexers,
network management devices, and modems. GDC estimates the
value of the extension to be in the $5-100 million dollar range.
Of that amount, $3-5 million dollars of equipment has already
been ordered, with more anticipated for shipment to MCI by
December.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19900831/Press Contact: Theresa A. Carpentieri,
General DataComm, 203-574-1118)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00017)

DEALERS OFFER US SPRINT LONG DISTANCE
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- US Sprint
announced two new sales agency agreements -- one with
USTeleCenters and one with Premier Telecom Products.

First, USTeleCenters has become an authorized sales agency
offering its long distance services. USTeleCenters, a
telecommunications company based in Boston, Massachusetts,
not affiliated with Sprint parent United Telecom, serves the
Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. The company will sell
Sprint Dial One service, as well as the Sprint Plus, Dial
One WATS, FONline 800, Ultra WATS, and Ultra 800 calling plans.

Second, Premier Telecom Products, which manufactures
telecommunications products for other firms, signed a contract to
sell US Sprint long distance services through its Premier dealer
network. Premier is owned by North Supply, a United Telecom
company which also owns Sprint. It has 170 dealerships.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19900831/Press Contact: US Sprint, Cheryl
Sherman, 816-276-6284; USTeleCenters, Brian Bogosian, 617/439-
9999; Premier Telecom Products, Sally Stanton, 913/791-7000)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00018)

SPRINT HANDLING VIDEO CONFERENCING DEALS WITH U.S.
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- US Sprint signed
agreements to obtain video conferencing services and equipment so
it can offer video conferencing to the U.S. government under the
FTS-2000 contract it shares with AT&T. A Sprint spokesman said
the company can also offer the services to other agencies, like
the U.S. Congress, not covered by that contract.

Cooperative marketing agreements were signed with Compression
Labs and Videoconferencing Systems, the only two existing
suppliers of broadcast-quality video conferencing codecs, so
Sprint can provide the service using its existing lines.

Facilities and conference rooms will be supplied through Midwest
Communications and Systems Integration Group. US Sprint also will
cooperate with GTE Spacenet in a wideband video demonstration of
the technology for the Internal Revenue Service. US Sprint will
make available up to 36 hours of transmission time during the 60-
day trial, and GTE Spacenet will provide one mobile uplink
antenna and 18 temporary downlink receivers for the IRS
nationwide test, starting September 18. Sprint hopes the
demonstration convinces the IRS to make regular use of the
technology.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19900831/Press Contact: Vince Hobanek, 202-857-
1030)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00019)

PEOPLES TELEPHONE WINS TWO PAY PHONE CONTRACTS
MIAMI, FLORIDA, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Peoples Telephone
Company, the largest company in the business of maintaining pay
phones and collecting change from them, signed two 5-year
contracts: one with the Metropolitan Atlanta Transit Authority
and one with Emro Marketing.

The first is with the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority,
for 338 pay-telephones in Atlanta subway stations. The contract
is valued at approximately $6 million over 5 years. US Sprint will
handle operator services from the MARTA pay phones, and retain
rights to advertising space around them. Presently, there is no
advertising located with the phones.

The second Peoples contract is with Emro Marketing to install 400
pay-telephones at service stations in the Southeast and
Wisconsin. The company estimates the value of that contract at
$10 million. The company also recently announced the acquisition
of contracts for 1,900 pay-phones from U.S. Commercial Telephone
and the receipt of a contract from the state of New Mexico's
jails.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19900831/Press Contact: Peoples Telephone,
Robert Rubin, 305-593-9667)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00020)

SPRINT USES PERSIAN GULF CRISIS TO BOOST SPRINTFAX
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- To advertise
its SprintFax news service, called Facis, U.S. Sprint is offering
free updates on the Persian Gulf crisis, delivered to any U.S.
fax machine when its owner dials 1-800-676-2255.

The file is produced by a New York company, Fax Information
Systems, which is a joint-venture between Fax Transmission
Services, a news provider, and Isogon, a software company.

Newsbytes talked to Bob Barritz, the company's vice president for
technology, who described how the company hopes to make a profit
by selling customized newsletters to trade groups.

"We're capable of offering a customized newsletter or digest on
any topic," he said. "The idea is to sell it to interest groups,
trade associations, and business groupings for resale to members
or customers. It could be sold to a chemical industry trade
group, and we would each day extract news relating to that
industry and send it out.

"The pricing isn't completely firm, but we're presuming that a
daily news digest which Sprint would wholesale to corporations or
trade associations would have a price in the range of $1.50 per
day per user. What that user pays to the intermediary would be up
to them, so the final price would range from $2-2.50 per day."

The company gets its news from a variety of services, but not
Reuters, which is a competitor in the business of online news
delivery. "We have UPI and others," said Barritz. "In some cases
we can't use the specific attribution of a service. But we use
the Japanese Kyoto service, the Chinese Xinhua agencies, and
news services from France, Germany, and Spain, along with the PR
Newswire and SEC filings. We feel we have, for our purposes, a
quite complete range of offerings now, but we'd look at other
things."

A Persian Gulf crisis update obtained by Newsbytes, dated 8 AM on
August 31, featured stories on Kuwaiti attempts to obtain oil for
its own refineries in Europe, Texas' symbolic move to increase
production by 20,000 barrels per day, the arrival of Asian
refugees of the crisis by plane in Amman, Jordan, a meeting by
oil users in Paris, and stories about Soviet foreign minister
Shevardnadze's request that Iraq withdraw, the U.S. attempt to
catalogue "war crimes" against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and
the meeting of UN Security Council head Javier Perez de Cuellar
and Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz.

The stories were offered in reverse order of their filing, and
each contained just a few paragraphs. The entire news product
covered just one page, but was accompanied by a cover sheet and
a Sprintfax ad, so the transmission ran to 3 pages.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19900831/Press Contact: Bob Barritz, Fax
Information Systems, 212-967-2424)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00021)

HITACHI & NISSAN TO DEVELOP HIGH-TECH FOR CARS
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Hitachi and Nissan Motor will
set up a joint venture for information and communication system
development and production.

The details of the new firm, such as the name and capital, are still
under consideration while a blueprint of the business is prepared.
The deal is expected to involve future communication and
information systems, such as a hands-free-digital mobile phone,
a navigation system to indicate traffic conditions, and several
information services involving shopping, restaurants, or
driver directions. It also plans to develop facsimile machine
for automobiles.

Hitachi's electronics division sold some 200 billion yen or $138
million worth of goods last year, 90 billion yen or
$62 million with Nissan.

The amount is relatively small among the group corporations --
both Hitachi and Nissan belong to the Fuyo Group. The joint
venture is expected to be a bridge for the two firms.

Currently Nissan receives mobile phones from NEC and navigation
systems from Sumitomo Electric Industries, but it will purchase
them from the new firm.

Recently, the Japanese automobile industry has shown a
significant change of its partnerships by forming close ties
with electronics makers, with the exception of an old existing
relationship between Toyota Motor and Nippondenso. Mazda Motor
and U.S.-based Ford have formed an alliance with Sanyo Electronics
and they will establish a car electronics parts plant in
Singapore. Additionally, Isuzu Motors has established a joint
venture with Fujitsu.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/19900830)


(EDITORIAL)(TELECOM)(WAS)(00022)

TELEPHONE BLUES - Editorial by John McCormick
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Do you hate getting
those dreaded dinner time phone calls? You know the ones, where a
phone company calls trying to sell you something you already
have, i.e. phone service, or couldn't possibly use such as vinyl
siding when you live in an apartment? It used to be that people
got annoying phone calls from companies because they were behind
on their payments but now having good credit is the usual cause.

I guess companies figure that annoying customers is a good
marketing tool because at times things have gotten so bad here
that I stopped doing business with some companies like Montgomery
Ward because it seemed that any big purchase would trigger a
bombardment of sales calls trying to get me to buy something
else. My final solution with stores is to never give my right
name or phone number; it's much easier than arguing with a clerk.

You might also notice that many stores want your home phone
number when you charge something, despite the fact that a
computerized system has just assured them that your credit is
good and has in fact already sequestered money in your account to
pay for that purchase. By the way, most credit card companies
tell merchants that they should NOT request phone numbers.

Giving out your phone number is an invitation to trouble from
many sources, but you could be standing there until the manager
finally shows up if you refuse, so I just give out a false one
automatically. It won't hurt my credit rating and, after all, the
store has no right to it, so why argue.

To keep from annoying the innocent, I just make that number one
that begins with 555 like they always do on TV sitcoms; that is
always directory assistance here in the U.S.

Paying by personal check is something else again, and I always
avoid that except with businesses I know well such as the local
general store.

We have all seen the TV adds about "getting it in writing" from
telephone solicitors, but they totally miss the point. Many
people have already stopped personally answering their phones
because of the prevalence of junk calls, leaving the answering
machine to cull the occasional call from Mom from the chaff of
siding, telephone service, stock, bond, landscaping, magazine,
newspaper and other sales calls seemingly always made when you
are relaxing over dinner or reading a good book.

Recently I even got three phone calls in one afternoon from some
moron who told me she was being paid to dial numbers at random
and ask whether she had reached a residence or business number. I
can assure you that all she learned from me were some colorful
Anglo-Saxon phrases (and only after she made the mistake of
calling back twice after I told her it was none of her business),
but some people are intimidated into giving out personal
information to callers who have no business asking for it.

Is there anything lower on the social scale than a telephone
solicitor? I know lawyers who will actually admit what they do
for a living in social situations, and some politicians even brag
about their career choice, but have you ever met anyone who
describes themselves as a telephone solicitor - you know, the
person who phones strangers and asks them for money - without
even the mitigating circumstance of soliciting for a charity?

The Pennsylvania courts have put a temporary (I hope) halt to
plans for Caller ID, the only possible weapon consumers have for
fighting back against phone abusers who take our need for
telephone service as a God-given right to invade our privacy at
any time.

Caller ID, the weapon we almost have access to here in the U.S.,
is a gadget that will display the number of the originating
telephone, even before we answer. I find it difficult to think of
a legitimate reason why any of us would need to telephone someone
and not identify ourselves, but this happens and is exactly what
Caller ID eliminates, the opportunity to invade another's privacy
with total safety.

I am reminded of a science fiction series which postulates a
society where firearms were outlawed but killing with a sword was
not because guns could kill anonymously from ambush - never
exposing the sniper to harm - while swords and knives brought the
potential killer into harm's way. They had a remarkably peaceful
society.

It actually turned out that they had far more potent weapons than
mere firearms and that was the real reason for banning anything
that could kill at a distance.

Today we have a sometimes unholy alliance of computers and
telecommunications and we need similar rules. In the past it
wasn't as important to keep every detail of your life as private
as possible because no one could afford to collect and process
all that information, but with today's technology we are all
vulnerable and any information we give out to anyone will
eventually show up in dozens if not hundreds of databases.

Now some misguided people are disguising their anti-Caller ID (or
as I call it, a pro-annoyance) stance as reverse right-to-privacy
issue, pointing out that people with Caller ID would be able to
actually track down the phone numbers of those who call us from
unlisted numbers (what a shame!); or want to stop Caller ID
because those calling police or drug/suicide hotlines would stop
calling.

This latter argument is ridiculous on the face of it since these
calls could already be traced if the bureaucrats involved wanted
to violate privacy, not to mention that those worried about such
problems could just use pay phones the way most false fire alarm
and bomb scare enthusiasts now do routinely.

Some are worried that when you phone a mail order company the
person taking your order will instantly know if you are a crank
caller or have a good credit history and whether you are giving
an honest address. Surprise! They can already check that sort of
thing out from the credit card information you give them; it just
doesn't happen quickly enough to eliminate the expense of
starting to process bogus orders which drives costs up for
everyone else.

No, the only thing blockage of Caller ID will do is stop
individuals and businesses from identifying the source numbers of
unwanted sales calls, harassing calls in the middle of the night,
threatening calls, and obscene telephone calls, such as those
from salesmen trying to sell bogus gold mine shares to widows
or siding to apartment dwellers.

I have actually gotten scores of calls trying to sell me home
improvement when I moved into an apartment because all renters'
credit checks are sold to companies which don't bother to check
whether they are calling an apartment dweller.

Caller ID is one clear case where "freedom of speech" must give
way to "freedom from speech" and the right to privacy of those
who invade our privacy must be superceded. This doesn't violate
anyone's First Amendment rights any more than it violates mine to
have people refuse to read my articles. That is their right and
all I ask for is the right to be left alone, immune from the
telephone hustlers, no matter what they are selling.

At least junk mail makes good insulation and you can stack it up
to read when you have time and interest, sort of like storing up
your incoming phone calls on an answering machine.

(John McCormick/19900829)


(REVIEW)(GENERAL)(WAS)(00023)

Review of: The Chip War, by Fred Warhofsky

From: Charles Scribner's Sons, 866 Third Ave., New York, N.Y.
10022.

Price: $22.50

PUMA Rating: 3.67 (on a scale of 1=lowest to 4=highest)

Reviewed by: John mcCormick and Beth Goldie, 08/31/90

Summary: Mr. Warhofsky describes in detail how the Japanese
cleverly, albeit with the unwitting help of several U.S.
companies, cornered the worldwide market for, first, television
sets and, second, DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chips by
using good business sense and hard work.

======

REVIEW

======

Here is a tale of two CTs (country technologies), showing that
the Japanese are beating the U.S., not because we Americans are
less bright but because we lack the patience or pride needed to
improve upon our technological advances in order to stay on top.

Starting with the 1953 purchase by Sony of the rights to the
transistor (invented at Bell Labs), this book is a litany of U.S.
corporate failures to take advantage of the very technologies
they invented.

While detailing the methods employed by the Japanese to take over
complete manufacture of DRAM chips - making better chips,
reducing prices, and, ultimately, "dumping" the chips - Mr.
Warhofsky makes it abundantly clear that the U.S. workers must
undergo attitudinal changes in order to compete successfully with
Asian workers - those in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and
Singapore as well as Japan.

Examples of how American firms dropped the ball abound in the
book.

A possibly apocryphal tale of how RCA jumped at the chance to
move all TV production out of the U.S. has a certain ring of
truth and, if true, contradicts the author's apparent contention
that U.S. workers are to blame for current lack of
competitiveness by showing how corporate indifference to local
employment caused the very worker apathy they now lament.

According to The Chip War, Sony sold TVs to RCA cheaper than they
could build them, closing American plants, then cut RCA out of
the deal by going directly to large retailers.

IBM needed a clean room built in East FishKill, New York. It was
built by an American company, using Japanese technology.

Hewlett-Packard needed higher quality memory chips. The Japanese
built them and in 1981 started producing inexpensive 64K memory
chips, leaping an entire generation.

By 1985 Intel was out of the memory chip business it had
invented. Virtually all memory chips were coming from the Orient
and the U.S.'s response was to retaliate with a mini trade war,
which resulted in high computer costs and not much else other
than some creative smuggling.

Summing up America's woes, the author puts much of the blame on
the U.S. worker, saying that in general the Oriental workers are
much more ambitious and hard-working, whether their supervisors
are watching or not.

===========

PUMA RATING

===========

PERFORMANCE: 4 The many details are engrossing; Mr. Warhofsky
shows step-by-step how semiconductor technology slowly slipped
into the clean rooms, and hands, of the Japanese.

USEFULNESS: 4 A primer on what the U.S. work force should regain
- the work ethic - in order to compete successfully in the
future. It's all been said before, but bears repeating and
careful consideration. A strong sub-theme not really developed is
how corporate indifference to workers causes worker apathy.

AVAILABILITY: 3 Some bookstores; let's face it, good computer
books often have to be ordered, but this one may show up in some
larger chain stores.

(John McCormick and Beth Goldie/1990731)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(TYO)(00024)

SONY GETS SERVER FROM MIPS
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Sony, one of the leading player
in the Japanese WS (workstation) market, will compensate for
its lack of a file server in its News WS line-up by offering
a mini supercomputer made by U.S.-based MIPS Computer Systems.

The deal is between MIPS and Sony Computer Systems, a subsidiary
which is 90 percent owned by Sony and 10 percent owned
by Shigeho Inaoka, the former president of Apollo Computer
Japan, now the president of Sony Computer Systems.

The RC6280 mini supercomputer was developed by MIPS Computer
Systems and Kubota Computer Systems and Kubota is producing
the machine in Japan. The machine performs 50 MIPS (million
instruction per second) with the latest RISC (reduced
instruction set computer) processor R6000.

News and the RC6280 run on the Unix operating system
and have a RISC processor designed by MIPS Computer Systems.
The mini supercomputer reportedly shows superior performance on a
network, consequently the deal is expected to benefit Sony's
WS business.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/19900830)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00025)

FUJITSU ENHANCES SUPERCOMPUTERS
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Japan's computer giant Fujitsu
has announced two new supercomputers, upgraded models of its
VP2000 series.

These are the first supercomputers to adopt high-speed
semiconductors made of gallium arsenide and new data transfer
technologies to speed performance and allow more people to use
the system at the same time.

Both versions have four central processors and are said to have
peak operating speeds of two and five gigaFLOPS (billion
floating point operations per second). The memory storage
capacity has been quadrupled from a previous 8 gigabytes to the
world's largest 32 gigabytes.

Fujitsu expects to sell 150 of the upgraded models
over the next three years, including 50 overseas. They will be
leased from September 1991 for 79 million yen ($527,000) and
103 million yen ($690,000) monthly.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu has tied up with West Germany-based Siemens
for joint development of applications for its supercomputers,
according to Nihon Keizai Shimbun paper. Fujitsu used to have
overseas applications developed by its overseas subsidiaries
but has decided to change that policy.

Siemens has been selling Fujitsu supercomputers under its own
brand name, but has not achieved many sales. The same is true of
U.S.-based Amdahl, partner of Fujitsu. Consequently, Fujitsu
is now planning to sell its supercomputers directly or under
its own brand name in the U.S. and Europe starting this
fall, the paper reports.

(Ken Takahashi/19900830/Press Contact: Fujitsu, 03-216-3211)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(TYO)(00026)

FUJITSU OFFERS NEW UNIX
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Fujitsu has announced the
worldwide availability of an OS (operating system) based on the
latest release from Unix International, Unix System V Release
4.

The new OS, called UXP/M, runs on its supercomputer VP2000
series and mainframe M series, such as M-780/770/760 Model Group,
and can be modified easily to run programs in several languages.

Unix System V Release 4 is a combination of AT&T's Unix System V,
BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) Unix, and Xenix. Fujitsu claims
that UXP/M provides high-speed processing of large amounts of
data and runs programs written for the existing System V Release 4.

Further, Fujitsu has enhanced automatic operation and suspension
features as well as operation control features such as backing up
large-capacity data, a prerequisite for a large-scale system.
In order to deal with a high-speed network, the OS can be
utilized on ultra high-speed LANs (local area network) made
by U.S.-based Ultra Network Technologies.

Fujitsu has already developed some 300 application programs using
Unix and plans to increase the number to 500 over the next three
years.

Fujitsu aims to sell 850 systems, including 350 overseas, during
the next three years. The basic rental price will be 210,000 yen
($1,400) per month and the new system will become available next
April.

(Ken Takahashi/19900830/Press Contact: Fujitsu, 03-216-3211)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00027)

DOUBLE SPEED FLOPPY DRIVE DUE THIS MONTH
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Y.E. Data has developed
FDD (floppy disk drive) units which read and write data
and format a floppy disk in half the time it takes for
an existing FDD.

In order to meet the higher processing speed of computers,
hard disk and optical disk drive units have been made faster
while FDD units have simply been made lighter and larger,
neglecting higher-speed. For this reason, Y.E. Data has decided to
develop FDD units which are twice as fast as conventional
floppy drives, and has done so by doubling the rotating speed
of a floppy disk.

The new FDD units will be available at the end of this month.
Samples will be 35,000 yen ($230) for the 3.5-inch unit
and 40,000 yen ($270) for the 5.25-inch unit. As current
floppy disks can be used in the double speed FDD units, Y.E. Data
expects to see a wide variety of applications, and is
aiming to sell 3,000 units each month.

(Ken Takahashi/19900830)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(TYO)(00028)

YHP OFFERS HALF PRICE WORKSTATIONS
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- YHP or Yokogawa-Hewlett-Packard
is offering the latest WS (workstation) HP/Apollo 9000
series 400 machines, the first HP/Apollo integrated workstations,
at a 50 percent discount off the list price to software houses.
This special campaign includes a 50 to 80 percent discount
off its software and seminars too.

The campaign is designed for software developers -- unfortunately,
end users are excluded. A software house can purchase the latest
YHP machine at half the original price until the end of
October with a restriction -- reselling of the machine is
forbidden for one year after the date of purchase.

This restriction is not exactly a hard one because it offers another
special present -- trade-in service. A software house can trade
in the purchased machines at 35 to 57 percent of the purchase
price when YHP releases the PA-RISC WS, a new RISC (reduced
instruction set computer)-based integrated machine expected to
be within this year.

Programs for computer-aided engineering, HP SoftBench (436,000 yen),
and HP Encapsulator (219,000 yen) are 80 percent lower and HP
Teamwork, a planning and design support software originally priced
at 3,600,000 yen, is priced at 50 percent off.

YHP expects the developer-friendly campaign will produce an
abundance of software for its hardware and help it stay competitive
in the Japanese WS market.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/19900830)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(TYO)(00029)

THREE NEW MINI SUPERCOMPUTERS FROM KUBOTA
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Kubota Computer has announced
three Titan series graphics mini supercomputers. The new machines
ranged from high end to low end in order to accommodate the needs
of a variety of users.

The upper-end Titan 3000 V extends the power of the current Titan
3000 by a factor of two to ten times and implements 128 mega
FLOPS (floating point operations per second). The newly provided
Dual Sheets Systems allow two users to process 3-D graphics
with the VX Graphics Board.

The last model, Titan 3000, can be upgraded with the VX Graphics
Board.

The Titan 750 is a deskside machine, maintains the performance of
the Titan 3000, and implements 64 MFLOPS (thousands of floating
point operations per second).

The low-end Titan 500 is called Baby Titan and is positioned
as a desktop WS (workstation). It also offers the high speed
and full color 3-D graphics implementation of its brothers.

The prices of the minimum configuration of the machines are:
20,002,000 yen or $137,945 for Titan 3000 V, 9,000,000 yen or
$62,070 for Titan 750 and 5,980,000 yen or $41,240 for Titan 500.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/19900830/Press Contact: Kubota Computer Systems,
03-225-0971)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00030)

KDD TO OFFER IMAGE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Japan's international telecom giant
KDD will start marketing a system to transmit and receive still color
images via ISDN (integrated services digital network) through its
affiliate firm OSI Plus in October.

The new system is called Quick-CUICK, which means Quick Catch Up
Image Communication System of KDD. It consists of an image processor
which displays transmitted images and text on a personal
computer screen, and a telecommunications unit which connects the
system to ISDN.

ISDN can transmit and receive images, sound, and text over a
single circuit simultaneously.

KDD's Quick-CUICK also allows a speaker to highlight images or
text on his screen and make them visible on the receiver's screen
while speaking to the receiver.

The total system will be priced 2 million yen ($13,300). Without
a personal computer, the system will cost about 1.4 million yen
($9,300). KDD expects to sell 300 to 500 units in the first year,
mainly for the printing, publishing, design, and fashion industries.

(Ken Takahashi/19900830)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(TOR)(00031)

CANADA REMOTE DEAL IMMINENT
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- A deal that would
revive Canada Remote Systems, the major Toronto-based bulletin
board system overcome by financial troubles at the beginning of
August, was imminent as the month drew to a close.

Jud Newell, CRS founder and system operator, told Newsbytes he
could not announce anything officially, but that the deal might
be signed on the afternoon of August 31. He said the receiver
for CRS had received four viable offers for its bulletin board
operations.

As well as operating Canada's largest bulletin board system,
Canada Remote Systems sold computer and hardware and software.
The bulletin board was the more successful part of the operation
financially.

The nine-year-old bulletin board had some 8,000 subscribers.

(Grant Buckler/19900831/Press Contact: Jud Newell, Canada Remote
Systems, 416-948-6250)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(TOR)(00032)

DIGITAL CANADA WINS TREASURY BOARD CONTRACT
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Digital Equipment
of Canada has been named prime contractor for systems integration
and facilities management of the Treasury Board of Canada's
corporate office information network.

Under a two-year contract worth C$3.5 million, Digital will
design, implement, and manage the multivendor network, which will
integrate all systems and some 800 users in the Treasury Board's
10 Ottawa locations.

The Treasury Board selected NAS (Network Application Support),
Digital's set of software products for using and developing
integrated applications running on different vendors' systems.

Digital will provide a DECnet fiber-optic network, compatible
with the Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) standard,
throughout the Treasury Board facilities. The project also
involves Digital's MAILbus products, which allow exchange of
information among diverse vendors' office systems, and All-In-1,
Digital's integrated office system.

The Treasury Board is responsible for financial management,
personnel management and central administration of the federal
public service.

(Grant Buckler/19900830/Press Contact: Dave Paolini, Digital
Canada, 416-597-3100)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00033)

SULCUS COMPUTERS AND LODGISTIX TO MERGE HOSPITALITY OPERATIONS
GREENSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Sulcus
Computer, based here, and Lodgistix of Wichita, Kansas, have
announced an agreement in principle to merge their hospitality
operations.

Upon Lodgistix shareholders' approval, Sulcus will acquire the
issued and outstanding common shares of Lodgistix for Sulcus
stock and other consideration.

The two companies said the consolidated operations will be the
largest developer of automated hotel systems in the industry, in
terms of installed base and revenue. They also said the new
entity will be the only software development company in the
industry covering both Unix and DOS.

(Grant Buckler/19900831/Press Contact: Jeffrey S. Ratner, Sulcus,
412-836-2000; Paul Hammar, Lodgistix, 316-685-2216)


(NEWS)(IBM)(WAS)(00034)

DELL COMPUTER EXPANDS PC LINE, ADDS 486 TOWERS
AUSTIN, TEXAS, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Dell Computer has
broadened the middle and high ends of its personal computer line
with 25 megahertz (MHz) and 33 MHz 80486 models using the EISA
or Extended Industry Standard Architecture bus. Other computers,
accessories, and new service policies have also been announced.

Dell's 25 MHz. 486, the 425TE (available immediately), uses the
newly announced Dell Drive Array and starts at $6,749, while the
433TE (33 MHz. 486) base system starts at $8,949. Both prices
include 4 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM), SmartVu
diagnostics display, eight EISA expansion bus slots, a high-speed
(512 kilobyte, 16-bit) extended VGA controller and a 128 kilobyte
cache is included with the 433TE. A monochrome monitor and 80MB
hard disk are included in the base system prices as are keyboard,
one parallel, two serial, and a mouse port.

Dell Drive Array allows up to five disk drives to be accessed in
parallel, providing faster data access and redundant data storage
for security. Using 200 megabyte disks the 32-bit DDA bus master
controller can now access up to 1.6 gigabytes of data.

Other new products include a 20 MHz 80386SX portable computer
priced at $3,599; two new 80386 systems, including Dell's first
33 MHz. 386; and enhanced service/support with extended hours and
toll-free number.

(John McCormick/19900831/Press Contact: Brian Fawkes or Michele
Moore, Dell, 512-338-4400)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(SFO)(00035)

CHEMICAL WARFARE BREAKS OUT BETWEEN SOCIETY AND DIALOG
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- The American Chemical
Society (ACS) has filed a countersuit against Dialog Information
Services, charging the world's largest database company with
fraudulent and deceptive accounting procedures. The suit is the
latest salvo in a battle between it and Dialog over the rights
to the lucrative chemical abstracts database controlled by the
Society.

In mid-June, Dialog and parent company Knight-Ridder has sued
the Society for access to the its database which it says was
developed with between $15 and $30 million in federal funding.
The suit charged that the nonprofit society, by withholding
most of the database from commercial online systems and
by offering it on its own competing system, the Chemical
Abstracts Service, has engaged in monopolistic practices.

Responding, the American Chemical Society has countersued,
filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., a
request for a formal audit and accounting of all royalties owed
by Dialog to ACS. It also seeks damages for alleged underpayment
amounting to $10 million and seeks $30 million in punitive
damages.

The Society's James Seales, director of marketing for its Chemical
Abstracts Service, claims Dialog's suit was filed in June
at a time when the Society was trying to determine the nature and
extent of what it terms fraudulent and deceptive accounting
procedures at Dialog.

"Many within the ACS believe that one of the reasons Dialog
filed the suit -- demanding millions in monetary damages and
making many serious antitrust allegations -- was in order to
frighten the Society into a rapid settlement before the full
nature of the problems being uncovered in our audits could be
known," he says.

The chemical abstracts database is considered to be one of the
most lucrative databases in the world. Within it is information
on more than 10 million registered chemical substances. By
the end of 1989 the database had over 12 million abstracts
and the associated index entries. The Chemical Abstracts
Service charges among the highest connect fees in the industry
and the databases it leases to other systems receive heavy
traffic.

Dialog's suit had claimed that $50 million in profits were
lost due to the fact that ACS will not make available to
Dialog all of its records, but only a portion.

A spokesman for Dialog had no comment at this time.

(Wendy Woods/19900831/Press Contact: Dialog, Kathie Mulvey,
800-334-2564, ACS, Dick Kaser, 614-447-3727)


(NEWS)(IBM)(SFO)(00036)

COMPAQ LTE LAPTOPS DEVELOPING HAIRLINE CRACKS
HOUSTON, TEXAS, U.S.A., 1990 AUG 31 (NB) -- Compaq Computer Corporation
is extending the warranty on the plastic cases housing its LTE and
LTE 386 notebook computers after many of them have developed hairline
cracks.

The problem "is not widespread," according to Compaq spokeswoman
Debra Globe, although the company admits it does not know how
many are broken. They were first alerted to the problem by dealers.
She could not say exactly what portion of the case was most
likely to develop the cracks.

The company is currently investigating the cause of the tiny
fissures, but it hasn't been obvious. "It's pretty complex," she
tells Newsbytes. She said Compaq is looking into a replacement for
the plastic used in the casing.

Dealers are offering owners of the cracked LTEs a one-year
extension on the warranty covering damage to the plastic case.

(Wendy Woods/19900831)