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/1993/nb930326

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(NEWS)(IBM)(DEN)(00001)

WordPerfect 6.0 For DOS 03/26/93
OREM, UTAH, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Wordperfect Corporation
showed its WP 6.0 for DOS to North American, Australian, and
European industry analysts and the press this week, but the program
isn't scheduled to ship until June. "It's well into beta now, and
goes into beta 2 (testing) next week, Wordperfect spokesperson
Jeff Larsen told Newsbytes.

Calling WP 6.0 for DOS "a product that goes beyond word processing,"
the company said the new version of the popular word processing
program which first entered the marketplace in 1989 will include
fax sending capabilities, sound support, electronic mail, and
spreadsheet capabilities, "allowing people to accomplish tasks never
before possible with a word processor," in the words of Wordperfect
President Alan Ashton.

A new spreadsheet capability allows users to including computing
functions and cell formatting features as a part of the existing
Tables feature. The spreadsheet feature, which is the company's own
PlanPerfect incorporated into the word processor, supports up to 64
columns and over 32,000 rows. Users will also be able to fax directly
from within Wordperfect, thanks to support for FaxBIOS technology
and inclusion of drivers for Class 1, Class 2, and CAS-compliant fax
devices.

Larsen said MIDI and digital sound are supported, allowing the user
to incorporate voice notes. Clicking on the sound icon plays the
sound, and buttons at the bottom of the screen allow fast-forward
and rewind and speed adjustment.

A feature called Coach is designed to guide the user through
selected functions, providing step-by-step instructions regarding
how to execute that function. Three different editing modes, text,
graphics, and page, are user-selectable while editing. The text mode
is what Wordperfect 5.1 provides. Graphics mode allows users to see
a graphical representation of fonts, graphics, and colors, while the
page mode is similar, but also shows headers, footers, footnotes,
and page numbers. You can switch between modes as you create or edit
a document.

Four types of scalable fonts are supported in version 6.0. You can
select Type 1, Intellifont, TrueType and Bitstream Speedo. A
included utility called WPFI installs additional scalable fonts if
the user desires. The program will also ship with a number of
customized scalable fonts.

Selectable merge allows users to select the fields of the data
records they want included in a merge, then set the selection
criteria, such as everyone who lives in ZIP code 80901. Popular
database file formats supported include Wordperfect's own
DataPerfect, dBase, Foxpro, Lotus, Quattro, and Excel. A feature
called QuickFinder, which was introduced in Wordperfect 5.2 for
Windows, allows the user to search local or network directories for
a particular file, and indexes documents so the user can search for a
document based on their own criteria.

The company says Wordperfect 6.0 for DOS will also support color
printing, drag-and-drop graphics, wrapping text around graphic
images , an Undo feature to cancel your last action, more powerful
macro capabilities, and better envelope creation. Grammatik 5, a
grammar checking program acquired recently by Wordperfect
Corporation, has been integrated into the program. The new version
will take advantage of expanded or extended memory if your system
has it.

Wordperfect 6.0 for DOS has a suggested retail price of $495 for new
purchasers. Additional user licenses, with the manuals but without
disks, will be available for $349 or you can get a license without
manuals or disks for $295. A 20-pack user license without
documentation or disks costs $5,495. If you already use an earlier
version you can upgrade for $129. There's a huge market for
upgrades, with an estimated 10 million Wordperfect users. Users of
competitive programs like Microsoft Word can switch to the new
program for $149. The company says it will be announcing a free
upgrade to the Windows 6.0 version when is released.

Minimum system requirements include a IBM-compatible PC powered by a
286 or higher chip, at least 450 kilobytes (K) of conventional
memory, and 7 megabytes (MB) of free space on your hard disk for the
program files. Monochrome, EGA, VGA or higher resolution displays
are supported. For maximum performance, Wordperfect recommends a
386-based system, 520K of memory, 15MB of disk space, and a VGA or
better monitor.

(Jim Mallory/19930326/Press contact: Jeff Larsen, Wordperfect
Corporation, 801-228-5034)


(NEWS)(IBM)(SFO)(00002)

IBM & ProTools Link LAN Analysis/Management Tools 03/26/93
WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- IBM and
ProTools have announced the strategic integration of IBM's
LAN Network Manager (LNM) and ProTools' Network Control
Series network management products.

In announcing the deal, Bill Warner, IBM Networking Systems
director, enterprise management, said, "Our customers now are
one step closer to end-to-end network management. By working
with top-quality vendors such as ProTools, IBM is fulfilling its
commitment to provide a total solution."

The ProTools Network Control Series is a set of OS/2-based
products designed for distributed network analysis capabilities
in both Token Ring and Ethernet environments, and consists of
Foundation Manager and Cornerstone Agent.

IBM's LNM monitors and analyzes LAN (local area network) media,
LAN adapters, source routing bridges and IBM Token-Ring
controlled access units using a graphical user interface, the SQL
(structured query language) relational database and the two-way
"command-response" NetView Interface.

According to the companies, prior to the integration, NetView
could receive only those media and configuration alerts transmitted
by LNM. ProTools' Network Control Series, meanwhile, operated
separately, on individual LANs, and could not communicate alerts to
NetView. Now, however, Foundation Manager can send both Token-Ring
and Ethernet network performance alerts in real time to NetView
products, including LNM. These, in turn, can forward the information
to NetView.

IBM claims that this capability "significantly extends both the range
and the scope of alert notification available from IBM."

The alert notification includes information about each error or event
that occurs on the LAN, including the error type, the segment and
address of the reporting node, a time stamp and a full-alarm text
which provides information about the cause of the alert.

The companies maintain that ProTools has put descriptions of its
error codes in LNM's database and IBM has put LNM's adapter addresses
in the Foundation Manager database. This, claims the companies, is
particularly useful to customers who already have LNM and an
established database of addressing information.

These products comply with IBM's SystemView strategy for
managing enterprise-wide information systems.

Foundation Manager sells for $8,995 and Cornerstone Agent for
$1,295. Both are available now. IBM's LAN Network Manager sells
for $5,240 and is also available.

Newsbytes first reported on the introduction of ProTools'
Network Control Series of network management software
products in December, 1991.

(Ian Stokell/19930326/Press Contact: Alice Horrigan,
914-642-5434)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SFO)(00003)

WordStar Raises $10.2 Million 03/26/93
NOVATO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Just two
months after raising $4.3 million in net proceeds from the
placement of equity securities, WordStar International has
announced that it has completed a second private placement,
bringing the total to $10.2 million (net proceeds) since January
1993. The financial moves on the part of the company are
designed to fund the acquisition of new products.

The company says that the private placement was composed of
2,700,000 units priced at $2.375 per unit, generating about $5.9
million in net proceeds. Each unit consisted of one share of new
WordStar common stock and one warrant to purchase one share
of new common stock during a three-year period at $2.50 per
share. The common stock and warrants have been registered with
the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company says that, in January, it directly placed 2,085,000
units of equity securities, which generated about $4.3 million in
net proceeds. Each unit was priced at $2.125 and included one
share of new WordStar common stock and one warrant to purchase
one share of new common stock at varying prices over a three-year
period.

WordStar says that the sales were made to institutions and
private investors.

In announcing the financial moves, Ron Posner, chief executive
officer of WordStar, said: "The money we've raised will be used to
acquire new products and to finance general corporate activities.
We are continuing with our business strategy of identifying leading
business and consumer applications and bringing them to market
through internal development, technology licenses and corporate
acquisition."

Continued Posner, "In the past few months we've added a number of
new technologies to our product mix. We just acquired WriteNow,
the high-performance Macintosh word processor from T/Maker.
We're in the final stages of integrating ZSoft Corp. which we
acquired in January. With ZSoft, we added significant graphics and
communication technology with PhotoFinish, PC Paintbrush 5+, and
UltraFAX."

A little over two weeks ago, Newsbytes reported on Wordstar's
acquisition of the rights to WriteNow. At the time, Posner
told Newsbytes that the acquisition of WriteNow, "increases
our position in the Macintosh market overall, and brings with it
a very well-respected group of developers. It allows us to expand
our product position, our overall market position in the Macintosh,
which is important to us strategically."

In January Newsbytes reported that, six months after
announcing their intentions to merge, WordStar and ZSoft
had finalized their merger. The merger plans were originally
reported by Newsbytes in July 1992. The terms provided for
the issuance of 4,475,000 shares of WordStar common stock
to ZSoft shareholders.

(Ian Stokell/19930326/Press Contact: Ron Posner, 415-382-8000,
WordStar International)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(SFO)(00004)

HP/Verdix To Port Ada Programming System To PA-RISC 03/26/93
HERNDON, VIRGINIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Verdix and
Hewlett-Packard have signed an agreement to port the Verdix
Ada Development System (VADS) to the PA-RISC-based HP Apollo
9000 Series 700 workstations. Under the terms of the agreement
Verdix will port VADS to the Series 700, and jointly market the
product with HP.

In announcing the deal, Michael A. Gallup, worldwide marketing
manager for HP's Workstation Systems Group, said: "Through this
agreement with Verdix, we are able to provide the best-of-class
Ada computing solutions our customers demand. The combination
of our powerful workstation platforms with Verdix's established
and proven Ada software development tools gives users a clear
competitive edge through leadership speed and reliability."

According to the company, VADS is a "comprehensive" Ada
software development environment specifically designed for
large-scale programming. VADS includes a validated Ada compiler,
screen-oriented debugger, library management system and Ada
runtime system.

The company claims that, with VADS, the user has access to the
same toolset and capabilities regardless of whether an application
is self-hosted or embedded.

Just this week Newsbytes also reported on the introduction of
the GenerAda 1.0 Ada code generator jointly developed by Oracle,
Meridian, and Verdix. According to the companies, GenerAda makes
it realistic for software developers to generate Ada code directly
from system design information created using Oracle computer-
aided software engineering (CASE) tools. GenerAda reportedly
reduces development time and maintenance costs by eliminating
most of the tedious and error prone work associated with manually
coding applications.

(Ian Stokell/19930326/Press Contact: Stacy Berman,
703-318-5800, Verdix Corp.)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(SFO)(00005)

Cadence Design In Shareholder Lawsuit 03/26/93
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Cadence
Design Systems shareholders have filed a class action lawsuit
against the company.

According to the company, the complaint alleges violations of
certain federal securities laws in connection with the company's
public statements, press releases, and SEC (Securities Exchange
Commission) reports during the fourth quarter of 1992 and the
first quarter of 1993.

The complaint, filed on March 23, in the United States District
Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, does not
specify any amount of damages.

Interestingly, the complaint has yet to be served on the company.
The company, however, says it has obtained a copy of the complaint
from the court and "intends to contest the action vigorously."

Cadence was last in the news two weeks ago when Newsbytes
reported that the company was in court with Synopsis over
technology each is claiming. Synopsys filed a suit charging
trade secret misappropriation of its VHDL (VHSIC hardware
description language) simulation product against Cadence in
the California Superior Court in Santa Clara, California.

Before that, in December, 1992, Newsbytes reported that
Cadence had signed a multi-million dollar electronic design
automation (EDA) product and consulting agreement with IBM and
Motorola. The agreement covers their Somerset design center
in Austin, Texas.

(Ian Stokell/19930326/Press Contact: Thomas F. Kelly,
408-943-1234 ext 5998, Cadence Design Systems Inc.)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(MOW)(00006)

Russia - France Telecom Makes Big Investment 03/26/93
MOSCOW, RUSSIA, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- France Telecom has unveiled a
plan to invest up to US$100 million in the telephone network in
Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic sea.

The plan, which will be carried out by WestBalt Telecom, a joint
stock company owned by France Telecom and Rosswiazinform -
Kaliningrad (current a major network owner and operator), includes
the creation of 20,000 new business phone lines in 1993 and ten
times this amount in three years.

WestBalt Telecom has been licensed as a network operator in the region.

France Telecom is said to be installing an international phone exchange,
which should be available for both business and the general public,
according to Financial Izvestia newspaper. Further plans calls for
the switch from old analog to digital phone switches and lines in
the region.

Historically Kaliningrad, formerly Koenigsberg, was a part of Germany,
which was handed to the Soviet Union after the Second World War. A
large number of German companies are actively designing investment
projects in the region now.

(Kirill Tchashchin/19930326)


(EDITORIAL)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00007)

Editorial - The Law Of The Modem 03/26/93
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- By Dana Blankenhorn.
I've long said that the law, as it affects online networks,
should be simple. If it's legal on paper, it should be legal
online, and vice versa. Recent cases indicate some courts may
finally be getting this message.

Possessing pictures of naked children, for instance, is "child
pornography" under US law. It's a grave crime. US agents
recently conducted a sweep of BBSs posting such picture files,
which were traced back to Denmark. The BBS sysops, and their
users, face hard time in the US. The Denmark sysop, who says he
got his files from the US, is already out of jail. This seems
contradictory, but the fact is the pictures themselves would get
no harsher treatment under Danish law than their digital
counterparts.

US groups which want to make the distribution of any sexually
explicit material illegal online, on the other hand, must first
make such material illegal on paper. If they succeed in defining
obscenity as they want it defined, then the fact that a dirty
picture is a data file should offer it no protection.

The same rules must apply to the police, a US District Court
judge in Texas ruled. If a search warrant lets you seize a
printing press, you can also seize a BBS. But if it doesn't, you
can't. The case involved Steve Jackson, whose games company was
raided a few years ago. No charges were filed, but Jackson's PCs,
including the material for a new role-playing game on computer
criminals, was kept by the agents. Judge Sam Sparks gave Jackson
$50,000 in damages, saying his rights as a publisher had been
violated. Attorneys fees will push the governments' costs to
$250,000, if they fail to win on appeal.

The same rules can be applied elsewhere. The state of
Massachusetts is selling tapes of every drivers' records, for
$77. Newspapers could hammer public figures with their
violations, insurance companies could re-rate policies, and
direct mail companies could have a field day, privacy advocates
say. The question must be, however -- would release of the paper
records be legal and desirable? If they are, let it be. If the
release of paper records is illegal, so should be the release of
computer records.

The biggest problem with my analogy, as I see it, is what to do
with online "flaming," an intemperate form of online speech I've
been guilty of myself on occasion. Peter DeNigris of Long
Island is now being sued by Medphone, makers of a system that
lets doctors defibrillate hearts over wireless phone links. At
issue are "flame" notes he posted on Prodigy, to the effect that
the company was going under and deserved to do so.

Medphone calls this libel. But in fact, no publisher would have
published Mr. DeNigris' opinions about Medphone, because he has
no standing in the investment community and did not conduct the
kind of in-depth research -- starting with long talks to the
company's management -- common in business reporting. All he did
was buy the stock at a high price, lose money, and bitch about
it. If that's anything, to me, that's slander, not libel.

But, wait. Prodigy is not your ordinary online service. Prodigy
routinely censors messages on its forums, and has long taken to
closing-down whole sections when the conversation gets too
heated. In doing so, I think, it accepts some of a publisher's
responsibility.

Perhaps CompuServe has the right idea here. Notes on forums are
purged weekly, except for those which the operators think have
lasting value, which are turned into files for later search. This
limits the action which can be taken against people who are,
after all, just spouting-off from their homes in an electronic
meeting.

If electronic messaging is to have any value, spontaneity must be
encouraged. But even if you're free to speak, that doesn't mean
someone can't take action after the fact. Thus, or as they say
online, the notes of users should be seen as speech, not
published writing. Only editors and publishers can be sued for
libel. Even if it's in electronic ink.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19930322)


(CORRECTION)(IBM)(SFO)(00008)

Clarification - Review of Bicom B260i Handheld PC 03/26/93
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- ABC Computer
tells Newsbytes that an important clarification needs to be made
Newsbytes' Bicom handheld PC review which appeared in our Feb 5,
1993 edition. Apparently the return policy printed on its
packing list is incorrect.

ABC Computer's return policy is a 30-day money back guarantee with
no restocking fee. After 30 days, you can still return the unit
but there is a 20% restocking fee. (Newsbytes had reported there
was a 20% restocking fee from day one.)

(Wendy Woods/19930326)


(REVIEW)(APPLE)(SFO)(00009)

Review of - Mutant Beach, Game For Macintosh 03/26/93

Runs on: Macintoshes

From: Inline Design, 5 West Mountain Rd., Sharon, CT 06069, 203-364-0063

Price: $59.95

PUMA rating: 3.5 (on a scale of 1=lowest to 4=highest)

Reviewed for Newsbytes by: Naor Wallach

Summary: An action adventure game set on an island.
The island's god has lost its nose. It is up to you to solve
all of the riddles and return the nose to its rightful owner
before time runs out.

=======

REVIEW

=======

Mutant Beach, billed as an action/adventure game, can be huge if
you are playing on a color Macintosh. The black and white version
is much more modest in its memory and space requirements. It needs
only about 750K of your hard drive. The game comes on six
diskettes, but if you choose the black and white option, only
two are actually needed for the installation.

Installation is very easy. Inline Design included a copy of Apple's
installer on the first disk and the proper scripts in a separate file.

In this game you control the activities of Native Nick. Native
Nick was floating off the shore of his tropical island when a
mysterious person came and stole the bejeweled nose of the island's
chief deity Mohawk. In a fit of anger, Mohawk then retaliated by
mutating all the other inhabitants of the island into stone. The
only way to turn them back is to find Mohawk's nose and return it to
him. That becomes your task to complete.

The island is comprised of nine areas which form a village, a beach,
a creek, and Mohawk's cave. One of the first things that you need
to figure out is how each area connects to the others and how to
move among them. Each of the six areas outside the cave itself
contain items that are strewn about haphazardly. All of the items
except for the rubber duckies are guarded by Mohawk's spirit and
can not be touched. If you have the proper rubber duckie though,
you can pick up the items.

As it turns out, there are six lesser deities guarding the
entrance to Mohawk's chamber, then there are six deities who
are outside of the inner sanctum but who can give you
valuable information and clues. The only problem is that each
of these deities wants you to bring something to them. Your task
is to find out what each deity wants, get it, give it to the deity,
and then get the deity to give you the clue necessary to go on.

All in all, there are four levels of riddles that you must solve
in order to complete the game.

The game is played in real time. When you start you can select to
play for 30, 60, or 90 minutes. If you do not solve all of the
riddles within the time allotted, you are defeated. Also,
most areas around the island are guarded by Mohawks' mutated
creatures that you must avoid. Some of them will even take items
that you are carrying away from you.

This game is particularly challenging in that one also needs to
figure out which items need to be carried and when. You
see, Native Nick can only carry six items at any one time. Since
the four levels of riddles require many more items than six to
solve, it is up to you to figure out which items to be carrying
at which times.

There is a selection of background music which is kind of fun
and adds to the ambiance of the game. However, nothing is lost
if you turn it off. When I was deep into solving the riddles, I
found that I occasionally turned off the music in order to
concentrate better. There is also a collection of sounds that are
played when some special events occur. For instance, a collision
with a mutant causes a sound to be played which is very distinctive.

Control of Native Nick is accomplished by mouse only, keyboard
only, or a combination of the two. I eventually settled on
having my right hand control Nick's movements via the keypad and
my left hand used the mouse to control the item manipulations and
Nick's questions to various entities. Once you are used to
controlling Nick, game play is smooth and logical so you can
pay attention to the riddles and the clues.

The scenes are lushly painted. The first few times that I entered
an area I would pause to admire the artwork and ignored the game
play itself. Needless to say, that cost me many points as the bad
guys did not stop to admire the scenery, but instead came at me.

The main difficulty with the game is understanding what needs to
be done. I was not helped much by the manual, which is
good describing the different play options but does a relatively
poor job getting you pointed in the proper direction for game play.
Once I got the idea of the game down, the rest was a simple matter
of getting what was needed and bringing it to the entity that
needed it. I still had to solve the riddles, but they are not
really all that difficult. For instance, one of the deities
wants to get some "tree fruit" and there happens to be a
pineapple available).

Once you have solved the game, the only reason to go back and
play it again is to try and get through it faster. That's a
shame since I like to be able to play a game that is as good as
this more than once. I would have liked this game much more if the
riddles would change from game to game to maintain some interest.
Another feature that might be useful would be the ability to change
the level of difficulty. Maybe the mutants should be more
aggressive at more difficult levels, or move in random patterns.

=============

PUMA RATINGS

=============

PERFORMANCE: 4 The game ran smoothly and well. There were minimal
delays at screen changes and no problems were encountered at any time.

USEFULNESS: 3 This is a fun game. It is limited only in that it
is solved the same way each time.

MANUAL: 3 The manual does not do enough to get you started.
I had to spend a couple of hours of playing the game and
experimenting with different things until it became clear what
my initial steps needed to be.

AVAILABILITY: 4 Available from mail order and software stores.
Although Inline Design does not have a toll-free number for
technical support, they do maintain a presence on several
bulletin boards. There is also a toll-free number for sale
inquiries which is with the company, so questions can be
asked of the right people.

(Naor Wallach/19930307/Darryl Peck, Inline Design)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(DEL)(00010)

Indian Engineer Sues Mitsubishi 03/26/93
NEW DELHI, INDIA, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- An Indian software engineer
has filed a law suit against his employer, Mitsubishi Electric of
Japan, charging racial discrimination and a breach of contract.

An India Abroad News Service report said that Kamal Sinha, who was
employed by the company in 1989 filed the suit in a Tokyo district
court. He said his high expectations about the job based on promises
of training, lifetime employment and equality with Japanese colleagues
were dashed.

He charged Mitsubishi with breach of contract and job discrimination
because he is an Indian and sought about $40,000 in damages.

The 35-year-old engineer from Patna, capital of the northern Indian
state of Bihar, was teaching systems analysis at the University of
Tennessee in the US when he was sought out by Mitsubishi and hired
in September 1989.

Sinha claims that he was told that his unfamiliarity with the
Japanese language would not constitute a problem for him and that
he would be given promotions in step with his age group and treated
in all ways like a lifetime Japanese employee.

But, Sinha says, he was not given the job he expected and soon after
his arrival was expected to understand Japanese and to submit reports
in that language. He had been promised language training, but was
given none, although Caucasian employees were getting 100 hours paid
study time in Japanese during office hours.

Language training is very expensive in Japan, and good schools were
beyond his means. He was subjected to harassment, he added, when
he spent office time trying to learn Japanese on his own.

Soon demands were being made and pressure brought to bear upon him,
Sinha added, that he become fluent in Japanese. He was harassed
by managers and ordered to vacate his company-paid apartment in
Kamakura, about 45 miles from Tokyo.

He said he spent about $5,000 from his pocket for language training
and can now speak "pretty well" and can "read the newspapers and
communicate."

Mitsubishi did not respond to a faxed request by IANS for comments
on the case. But in a legal journal, a company official was quoted
as calling the entire matter "an unfortunate misunderstanding."
The spokesperson adds, "It was our intention to provide Sinha with
opportunities and a chance to make use of his abilities in the long
term. But he failed to understand this, and so unfortunately brought
this case against us."

Although friends advised Sinha against filing a suit, saying it was
almost impossible for a foreigner to win a lawsuit against a Japanese
company, particularly a giant like Mitsubishi, he intends to pursue
the case. Sinha's lawyer was optimistic about his chances because of
Sinha's unfulfilled contract and Japan's anti-discrimination laws.

Sinha claims the company is now merely pretending to give him work,
but is leaving him mostly idle.

(C.T. Mahabharat/19930326)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SYD)(00011)

 ****Price Cuts Force Resellers To Rethink 03/26/93
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- The model by which the PC
channel operates will have to change. This is the message of Merisel's
worldwide cochairman and CEO, speaking to the Australian press recently.
He said more modest expectations would characterize the rest of the 90's.
No longer can anyone expect a free ride from the industry.

Picket's view is that if a reseller continues as they have been,
by 1995 they will sell three times as much product
yet have its net profit reduced by a factor of four. And that's
assuming they can sell the product in the first place.

But Picket's view is that traditional resellers will have to change
dramatically if they are to remain viable. He said there are now
only two categories - volume movers and the consultants.

"The dealer has either gone to the left, gone to the right or
gone-gone," he said.

Volume movers will have to reduce operating costs even further,
though some of these savings will come from increased levels of
inventory financing from above. They'll keep costs to a minimum
through wholesale buying groups and use of large distributors or
buying direct from manufacturers or even manufacturing themselves
on behalf of software publishers. He gave the example of some
mass merchandisers in the US who already refuse to buy from
distributors.

On the new category of consultant Picket said, "These are people
who are today selling hardware and perhaps their own software. They
have to mentally divide their role from being a hardware purveyor
to being a purveyor of services and technology. They can't compete
with volume sellers or they'll go broke. They need to understand
they're selling knowledge. They're selling technology in its
software form. They have the opportunity to be the most successful
and have the highest profits. Business for them is less cost
intensive - there's no capital involved."

Picket said that manufacturing also had to change dramatically.
"Today there's US$15 to $20 million in inventory in the channel.
75 percent hardware and the rest software." He said manufacturers
had to either reduce the number of model types or move the
customization down to the reseller so that stock requirements
could be slashed. He gave the example of a product being out of
stock in a reseller, yet if they could open the boxes and swap a
couple of options they'd have what they needed. He suggests that
manufacturers ship bare-bones machines with all options like graphics
cards and hard drives separately for fitting as needed by the
reseller.

On the subject of distribution, Picket said that multinational
distributors like Merisel stood the best chance as they offered
economies of scale and the ability to cut international distribution
deals and get the levels of support that came with them. He said they
were able to give the sorts of specialized services that each segment
needed, from price labelling and merchandising assistance for the
mass merchandisers to technical support and sales advice for the VARs.

"Through automation and training, we can customize and personalize
our service without increasing our cost of business," he said.

Does he see a role for smaller and national distributors? Yes, he said
that Merisel could not afford to support every product and where a
manufacturer also didn't have a local support arm, this was an ideal
niche for local distributors. "But if they want to compete with us on
commodity products and mass distribution, I'd suggest they might not
have a job."

Another role Picket sees for Merisel is shipment to end users on behalf
of either a manufacturer or a VAR. He said Merisel wouldn't sell
directly itself but was happy to act as a fulfillment service, shipping
and configuring product but not using the Merisel name or address
anywhere on the product or box. He said the only market where it
sold directly was Russia where there is no channel to speak of.
Merisel's budgeted cost of business over the next few years will rise
slightly to cover the expected increases in product customization
that the channel will expect.

When asked what would happen to the reseller channel as software
prices continued to drop, Picket said there would be changes. "I don't
see major products going as low as US$100, but given the mix of
full and upgrade product, it will get very low." He said one change
will be the introduction of software-only vendors - perhaps without
a storefront. They could operate like a distributor, selling from a
catalogue with overnight shipping to small and large customers. He
also sees software being sold electronically, being delivered
directly via networks, and through mass merchant channels. "I don't
think we'll ever see a situation where software is not sold in
retail packages."

Picket believes support will have to be a charged service, but said
the difficulty in starting a support organization was financing the
setup and training period before getting the customers. "Free tech
support will go in the next few years. Nominal support will be
provided for the first 30 or 60 days and after that you'll pay for
it from someone who will provide it either electronically or through
phone support." He said support could never be dropped as software
was a technical product, and not trivial to use, particularly
for the uninitiated user.

Does he see room for startup companies given the increasing size
and monopolization of the big manufacturers? "If you're a US$6
billion Compaq, you'll think twice about introducing a new product
that will only be worth US$100 million. As the big get bigger, so
do the available niches."

(Paul Zucker/19930326)


(NEWS)(IBM)(SYD)(00012)

Australian Tracker Goes To Singapore 03/26/93
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Australian-designed marketing
contact database software manufacturer Softcode has signed a $4M
deal to sell its Tracker software to Informatics Holdings in
Singapore.

Softcode's managing director, Roger Bushell, said, "This new export
order runs of three years and opens up the Singaporean and Malaysian
markets to Tracker, which is already established as the southern
hemisphere's favorite marketing database software. Informatics is
a very strong performer in its marketplace, with a heavy emphasis
on training and sales support. In fact, apart from their Singaporean
operation, they have a string of ten offices throughout Malaysia."

He added, "We expect them to give Tracker a warm welcome in this
region which will complement the deal we have struck last month with
Telecomputing for distributing Tracker in Hong Kong. Already we have
hosted a technician from Telecomputing at our Melbourne headquarters
to train in after-sales support, and marketing for the Tracker product
and the export push continues."

(Paul Zucker/19930326/Contact: Mr Cameron Brown at Softcode on phone
[phone])


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(WAS)(00013)

Roundup - Stories Carried By Other Media This Week 03/26/93
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Roundup is a brief
look at some computer stories carried in other publications
received here this past week. Please note that the post office is
often responsible for delays which cause older editions to be
presented here.

Telephony dated March 15 points out that MCI has introduced a new
800 service geared to telecommuters. "Callers to an 800
HomeOffice Link number will first hear a company greeting,
followed by a request to enter an employee's personal code," says
the page 3 report by Dan O'Shea. Essentially, this service makes
800 calls to telecommuters as transparent to outsiders as any
other interoffice extension.

Federal Computer Week for the week of the 15th reports that IBM
and the Federal Aviation Administration have both asked Congress
not to kill the Advanced Automation System despite massive cost
escalations and, what is apparently a minor problem to a federal
agency, the fact that there has just been a 14-month delay
announced. The AAS has a new program manager, Donald Mullikin,
who should be familiar with delays because he has already spent
three years working on the AAS program at a lower level.

Computerworld dated March 22 says that information systems
executives are hot for wireless computer links but that the
technology lags behind. The Yankee Group projects that the number
of mobile computers will climb from 23,000 this year to nearly
800,000 in 1996. This could give an entirely new meaning to "Avon
calling."

The April 13 issue of PC Magazine asks the musical question, "Is
DOS 6 The Ultimate Upgrade?" It then reviews the major new features
of the latest MS-DOS version. DOS 6 adds automatic file
compression, improved memory manager management, backup and anti-
virus utilities, a new reboot system, and includes Windows
versions of important utilities. The bad news? Space, what else?
MS-DOS now occupies a whopping five megabytes of hard disk space,
not putting it in the OS/2 realm but certainly moving it out of
the floppy-boot range for most users.

Informationweek for March 22 says that a major new problem facing
CIOs is learning where to find important information in the more
than 5,000 public online data services now available to corporate
users. The cover story suggests that as information officers do
less mainframe and minicomputer management due to outsourcing
their departments will actually grow as they assume more
information research librarian-type tasks.

Network World for the 22nd says that IBM's APPN peer-to-peer SNA
network architecture is now the system of choice, as the Cisco
Systems-backed Advanced Peer-to-Peer Internetworking (APPI)
alternative has "outlived its usefulness before ever really
getting off the ground."

Communicationsweek for the week of the 22nd says that "several
major corporations" expect wireless e-mail to become very
important to them. This issue also says that "some managers fear
deploying Lotus Notes" mostly because it threatens to let workers
learn too much about their jobs and may undermine the authority
of some managers.

UnixWorld for April takes a long look at Steve Jobs' reluctance
to give up on his Next hardware dream. Starting May 25, the
NextStep software will be available for 486 (and presumably
Pentium)-based computers for $1,000. Whether anyone will pay that
much for an operating system when robust competing software such
as OS/2 is selling for a small fraction of that amount is open to
question, but the real competition is seen as Microsoft's "Cairo"
object-oriented operating system and the Apple-IBM Taligent
product, neither of which is available.

(John McCormick/19930326/)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(WAS)(00014)

 ****Silicon Valley Execs Oppose Clinton Policies 03/26/93
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- While Apple CEO
Computer John Sculley's appearance next to Hillary Rodham Clinton
at the President's recent address to the joint Congressional
session was seen as setting the tone for Silicon Valley's
relations with the new administration, some rifts appeared in
yesterday's hearings where T.J. Rodgers, the head of Cypress
Semiconductor, joined others in voicing objections to paying
higher taxes so the government can funnel some of the money into
high-tech advances.

Mr. Rodgers, an unabashed free enterprise advocate, said in his
testimony before the US House Committee on Science, Space and
Technology that he saw the administration's plans as hurting his
and other high-tech companies. "I still have most of the wealth
associated with my Cypress shares. What have I done with my
wealth? I invested it."

His contention is basically that taking more taxes out of the
pockets of entrepreneurs such as himself will reduce the money
they can invest in research and development. Mr. Rodgers
ridiculed the idea that government could make better-informed
high-tech investments than he or his company as "defying common
sense."

He also specifically voiced opposition to the proposed taxpayer-
supported high-performance "data superhighway," pointing out that
major carriers such as MCI, Sprint, and AT&T already have
competing coast-to-coast fiber networks and that the real problem
isn't in building a national fiber optic backbone but in
connecting it to individual businesses and homes.

Getting into the details, Mr. Rodgers suggested that government's
role should be in getting the bureaucracy out of the way of
companies such as AT&T which are already chomping at the bit to
connect all homes directly to their fiber network.

AT&T, he says, is blocked by rules that make the investment
uneconomical; cable TV companies face regulations preventing them
from supplying anything other than television signals to the 60
million homes they are already wired into; and FCC restrictions
block companies from providing wireless connections to existing
fiber networks.

Cypress's CEO said that a number of other Silicon Valley
executives join him in opposing the Clinton-Gore high tech
investment plan, including: Gil Amelio, chief executive officer,
National Semiconductor; Wilf Corrigan, chief executive officer,
LSI Logic; Pierre Lamond, founder, National Semiconductor; L.J.
Sevin, chairman, Cyrix; John Adler, chief executive officer,
Adaptec; Scott McNealy, chief executive officer, Sun
Microsystems; and Roger Emerick, chief executive officer, Lam
Research.

Joe Zemke, chief executive officer, Amdahl, calls the tax-and-
invest plan "terribly inefficient."

Don Valentine, director of Cisco Systems and a director of Apple
Computer, warned that John Sculley (whom he called the Pepsi-Cola
Kid) doesn't speak for Silicon Valley as a whole.

Finis Conner, founder and chief executive officer, Conner
Peripherals, and Scott McNealy, chief executive officer, Sun
Microsystems, expressed similar objections to the
administration's plan.

The above comments were cited by Mr. Rodgers in his testimony.

(John McCormick/19930326/Press Contact: Ben Gibson, Cypress
Semiconductor, 408-287-1700)


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

International Phone Update 03/26/93
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- The rush is on to
previously forbidden markets like Vietnam. US firms are still
prohibited from dealing with that country, so other nations are
rushing into the vacuum.

Marconi of Italy said it will complete a fiber cable link between
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, by the end of this
year. Until recently, fiber cable was among the most heavily
banned of Western exports to the former Communist Bloc, since fiber
calls can't be tapped easily. Italy's government is financing the
link. Siemens, of Germany, Alcatel of France, and Lucky Goldstar
of Korea also have a presence in the market, which has a
population of 71 million but fewer than 200,000 telephones.

Earlier this year, French President Francois Mitterrand was in
Hanoi to press his case for trade, and Japanese companies are
thought to have a lead on the market.

China, of course, is an even bigger, faster-growing market, and
Western companies are tripping all over themselves looking for a
piece of that action. Ericsson executives said at CeBit they're
pushing to sell hundreds of thousands of small phone switches
there, millions of lines in public switching, and mobile
telephones under the GSM digital cellular standard, as well as
paging networks.

Siemens of Germany set up a joint venture in Shanghai to produce
GSM digital cellular phones, with the German company owning 60
percent of the venture, and the nation's economics minister is
leaving for China tomorrow, with hopes to make China a prime market
for goods from the former East Germany.

Those hopes may be in vain, of course, because China wants first-
quality goods. It has a huge trade surplus with both Europe and
the US, so it can afford the best as well, like AT&T-branded
telephones, fax machines, and other consumer items, which will be
distributed through the China National Posts and
Telecommunications Industry Corp., working with AT&T's Hong Kong-
based manufacturing partner. That deal follows a mega-agreement
to build its complete line of equipment in China, including its
flagship digital switches and optical fiber systems. Motorola is
also looking to China as a prime market for its advanced
electronics, starting with its hand-held cellular phones.

There remains the question, however, whether all this activity
will really change global balances of trade much. China is
insisting it make what it sells, even when it buys technology,
meaning it could become a powerful competitor in the high end of
the world's telecomm markets down the road. Other low-wage
countries, like Brazil, are already becoming heavy exporters of
telecom products. Siemens of Germany, for instance, has been
selling equipment out of Brazil heavily to keep eight factories
going. Brazil, of course, continues to discuss privatizing its
Telebras phone monopoly, which could in time make that company a
power in world telecom trade.

Southeast Asia is already going through this transition,
sometimes with aid from the region. Malaysia has its own locally
designed handheld cellular phone, from Sapura, which could
reduce its imports of such products. Itochu, a Japanese trading
house, will buy three percent of the Thai telephone unit, giving
Japanese interests nearly the 25 percent holding that Hong Kong's
Jasmine International holds, and slightly more than the 20
percent stake of an Italian group.

In the Philippines, where President Marcos is still trying to
break the monopoly of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.,
Singapore Telecom bought out ITT's stake in Globe Telecom, which
makes cellular equipment. Korea also made plans to open its voice
mail and cellular businesses to foreign competition with Korea
Telecom next year, after local private companies failed to dent
the market with primitive offerings.

In Europe, growing competition remains the lead story. Germany is
moving toward selling its Deutsche Bundespost Telekom unit, which
would likely be followed by creation of a new competitive
services environment. MCI leaped to take advantage of what's
coming by linking with DBT in offering Switched Multi-megabit
Data Service, or SMDS, to the US under its HyperStream label,
running at speeds up to 45 million bits/second. International
links are the next frontier for fast data services, and MCI has
been slow in taking advantage of the US market, so the German
link-up is a major opportunity. DBT is also competing with
Mannesmann in the digital cellular phone market, and announced
plans to triple the number of users on its D1 nets by year-end.
DBT currently trails Mannesmann's D2 group in the German market.

Deregulation of German telephony is the centerpiece of efforts
throughout the EC to liberalize the market. Leaders of the EC's
remaining monopolies are meeting in Brussels on a plan to fully
deregulate by 1998, with France and Belgium lined up against it.

Italy is trying to reorganize its own confused telephone
situation, where different groups handle European, Italian, and
overseas calls, but competition is not yet in the works there.

Sweden, meanwhile, took the first step toward deregulating its
market by allowing Tele2, 40 percent owned by Cable & Wireless,
which owns the UK's Mercury net, to go into business against
Televerket.

Finally, in the wide-open UK market, IDB Communications signed
papers to connect with British Telecom's network. The agreement
is ironic in that IDB already serves Russia and other markets
which are far more closed. IDB now has operating agreements in
over 100 nations.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19930326/Press Contact: Lori Gutknecht, IDB,
213-240-3758; Jim Barron, BT, 212-297-2724; Alan Garratt, MCI
International, 914-934-6484)


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

Microcom Gets MNP 10 Patent 03/26/93
NORWOOD, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Microcom has
won a patent for a new enhancement to its MNP 10 protocol called
"Aggressive Adaptive Packet Assembly." The newly patented
technology could be especially important in wireless
applications, where line noise is a continuing problem, and in
Third World networks, where signal quality is often poor. MNP 10
was originally designed for use in poor-quality European
networks.

AAPA adapts the size of data packets to line conditions before
they're sent, maximizing throughput. The technology's full name
is "Method and Apparatus for Effecting Efficient Transmission of
Data," and it's number 5,191,583. Inventors are Gregory Pearson,
Nathan R. Melhorn, Michael F. Onorato and Craig Richards.

AAPA works by simulating data to detect changing line conditions,
using what are called "Link Management-Idle" packets. Based on
how the fake packets move and actual data on line conditions,
the size of packets can be decreased in noisy conditions, or
increased when conditions ease. Pearson says the company believes
this is just the first in a series of MNP 10 feature patents,
which will increase its value to companies that license it. In
recent months Rockwell International has licensed MNP 10 in its
chip-sets, as have AT&T Microelectronics, Compaq, and a number of
major modem makers.

V.42 and V.42bis, which are considered the standards for
error-correction in fast modems, use a single size of packet and
don't adjust to changing conditions. Microcom has been working to
make MNP 10 a de-facto industry standard. Some companies oppose
this because the technology is patented. Spectrum Information
Technologies, meanwhile, is suing Microcom, claiming MNP 10
infringes on underlying parts of its patents. "There's no risk to
our licensees because we indemnify them," Pearson said.

Pearson told Newsbytes MNP 10 doesn't compete with V.42bis.
"Earlier MNP error control is a required part of V.42. MNP 10 is
a super-set of those existing standards. It does compete with
modems that are V.42bis only. But it's not a new scheme, it's a
series of adverse-channel enhancements."

(Dana Blankenhorn/19930326/Press Contact: David Powers, Microcom,
617-551-1955)


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

Telecom Visionary Leaves Borland For SkyTel 03/26/93
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Doug Brackbill has
returned to SkyTel, which he'd left when he moved to the West
Coast a year ago to work for Borland International. Brackbill
will remain on the West Coast, SkyTel President David W.
Garrison said, as vice president, Wireless Services.

At 36, Brackbill is already a visionary in the electronic mail
field, having helped create MCI Mail and lead its marketing
efforts. He started his career at Sprint. In his previous stint
with SkyTel, he spearheaded efforts toward creating a National
Wireless Network, a data network using aspects of paging
technology for which SkyTel is now seeking frequencies. At that
time, however, he was based in Washington, D.C. He took his
recent job with Borland for personal reasons, wishing to
relocate his family on the West Coast, and his new post with
SkyTel will let him stay there.

The challenge he faces now is finding a place for SkyTel in an
increasingly crowded field of handheld devices. Devices like
AT&T's Personal Communicators and Apple's Newton are still not
released, but those companies have been busy signing alliances
anyway with wireless e-mail service and software providers like
Motorola's EMBARC, which offers one-way mail service using a
paging frequency like SkyTel's own system in the 931 MHz
frequency. Brackbill's new job will be finding a place for
SkyTel's service, current and future, in this crowded
environment.

In the year since Brackbill left, SkyTel has become profitable
for Mobile Telecommunications Corp., its owner, and the company's
stock has risen sharply in price.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19930326/Press Contact: Marco Greenberg, for
SkyTel, 212-614-4103)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(TOR)(00018)

Canada - Long-Distance Competition For Edmonton 03/26/93
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- National
long-distance carrier Unitel Communications and Ed Tel, the
local telephone company, have reached an agreement providing for
competitive long-distance phone service in Edmonton.

Once approved by the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the deal would give Ed Tel
subscribers access to long-distance service provided by Unitel as
well as that provided by Stentor, the consortium of regional
phone companies.

A CRTC judgment last year gave Unitel the right to provide
competing long-distance service in British Columbia, the six
eastern provinces and the territories. It did not cover Alberta,
Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, because telephone service in those
provinces was provincially regulated at the time of Unitel's
application and therefore not subject to CRTC regulation.

Since then, Unitel has moved toward agreements to provide service
in Manitoba and Alberta. Stephanie MacKendrick, a spokeswoman for
Unitel, said the CRTC is currently studying Unitel's application
to provide long-distance service in the rest of Alberta, which is
served by AGT Inc. Last November, the government of Manitoba gave
its approval for Unitel to compete with the provincially owned
Manitoba Telephone System.

Since the CRTC must still approve the deal between Unitel and Ed
Tel, it is not known when competitive long-distance service will
start in Edmonton, MacKendrick said.

(Grant Buckler/19930326/Press Contact: Stephanie MacKendrick,
Unitel, 416-345-2482)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(TOR)(00019)

Injunction Denied In Systemhouse-Team Dispute 03/26/93
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Team Consultants, a
small Ottawa consulting firm, has been denied an injunction
against systems integration and consulting firm SHL Systemhouse
Ltd. Team's lawsuit against Systemhouse remains outstanding.

Team Consultants, a former subcontractor to Systemhouse, has
accusing the large integration firm of raiding its offices and
stealing its property. Systemhouse officials deny the charges,
saying Team failed to meet terms of a contract and its employees
were asked to leave office space that belongs to Systemhouse.

The injunction would have reinstated a contract between the
firms, and Ron Allen, vice-president of business development at
Team Consultants, said earlier it would allow his company back
into the disputed office space.

Team worked with Systemhouse on a document imaging system for
Canada Post. Systemhouse said it ended the contract because Team
had not paid a number of its subcontractors.

Scott Eaton, senior legal vice-president at Systemhouse, said his
company will probably file a countersuit against Team along with
its defence in Team's suit. No court date has been set, he said,
and "in the normal course" the suit will probably take up to two
years to come to trial, unless it is dropped or settled out of
court in the meantime.

(Grant Buckler/19930326/Press Contact: Ron Allen, Team
Consultants, 613-233-0404, fax [phone]; Scott Eaton,
Systemhouse, 613-236-9734)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(TOR)(00020)

AT&T, Unitel To Offer US/Canada Network Service 03/26/93
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Unitel
Communications and AT&T have announced plans to offer a
"seamless" virtual private network service to customers in the
United States and Canada.

Unitel, a national communications carrier in Canada, and AT&T
both offer virtual private network services in their respective
markets. Stephanie MacKendrick, a spokeswoman for Unitel, said
the new Software Defined Network service will offer more advanced
features as well as allowing customers to deal with one point of
contact and receive one bill for all services. It will also give
Canadian customers the option of doing business in French or
English for their US as well as their Canadian services.

Unitel will continue offering its domestic VRoute virtual private
network service and customers who need services in both countries
will have the choice of staying with that and AT&T's Global
Software Defined Network services or switching to the new single
service.

According to officials of the companies, other features of the
new service will include: guaranteed service levels; a uniform
dialing plan in both countries; network management functions,
including fraud control and traffic analysis reports; and
round-the-clock service maintenance.

"Controlled introduction" of service to a few large customers is
to begin in the third quarter, the companies said, and the
service will be generally available soon after.

Unitel and AT&T formed an alliance in January.

(Grant Buckler/19930326/Press Contact: Stephanie MacKendrick,
Unitel, 416-345-2482; David Bikle, AT&T, 201-644-7052)


(NEWS)(IBM)(TOR)(00021)

 ****Former Nabisco Chairman Tapped As IBM Chief 03/26/93
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Confirming rumors
of the past several days, IBM has named Louis V. Gerstner, former
chairman and chief executive of RJR Nabisco, Inc., to replace
John Akers as IBM's chairman and CEO.

Gerstner's appointment marks the first time IBM has gone outside
its own ranks to hire a new boss. That move reflects problems at
the company over the past few years, which have led many
observers to say new blood was needed.

Gerstner's background is outside the computer industry, although
while at American Express he gained attention by his use of
information technology to help the company meet strategic goals.
During his tenure there, American Express's First Data Resources
unit grew to be the fifth largest provider of computer services
in the United States.

More recently, he has helped take RJR Nabisco from a net loss of
$1.1 billion when he joined the company in 1989 to net income of
$1.4 billion, while cutting debt more than in half.

Gerstner, who is 51, worked at American Express for 11 years
before joining Nabisco in 1989. Before American Express, he was a
consultant at McKinsey & Co., Inc., which he joined in 1965 after
receiving a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard
University. He will take over at IBM on April 1, the company
said.

William Milton, an investment analyst who follows IBM for Brown
Brothers Harriman in New York, wondered if Gerstner's appointment
could make a difference, given that IBM is already in the midst
of a reorganization and an ambitious cost-cutting effort.
"There's no obvious action that a new CEO could take that's not
already being taken," he said.

(Grant Buckler/19930326/Press Contact: Rob Wilson, IBM,
914-765-6565)


(NEWS)(IBM)(LON)(00022)

CeBIT - Toshiba's Pen Notebook, New Color Portable 03/26/93
HANNOVER, GERMANY, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Toshiba has unveiled two new
portables, the T100X Dynapad and a color-only "power" version of its
T1850 portable computer.

The T100X Dynapad is a 3.3-pound pen-driven unit that comes in a 4cm
B5-sized grey case with a 9.5-inch diagonal sidelit LCD screen.
Toshiba officials at CeBIT describe the Dynapad as a pen-driven VGA
LCD screen "slab," although Newsbytes notes that there is a lot more
to the machine than meets the eye. Hidden inside the casing is an
Advanced Micro Devices B25MHz 386SXLV chipset, 4 megabytes (MB) of
memory, expandable to 20MB internally, and a 1.8-inch fast-access
40MB hard disk. An external 3.5-inch floppy drive also comes as
standard.

According to a spokesman for Toshiba Germany, the Dynapad will ship
within the next six weeks in France, Germany and the UK, beating
Amstrad's Penpad to market. Like the Amstrad Penpad, which Toshiba
claims is in a totally different market to the Dynapad, it takes
PCMCIA cards.

Also, thanks to "intelligent pen sensing," battery life is a claimed
five hours on a single charge of the nickel cadmium battery packs.

As supplied, the T100X Dynapad comes with Go's Powerpoint or
Microsoft's PenWindows pre-installed. The company claims that this
flexibility allows the Dynapad to be used in a variety of situations.

Toshiba also launched a new version of its T6400 series, the T6400C, a
color-only portable that features a 50MHz 486DX2 processor, at CeBIT.
Christoph Selig, Toshiba's European general manager for PC marketing,
said that the 4MB RAM-equipped machine comes with a 200MB hard disk.

"With the market demanding ever faster processing speeds, we felt it
was appropriate to upgrade the T6400 series to include a DX2 model.
The success of the existing T6400 range, however, told us that the
other specifications are still those the customers require. In
particularly, the full-sized industry expansion slot is highly prized
for uses that cannot yet be reduced to PCMCIA," he said.

Pricing on both the T100X Dynapad and T6400 color portable have yet
to be confirmed.

(Steve Gold/19930326/Press & Public Contact: Toshiba Europe - Tel:
[phone]; Fax: [phone])


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(LON)(00023)

GDI Global Data Transmission System 03/26/93
HANNOVER, GERMANY, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Geotechnology Development
Incorporated (GDI) was on the US technology pavilion at CeBIT this
week, showing off its Tracker service.

At the moment, Tracker is undergoing trials, pending a full launch of
the service within the next few months. Tracker was originally
conceived as a global vehicle location system, according to Fred
Krazeise, the company's president and CEO. Because data feeds will
shortly be two-way, however, the system can be used as a "store and
forward" data transmission service.

The system works with users having a $500 box that exchanges data with
one of two NASA satellites orbiting the earth in a geostationary
position over each pole. For at least five minutes in every 100, the
Tracker unit has a transmission path to the satellite, when it
exchanges data at speeds of up to 256,000 bits per second.

"Air time" on the Tracker service costs just a $1.25 a minute and,
according to Krazeise, this pitches the usage tariff favorably with
existing terrestrial and area-limited mobile data services. The
advantage of Tracker over potentially competing systems, he told
Newsbytes, is that it is available now, and a fraction of the cost of
data services such as the planned data subset of Motorola's Iridium
project, which will use low earth orbit (LEO) satellites to carry the
signals from mobiles.

"Our system is voice carrying like Iridium. And it does not guarantee
an immediate signal path, particularly at the equator, where the
window opens for five percent of the time, but it is available now and
at sensible prices," Krazeise told Newsbytes.

The further away from the equator the mobile is, the more the window
(the time when a transmission path is available) is open. At the
poles, of course, the window is 100 percent. For most populated areas,
the window is open for data between 20 and 100 percent of the time.

Currently, Tracker is being used a global tracking system for
containers and ships on the trial service. The company, which has just
11 staff, has an arrangement with ESL, a subsidiary of TRW, which
controls the satellite "airtime" for the US Department of Defense. At
its most basic, Tracker allows users to track and locate containers
and vehicles on a global basis. The next few months will see the
introduction of a two-way data transmission system.

"Our technology has tremendous possibilities. Right now we're talking
to a number of third parties who ware interested in the technology.
It's early days, so we're waiting to see what happens," Krazeise said.

(Steve Gold/19930326/Press & Public Contact: GDI - Tel: [phone])


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(LON)(00024)

CeBIT - Amstrad's Consumer Electronics Gadgets 03/26/93
HANNOVER, GERMANY, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Amstrad has launched several
new products, including an "indexphone," a digital technology fax
machine, an updated notepad computer, a power 80486-based PC and a
hybrid games/PC computer, at the CeBIT Computer Faire in Hannover.

The IX-1000 is a multi-feature integrated speakerphone and
autodialler. Pricing on the phone, which will ship in the summer, has
yet to be announced. The phone, which features has an LCD display plus
a "QWERTY" style keyboard, is designed to integrate the Rolodex
systems that are used by busy office people with an integrated
phone/indexer. Keyword and number searches can be done on the unit,
which can store up to 400 regularly called numbers, plus their
associated details, in its memory.

The PS-8000, meanwhile, is billed as a personal secretary, a fax,
phone and digital phone answering machine built into one unit. The
#499-99 unit will become the flagship of Amstrad's fax series when it
ships this summer. The machine includes voice/data switching
technology inside its hardware. Both incoming and outgoing calls are
stored on CMOS-backed RAM.

The NC-200 is an enhanced version of the NC-100 notepad unveiled in
the fourth quarter of last year. The machine features a backlit screen
and a built in PC-compatible 3.5-inch disk drive. Shipment is expected
in the summer.

According to Alan Sugar, Amstrad's chairman, the company's first
notebook, the NC-100, answered the needs of users who wanted user-
friendly technology. "Now is the time to build on that success and we
are introducing a more advanced version to sell alongside our first
model, while maintaining the simplicity of operation," he said, adding
that the NC-200 is even more easy to use, but still competitively
priced.

The PC7486SLC is a UKP 849-99 496SLC-based PC that Amstrad's
marketing director, Malcolm Miller, claims offers 80486 computing
power at an 80386 price. The machine comes with DOS 5.0,
Windows 3.1, Works 3.0 and the Amstrad Desktop pre-installed. For the
money, users get 2MB of RAM and an 80MB hard disk.

Last, but far from least, the Amstrad Mega PC is a UKP 999-99 386SX PC
with an integrated Sega Megadrive. This is the first time Amstrad has
granted a licence on its Megadrive technology for the European
marketplace. A sliding front panel "jumps" between the PC and
Megadrive environment.

"It offers the ideal no-compromise solution for the market we have so
successfully developed over the last year for combined business/games
PCs. It does no with the ultimate specification -- a fast, powerful
and fully compatible PC with the functionality of Sega Megadrive,"
Miller said.

One interesting feature of the machine is its ability to freeze the
application environment you are leaving. This means, for example, that
an office worker could slip off to play Sonic the hedgehog, confident
on a quick return to another application when the boss walks into
the office.

(Steve Gold/19930326/Press & Public Contact: Amstrad UK - Tel: Amstrad
- 0277-228888)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LON)(00025)

 ****CeBIT - "Duet" Is PC/Macintosh Combo 03/26/93
HANNOVER, GERMANY, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Nutek, the Cupertino,
California-based Apple Macintosh clone specialist, has unveiled the
Duet computer, a $2,996 system capable of running PC and Mac
applications software. The machine has two processors, an Intel
486 and Motorola 68030, both running at 33 megahertz (MHz),
hence its ability to handle both application environments at once.

A spokesman for Nutek explained that Apple copyright provisions have
already been solved with early Mac clones from the company.

Benjamin Chou, the company's president, explained that the Duet is a
long way from being a Mac clone, since it is a PC system modified to
run Mac software with an internal Motorola 68030 board. The company is
compiling a list of Mac software that runs on the machine, although the
spokesman there is was no suggestion that the Duet is not capable of
running all Mac software. "We're being careful not to tread on Apple's
toes, that's all," he said.

Nutek appears to applying this "softly softly" approach to its
customers as well. The company, which is selling the Duet through
authorized resellers only in Europe, has licensed the Nubus technology
from Texas Instruments.

As supplied, the $2,996 system comes with 4MB of RAM plus an 80MB hard
disk, inside a mini-tower casing. I/O connectors include two Nubus
slots and a single SCSI plus a serial port. There are two expansion
slots inside the machine, which comes with 4 megabytes (MB) of PC
memory and 8 MB of Mac memory, as well as two Nubus slots.

(Steve Gold/19930326/Press & Public Contact: Nutek - Tel: 408-973-
8799; Fax: [phone])


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(LON)(00026)

CeBIT - V.32terbo Modem 03/26/93
HANNOVER, GERMANY, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Multitech has become the second
modem manufacturer to unveil a V.32terbo (19,200 bits per second)
modem. The company joins Sonix, which unveiled its offering two weeks
ago in London.

Telebit took time out to launch its Multimodem MY1932BL modem at the
CeBIT Computer Faire today and, according to a spokesman for the
company, plans to have it shipping worldwide within a matter of weeks.

The launch of the new modem comes just a few months after the joint
announcement of 18 modem manufacturers to get behind the V.32terbo
standard in the face of a sluggish response from the CCITT
international telecoms regulatory organization on the subject of
V.Fast technology.

The new Multitech modem should be available worldwide over the next
few months and sell for $1,199. Although it appears that this
price is high for the US market, although low enough for
existing European modem users, a company spokesman
insists these are retail prices -- street prices will be around 40
percent less.

(Steve Gold/19930326/Press Contact: Multitech - Tel: [phone])


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(LON)(00027)

CeBIT - Oki Gets Into Document Processing 03/26/93
HANNOVER, GERMANY, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Oki has unveiled Doc*It, a
Windows-based management application billed as a desktop document
processing (DDP) system. The company claims that it is unique in
integrating industry standard office software with scanning, copying,
faxing and printing in a single desktop unit.

Doc*it begins shipping June of this year with an entry-level price
tag of UKP 3,000. The system can be based around 300 or 400 dots per
inch (DPI) printer technology. According to Phil Scrase, Oki Europe's
marketing manager, Doc*It is unique in the PC industry.

"It's the most exciting product to hit the desktop since the PC. It
allows office workers to create a truly productive working environment
free from unnecessary interruptions. And, it multiplies the value of
investment in information technology by providing the missing link
between the paper and EDI," he said.

Doc*it consists of two main components -- a Windows applications and
an intelligent plug-in PC board which contains a high speed RISC
processor, memory and the fax interface unit.

So why was Doc*it developed? According to Scrase, the company's
research found that worker productivity is hit by interruptions to
workflows and that the workflow itself is often controlled by the
availability of machines.

"Some manufacturers have tried to overcome these problems with jack of
all trade solutions. While others concentrated ion hardware solutions,
we recognized that software held the key to DDP. That's why Doc*It has
received rave reviews from test sites and why we believe it will be an
unrivalled success in the market," Scrase said.

(Steve Gold/19930326/Press & Public Contact: Oki Europe - Tel: 081-
577-9000; Fax: [phone])


(NEWS)(IBM)(LAX)(00028)

 ****Networking DOS 7 Expected From Novell This Summer 03/26/93
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Novell, known
for its local area network (LAN) software and hardware for
personal computers, says it will release its own disk operating
system (DOS) -- Novell DOS 7. The company says its DOS 7 will
offer users features they can't get in any other operating
system, including tighter network integration, a network
management agent, and preemptive multitasking.

Novell is now describing itself as an operating system software
company, after purchasing Digital Research and its product DR
DOS 6.0 in October of 1991 for $130 million. Industry analysts
have said Novell paid too much for Digital Research, but the
company has plans to further integrate networking into the
operating system and Novell DOS 7 is the first step, company
officials said. The new Novell DOS 7 is the first version of
the DOS operating system to come out of the company's newly
formed Desktop Systems Group.

Novell said DR DOS 6.0 was ahead of the game, offering features
such as disk compression that are just now being added to the
new version of the operating system of its largest competitor,
Microsoft's DOS 6.0. In the new version, expected this summer,
users will be offered integrated Netware client support, so
transition to a Novell Netware-based network is transparent to
the user and the network drivers will take up less room in
memory, company representatives said.

According to DOS 7 marketing manager Toby Corey, DOS Protected
Mode Services (DPMS) allow the protected mode device drivers and
terminate and stay resident (TSR) programs to execute in protected
mode and abide in extended memory, making for a smaller memory
footprint in that all-important lower 640 kilobytes of computer
memory. Also included is built in peer-to-peer networking so
two or more computers can share printers and disk resources and
so all that's needed is the addition of the hardware.

The DPMS is also a DOS version-independent and Microsoft
Windows-compatible application programing interface (API). A
developers version is available as a Software Developers Kit
(SDK) to third party developers, who can then license and
distribute DPMS free of royalty charges, the company said.

Corey told Newsbytes the built-in preemptive multitasking added
to DOS 7 is the first time multitasking has been added to a DOS
operating system. Previously available products, such as
Quarterdeck's Desqview, have offered users the ability to add
preemptive multitasking on top of DOS, so users could run and
switch between multiple DOS applications simultaneously.

Corey also said Novell was building in a network management
agent so a system administrator could look at the resources and
software on each computer on the network. Much like Hermes
announced recently by Microsoft, Novell DOS 7's Simple Network
Management Protocol (SNMP) will offer asset management and the
ability to remotely install Novell DOS. While the ability to
remotely install software will not be in DOS 7, Novell said its
purchase of Boulder, Colorado-based Innetec will allow it to
add remote software distribution capability in future versions
of DOS 7.

Disk caching and compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM) support
is also integrated into DOS 7. For developers, the disk caching
and CD-ROM extensions are offered in the DPMS SDK. Novell is
offering the DPMS SDK to software developers for $195 and is
available through the company's Professional Developers
Program.

Novell representatives are hopeful about the possibilities
ahead with its own version of DOS. Much of that optimism is
founded in the enthusiastic response Novell representatives say
the newly introduced version of its LAN software, Netware 4.0,
has received. The company is hoping integration with its
networking software will motivate users wait past the
introduction of Microsoft's DOS 6.0, which will be officially
announced next week, to this summer for Novell DOS 7.

(Linda Rohrbough/19930326/Press Contact: Jessica Kersey,
Novell, tel [phone], fax [phone])


(NEWS)(IBM)(LAX)(00029)

CeBIT - Seagate's Three New Drives 03/26/93
HANNOVER, GERMANY, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Seagate
announced three new additions to its line of hard disk drives
at the CeBIT show held this week in Hannover, Germany. The
company said it is now offering a 3.5-inch 340-megabyte, and a
260MB low profile hard disk drive, and a 2.5-inch 127 MB
drive.

Aimed at the 486-based IBM compatible personal computer market,
Seagate says its 340 MB ST3390 offers a 256 kilobyte multi-
segmented adaptive cache, and a fast 12 millisecond (msec)
average seek time and an average latency of 6.67 msec. Seagate
says the fast access time is a result of speeding up the
rotation of the disk's platters from the usual 3600 revolutions
per minute (RPM) to 4500 RPM.

Seagate says the drive offers a 10 MB per second data transfer
rate and supports the faster local bus PC architecture
implementation to further optimize overall system performance
and is available in AT (ST3390A) and small computer system
interface (SCSI)-2 (ST3390N) interfaces. Additionally, the
ST3390A supports enhanced commands such as read multiple, write
multiple and features extended industry standard architecture
(EISA) Type B direct memory access (DMA). The SCSI version
offers fast synchronous data transfer, zero latency reads, and
hot plugging.

The new 260 MB ST3290A is aimed at the graphical user interface
(GUI)-oriented entry-level and mid-range PC market which
includes Microsoft's Windows and IBM's OS/2, Seagate said. The
drive offers an on-board 64 K multi-segmented adaptive cache
and an average seek time of 16 msec. The company is predicting
demand for drives in the 240 to 260 MB size range will
represent as much as 30 percent of the drives under 300 MB
shipped by the end of 1993.

For the laptop and notebook computer market, Seagate says it is
introducing a 2.5-inch 127 MB hard disk drive, the ST9145AG.
Since the drive is intentioned for the portable computing
market, the company says greater tolerance to shock, up to 100
Gs, is built into the drive via Seagate's own Saferite shock
sensing technology.

The ST9145AG has an embedded AT interface, an average seek time of
16 msec, a 64 K multi-segmented adaptive cache, and average
latency of 8.7 msec. Weighing in at 6.5-ounces, Seagate
says a Ziff-Davis Lab's Z-digit battery life benchmark rated the
ST9145AG as consuming 21 percent less power overall than other
drives in its class. The drive is the smallest capacity of the
2.5-inch Seagate line, which includes the 209 MB ST9235AG and
the 255 MB ST9295AG.

In single evaluation qualities to original equipment
manufacturers, Seagate noted it is offering the 340 MB drive
for $600 for the AT version and $625 for the SCSI version, the
240 MB drive for $500, and the 127 MB drive for $395.

(Linda Rohrbough/19930326/Press Contact: Julie Still, Seagate
Technology, tel [phone], fax [phone])


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(LON)(00030)

Mercury Confirms Plans For Third UK Cellular Net 03/26/93
LONDON, ENGLAND, 1993 MAR 26 (NB) -- Mercury has revealed its plans
for a major mobile phone service, known as One-2-One, a digital mobile
phone system, to be launched in London this summer.

The service will cost Mercury, a division of Cable & Wireless, around
UKP 500 million to get under way. Plans call for the service to
operate only within the M25 orbital motorway "ring" around London, but
at prices up to 40 percent cheaper than Cellnet or Vodafone, the two
existing analog cellular operators.

Announcing the plans, Richard Goswell, Mercury One-2-One's managing
director, said that beta tests will start in April of this year, with
a full service rollout in the London area taking place in the summer.

"Our vision for what the market needs has been to make this the first
mobile phone that people can afford to use. Our prices mean the
average user will enjoy a reduction of between 30 and 40 percent in
the cost of owning a mobile phone. Our objective is to change the
shape and size of the business to make it a mass consumer market," he
said.

Handsets for Mercury One-2-One will cost about UKP 300, around UKP 100
more than the cheapest Cellnet or Vodafone handsets. It is the
subscription and call usage charges that are the real key to
consumer's hearts, Goswell claimed.

Frequent users will find themselves paying as little as 8 pence a
minute for off-peak calls, or 10 pence for low volume users.
Furthermore, Mercury's definition of off-peak will more generous than
the cellular operators, the company claims. Monthly subs will cost UKP
20, or UKP 12-50 for low volume users. This compares to UKP 25 and
15, respectively, for similar services from Cellnet and Vodafone.

(Steve Gold/19930326)