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/1994/jan_feb_94/nb020494

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(EDITORIAL)(TELECOM)(MSP)(00001)

Guest Editorial - Franco-German Telecom Alliance 02/04/94
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Franco-German
Telecom Alliance: Another Airbus Industries? By Warren Mckenzie.
(Editor's Note: Warren McKenzie is a senior partner with
Redmond Group, a Redmond WA-based consulting organization.
He is currently on assignment in Ireland.)

A move by two leading members of the European Union (EU) is
raising new concerns about the impact of Europe's
state-subsidized monopolies on US companies.

On December 7, the world's second and third-largest
international telecommunications operators announced a major new
alliance -- a joint venture between France Telecom and Deutsche
Bundespost Telekom (DBT) which still must be approved by the
European Commission. The new "Euro-telecom" entity, to be based
in Brussels, will provide data and "advanced services" to multi-
national corporations. By restricting the initial scope of the
venture, the two companies hope to speed commission approval as a
move to merge the voice networks at this point would have met with
strong opposition from within the European Union.

Many European analysts see the alliance as a defensive move in
response to the British Telecom-MCI alliance announced earlier
this year (still under review by the EC commission) and to AT&T's
alliances with telecom companies in Asia. The Franco-German
alliance is aimed more at the privatized British Telecom, which as
a European company, is well positioned to compete as the EU market
is liberalized. There is concern about US competition but the
chairman of DBT has said that the new alliance wants a US partner
and AT&T is believed to the first choice. A joint venture by the
three largest international telecommunications operators would
create a colossus with which it would be very difficult to
compete.

Serious competitive issues are raised by this merger. DBT and
France Telecom are state-owned monopolies. While both data and
"advanced service" are theoretically open to competition
throughout Europe, evidence of this liberalization, outside of the
United Kingdom, is not encouraging. The Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) has developed an index to
compare the levels of liberalization in various national
telecommunication markets. The higher the index the more liberal
the market. As can be seen from the chart, neither France nor
Germany currently permits much competition.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS LIBERALIZATION

 Austria 0

 Belgium 0.5

 Denmark 1

 Finland 8

 France 3.5

 Germany 2

 Greece 1

 Ireland 0.5

 Italy 1

 Luxembourg 0.5

 Netherlands 1.5

 Norway 2

 Portugal 3

 Spain 2.5

 Sweden 16

 Switzerland 2

 Turkey 0

 United Kingdom 14

 United States 14.5

The EU has set a target of 1998 for a more liberal European market
in many areas of telecommunications but France recently backed
down in confrontations with unions over the pace of privatization
and in Germany unions and opposition politicians are attacking
plans to privatize DBT. With an election looming in Germany, there
is little likelihood of privatization in the near future and
notwithstanding early statements favoring privatization, events in
France may have overtaken the Baladur government.

In spite of anticipated BT and UK pressure, the governments of
France and Germany will likely resist calls for more competition
between European operators ahead of the current 1998 target date.
This alliance appears to be an attempt to use the current monopoly
position as a base to build a strong company which will dominate
European telecommunications even after liberalization occurs.

The Franco-German alliance may make it very difficult for other EU
countries to successfully privatize their own state companies,
which could set back the pace of European liberalization. France
Telecom has already been seeking to acquire stakes in other
national telecom companies. In the future, the only viable bidder
for newly privatized operators may be "Euro-telecom."

US firms could face serious barriers both in the European market,
and in the global market, competing with subsidized competition.
Europe is preparing to move ahead with its own version of the
"information highway." European Commission President Jacques
Delores is proposing that the EU itself spend over US$20 billion
per year between 1994 and 1998 to create a high tech
infrastructure, a large portion of it on fiber-based networks.

Convergence of voice, data, and image in new multimedia
technologies has been targeted by the EC as an strategically
important sector for the future. This will be at the heart of the
economic engine of the early part of the next century. The
alliance could dominate discussions on access, standards, and
other critical aspects of the developing information marketplace
in Europe. Who will be permitted to drive on the Euro Information
Highway? Under what terms? How "fair" will access be? Given
France's hard stand on "cultural" issues during the closing stages
of the GATT negotiations, this should rate serious concern within
Europe and beyond its borders. Many of the exciting and
potentially lucrative products and services expected to be
introduced in the US could be deemed cultural in some context or
other. How can US companies compete if access to the European
information highway is made more difficult for foreign firms or
there is outright subsidization of domestic developers?

The alliance partners will probably attempt to portray their
venture as being the same as the BT-MCI alliance, implying that in
fairness the new venture should be approved too. In fact the two
ventures are very different and should be held to different
standards. Both BT and MCI are private companies operating in
highly competitive markets. Neither enjoys the state-subsidized
position and guaranteed revenues which benefit the Franco-German
partners.

In its present form the alliance is designed to appear less
threatening than originally anticipated. However, talk of stock
swaps, cross ownership, and further phases of the alliance require
that this first phase be scrutinized closely. Neither France
Telecom nor DBT have yet had to face the changes that market
forces will impose.

Any move to bring AT&T into the alliance should be resisted. Under
current conditions such a link-up has the potential to distort the
global telecommunications market and to jeopardize the European
Commission's goal of a competitive market for telecommunications
in Europe. It would permit protectionists in Europe to claim that
they allow, even encourage, foreign access to their market, while
they make it difficult for highly competitive products from
innovative US software, entertainment, and information companies
to gain access to the huge EU market.

It is difficult to argue against a move which could serve to break
down communications barriers in Europe, and the European Commission
probably won't. The potential for lower rates, and a large market
for more and better services is too great an opportunity. It is
likely that the alliance, in its present form, will gain approval.
The European Commission should attach stringent conditions to
ensure that the monopoly positions are not used to thwart a truly
competitive marketplace.

The link-up of France Telecom and DBT could be a way for these
monopolies to control the future market or it could be the herald
of a European Union without electronic frontiers, creating new
jobs and new opportunities, new markets and lowering prices. The
outcome will be significant for world trade in telecommunications-
based products and services in general, and for US companies in
particular.

The history of post World War II Europe is underpinned in large
measure by state subsidies to inefficient companies, a
complex array of barriers to free competition in domestic
markets, and anti-competitive subsidies in international markets.
Recent history with GATT demonstrates that these old tendencies
die hard.

Boeing and McDonnell Douglas' experiences competing with
Airbus is ample proof of what happens to American jobs and
industries when foreign government are allowed to subsidize their
domestic manufacturers. US trade organizations and the entire
technology segment had better pay close attention to these
embryonic moves in the EU to ensure that this alliance doesn't
give birth to a telecommunications version of Airbus Industries,
or worse.

(Warren McKenzie/19940202)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00002)

Japan - New PCs From Apple, YHP, Fujitsu 02/04/94
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Apple Computer has released a
new desktop color Macintosh and a new Powerbook model in Japan.
Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard has a new version of its palmtop
personal computer which is more powerful but lighter and
cheaper than its predecessor. And Fujitsu has released a
high-end version of its FM-R series desktop PC which comes
with a Pentium chip as an option.

Apple Computer's two new Macintosh computers include the desktop-
type LC575 and the notebook-type Powerbook 165. The LC575 is an
upgraded version of Apple's Performa. It is equipped with a
CD-ROM drive, a color display, a 33-megahertz 68LC040 processor
and a connector for Ethernet and a fax or a modem card. Also,
this computer can be upgraded to the RISC-based (reduced
instruction set computing) PowerPC. This PC costs 358,000 yen
($3,250).

The Powerbook 165 has a 8-megabyte memory and a 160-megabyte
hard disk and is sold through Apple Computer's 20 regular
distributors including Canon Sales, Uchida Yoko, and Catena.

Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard has also upgraded its palmtop computer.
The HP100LX-2MB sells for 118,000 yen ($1,070), a price which
is 30 percent cheaper than the model that precedes it. Jointly
developed by Hewlett-Packard and Lotus Development, it weighs
only 312g and fits in one's palm. An Intel-compatible
16-bit processor is inside the unit, MS-DOS and Lotus 1-2-3R2.4
are included. Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard, a joint venture of
Yokogawa Electric and Hewlett-Packard, expects moderate sales
of the new version and are planning to ship about 10,000
units per year.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu has released a new member of the
FM-R series desktop personal computer family. The new
80486-based FM-R 250L operates three times faster in the
processing of data thanks to its new Pentium chip. It also
accepts a color graphic accelerator card to enhance screen
resolution to a maximum of 1,280 x 1,024 pixels. A one-gigabyte
hard disk can be used on this computer. It costs between 158,000
yen ($1,400) and 218,000 yen ($1,980) depending on features.

(Masayuki "Massey" Miyazawa/19940204/Press Contact: Apple Computer,
Tokyo, [phone], YHP, [phone], Fujitsu, +81-3-3215-
5236, Fax, [phone])


(NEWS)(UNIX)(SFO)(00003)

Borland Brings dBASE To Unix 02/04/94
SCOTTS VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Borland
International announced several new Unix versions of its
database software, dBASE IV version 2.0 for DOS. Different
versions are being made available for SunSoft Solaris, Santa Cruz
Operation (SCO) Unix, Novell UnixWare and other Unix-based operating
systems. The new versions are fully compatible with their DOS
counterparts.

Speaking to Newsbytes, Steve Curry, public relations specialist,
Borland, said, "We are offering a product to Unix customers who
need a database program that is smaller and less expensive than
Sybase or Oracle. We are trying to reach the mid-range database
users on Unix systems. For customers who are familiar with our
DOS version, the switch to dBase for Unix has been made seamless
and they will find it very easy to use."

The new versions deliver the productivity of a 4GL system and
includes mouse support, high-performance filters, 70 new
language enhancements, up to 40 simultaneous work areas open,
up to one billion records per table, and array support up to
65,535 elements.

dBase IV version 2.0 for Unix is immediately available for
SunSoft Solaris2,x for SPARC and x86 platforms, SunOS 4.1 and
(Interactive) 386/ix 3.0; SCO Open Server 3.0 and SCO Open
Desktop; Novell UnixWare and USL SVR4.2; as well as many
Unix supported ASCII terminals. The suggested price for a
single-user license is $795 with additional user licenses
at $425 each. A five-user terminal license is available
for $995 and upgrades are available for version 1.1 users.

Borland products are available direct or through its Unix
resellers.

(Patrick McKenna/19940203/Press Contact: Steve Curry, Borland
International, Santa Cruz, Calif. tel: [phone] or
408-431-1000)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(SYD)(00004)

Free PowerPCs To Keep Australian Mac Buyers 02/04/94
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Some Apple Macintosh
buyers in Australia are earning free upgrades to the
forthcoming PowerPC chip technology, as Apple prepares
for the launch of the first Power Macintoshes around March
15.

Sources say the upgrades are necessary to keep sales of Apple's
current high-end Quadras going, as most potential buyers are now
well aware of the impending new models powered by the high
performance RISC processor, and many are hanging back.

The free upgrades - to be supplied soon after the March 15
roll-out of the new models - place a PowerPC 601 chip on a
user-installable board which fits into the Quadra's
processor-direct slot (PDS). Apple claims it will provide
two to four times the performance of existing Mac models when
running native PowerPC options. It is not yet clear how they
will perform when running exiting applications.

Among Apple dealers already offering the free PDS upgrades is
Sydney-based Mac Computer Systems, which is currently advertising
a Quadra 610 8/230/CD model with free PowerPC upgrade at AUS$4195
(around US$2900) and a Quadra 650 8/30/CD with upgrade at
AUS$5125 (US$3550) - around AUS$3-400 below list price.

Product Manager Ian Cooper said that the upgrade offers were an
Apple initiative, rather than a dealer initiative. The PDS boards
are unlikely to provide the same performance as the new Power
Macs which have completely different logic boards. However, full
logic board upgrades will be available for some current machines -
at a price.

Apple's roadshow to introduce the new PowerPC applications gets
underway late this month. Some dates include: Brisbane, Feb 22;
Melbourne, Feb 25; Canberra, Mar 1; Sydney, Mar 4; Adelaide,
Mar 15 and Perth, Mar 18.

(David Frith and Computer Daily News/19940204/Contact: Mac
Computer Systems. tel. [phone] fax. [phone])


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(TOR)(00005)

Information Superhighway Survey Shows Need For Cooperation 02/04/94
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- While most believed
private industry should play the leading role, respondents to a
survey on information infrastructure this week indicated that
industry, the federal government, university, and the provincial
governments all have key roles to play in building Canada's
information highway.

The survey of attendees at the Powering Up North America
conference held in Toronto this week shows the need for
cooperation among those four major groups, Kaan Yigit, manager
of research development at Decima Research Inc. in Toronto, told
Newsbytes.

Decima released figures based on responses to its poll during the
first day of the two-day conference. Final numbers are to be
released later, but Yigit said trends found in the first-day
figures appeared to be borne out in the second day's polling.
About 230 people, out of 600 attending the conference, answered
the poll questions on personal computers set up at the conference
on February 1.

Of those, 96 percent said private industry has the most
responsibility for building the information highway. Eighty-eight
percent of respondents said the federal government has "some" or
a "great deal" of responsibility, the same number assigned a
major role to universities and other educational institutions,
and 80 percent named provincial governments.

Yigit said that while the survey shows those at the conference
see information infrastructure as very important to the Canadian
economy in the coming years, it also found most businesses and
governments are not yet realizing the potential of the
technology.

(Grant Buckler/19940204/Press Contact: Mike Tindal, Decima
Research, 416-480-7366, fax [phone])


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00006)

Delphi Makes First Newspaper Deal 02/04/94
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Delphi made
its first affiliation agreement with a newspaper, signing a deal
with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and its PostLink service.

Affiliations between national online services and local
newspapers and chains have become very popular in the last year,
as local papers seek to find a stake in new technology and
national services seek to boost their subscriber bases. The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for instance, has a deal with
Prodigy, while the Chicago Tribune is working with America
OnLine. This is the first such agreement for Delphi, however,
which was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. last year.

Under the agreement, Pulitzer's PostLink will gain a direct link
with Delphi and its connection to the Internet. The two companies
will also work together on an upgraded graphical user interface
for PostLink. In addition to carrying the full text of the Post-
Dispatch, the service also offers local resources like calendars
and listings for local sports and educational TV. This summer,
the service will add an online discussion section so editors can
communicate directly with readers.

Newsbytes discussed the situation with Delphi senior vice
president for programming and development Jaan Torv, who joined
the service just 8 days ago from Murdoch's News America
publishing group, where he was working on interactive services.

"This represents the first part of our thrust into the genuine at-
large world of publishing," he said. The company affiliated first
with Pulitzer rather than Murdoch's own US papers, the Boston
Herald-American and New York Post, because PostLink is more
advanced than the News Corp. operation, having come online in
early 1992.

Torv also promised a new user interface, unnamed so far, which
will give both PostLink and Delphi a new graphic look. "We have a
toolkit that puts the power back in the hands of the editors for
online services, so they get the look and feel they want." The
new look should come online in the second quarter of this year,
he said. He added, "We're a stand-alone business and not
restricted to any one product. We're also protective of the
environment for our customers." That will be the company's stand
as it works to do similar deals with other papers.

Torv added, "We intend to turn this into America's largest online
service within a relatively short period of time. And we're
putting resources and energy into achieving this -- quite large
resources." He wasn't specific.

Newsbytes also discussed the arrangement briefly with Constance
Orchard, general manager for PostLink. She said the service,
which started January 20, 1992, will have its archives dating
back to 1988 online soon -- they're not there now. She said
PostLink is presently a text-based service, but added that
Delphi's promised interface was a big selling feature for her
company.

"We thought it was important that we maintain a private
branded service," she said. "We want to offer all the things
other online services offer, as well as better local content,
within an environment that's user-friendly. We like to think of
this as a local network affiliate relationship. You know where the
prime time programming is coming from, and we're the 6 o'clock
news."

She described the present PostLink system as consisting
of networked PCs with local dial-up access, and file servers.
That local access will be maintained. "We hope to make it
as transparent as possible. The interface we bought into is
designed to do just that."

In their joint press release, the two companies noted that
Pulitzer also owns a daily newspaper in Tucson, a paper in
suburban Chicago, and nine network-affiliated TV stations as well
as two radio stations. Analysts feel all now become candidates to
have local versions of Delphi.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19940204/Press Contact:  Nancy Morrisroe,
Delphi, 617/491-3342x4103; Constance Orchard, PostLink, 314-865-
8500)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(TOR)(00007)

Canada - Telcos Told To Keep Responsibility For Inside Wiring 02/04/94
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Federal regulators
have denied a bid by Canada's two largest regional telephone
companies to turn over on-premises wiring to their customers and
charge them for repairs.

Bell Canada and British Columbia Telephone Co. had applied in
1992 to put all single-line wiring inside customers' homes and
offices in the hands of those customers. The companies would have
charged customers by the hour for installing or repairing the
wiring, or sold them service plans for a fixed monthly fee.

Customers would also have had the option of installing and
maintaining their own wiring or hiring others to do it for them.
When Bell made its application in September, 1992, company
spokeswoman Denise Sarazin told Newsbytes many customers wanted
to do their own installation and maintenance.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
(CRTC) said the plan was not in the public interest. The
commission said the idea would result in "unacceptable additional
costs to customers," and forecast the phone companies' advantage
in providing service for inside lines would keep competition from
developing in this area.

The CRTC did suggest two alternative plans, though. In the first,
customers would be free to choose outside suppliers to install
and maintain their outside wiring, but the phone companies would
not be allowed to offer service plans for that wiring. In the
second, existing inside wiring would remain the property and
responsibility of the phone companies, but the new rules proposed
by the phone companies would apply to new wiring.

(Grant Buckler/19940204/Press Contact: Bill Allen, CRTC,
819-997-0313, fax [phone]; Denise Sarazin, Bell Canada,
613-781-3333)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SYD)(00008)

Compaq Australia Revenues Up 53% 02/04/94
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Compaq Computer Australia
has broken with past practice by revealing its annual
Australian and New Zealand revenue figures. At a press
briefing on Wednesday it revealed that 1993 revenues totalled
AUS$210M (around US$147M), a 53 percent rise on 1992.

Previously, like many other US subsidiaries in Australia,
Compaq had only revealed its performance in percentage terms. It
still declines to reveal actual shipment numbers.

MD Ian Penman is predicting similar growth this year, led by
stronger performance in retail channel sales. "In 1993 we
implemented new channel strategies for these high-growth
markets; however appropriate hardware did not ship until
well into the second half of the year."

Despite this impressive result, Compaq Australia didn't keep
pace with the company's global 1993 figures which were up 75
percent over 1992.

The Sydney press conference was primarily called to show a new
"small is beautiful - and functional too" product. This has
been speculated in the press as being the Contura Aero, a
3.5-pound sub-notebook with a price of US$1399. Full details
will be released on the seventh of February.

(David Frith and Paul Zucker/19940204)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TYO)(00009)

NEC Inks With Cisco On ATM Switching Device 02/04/94
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- NEC has agreed with
California-based Cisco to make asynchronous transmission mode
switching devices. NEC will supply the ATM switching devices to
Cisco on an OEM (original equipment manufacturing) basis.

The relationship between NEC and Cisco has already been
established -- the pair cooperated on the development of
LAN (local area network) connecting devices.

NEC, which recently entered the ATM market, will have its
NEC America subsidiary supply the desktop-size ATM switching
devices to Cisco. The desktop-size ATM is a modified version of
NEC's ATOMIS5, which supports a data transmission speed of 2.4
gigabits per second. Also, this device will support a maximum of
16 ports at 155 megabits per second. About 500 units will be
supplied per year.

NEC America will also release the desktop-type ATM switching
devices under its own brand name in the US. These devices are
produced in Japan, but the firm plans to eventually produce them
in the US.

NEC claims to have sold 30 regular-size ATMs in Japan and
the US and 9 of the desktop-type ATMs.

ATMs, which have a great deal of potential in the
multimedia data transmission market, are also being
manufactured by AT&T and Northern Telecom.

(Masayuki "Massey" Miyazawa/19930131/Press Contact: NEC, +81-3-
3451-2974, Fax, [phone])


(REVIEW)(GENERAL)(SFO)(00010)

Review of - Silicon Mirage, Art and Science of Virtual Reality 02/04/94

From: Peachpit Press 2414 Sixth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710
800-283-9444; 510-548-4393

Price: $15.00

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

Reviewed for Newsbytes by: Naor Wallach

Summary: A book that explains virtual reality -- a good basic
text that serves a general audience. A reader need not be
a computer expert to understand it or the issues involved in
this emerging technology.

=======

REVIEW

=======

Virtual reality or VR has captured the imagination of thousands and
has been receiving increasing amount of ink and time on news
shows. But how much of what is said and written is reality and how
much is fiction? This book, "Silicon Mirage," attempts to answer
that question.

This is written by Steve Aukstakalnis and David Blatner. Aukstakalnis
is well known within the VR community to which he serves as a
consultant and developer of prototype head mounted displays.
Blatner is a writer on technological issues.

The main part of the book is entitled "The Tools of Virtual
Reality." It spans almost 140 pages and is a lesson in
how the human senses work and how a computer can fool them.
In a sense, this part is a lesson in detailed anatomy.

Essentially VR is a way of fooling your body into believing that
you are present someplace the you are not. Some of the more
interesting and beneficial applications are driving the use of
VR are in architecture, medicine, on Wall Street, and the
sciences. VR allows one to get involved in worlds that may not be
otherwise explored. For instance, the authors make a very
interesting presentation of a case for using VR to teach physics.

Other parts of the book look at issues surrounding VR and
its potential applications, and its myths. For instance, there's
the popular misconception depicted in the move "The Lawnmower
Man." Viewers will recall the infamous VR sex scene. The authors
argue that enormous amounts of hardware would need to be
installed in various body areas to come even close to stimulating
anyone.

The text is complemented with many drawings, figures, and pictures.
There is a remarkable absence of jargon - which in itself is
a notable achievement when dealing with computer books.

If you want to read a good, general, introductory book about VR
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

(Naor Wallach/19931106/John Grimes and Trish Booth, Peachpit Press,
2414 Sixth St. Berkeley, CA, 94710)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(SYD)(00011)

WordPerfect Pacific Gets New MD 02/04/94
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- WordPerfect Pacific
finally has its new MD, after quite a few weeks of searching.
Outgoing MD and Regional Director Doug Ruttan this week
announced his replacement.

The new chief will be Bruce Larkin, formerly director of marketing
at Unisys. He officially starts work on February 14 with a few days
of corporate training at WordPerfect's US headquarters.

It is believed that another candidate had accepted the job, but when
his seniors at IBM Australia heard of the plans they "upped the
ante" so he is staying in Big Blue's PC Australian division.

Doug Ruttan is a widely respected figure in the Australian PC
industry, having previously headed Sourceware, a PC products
distributor. While he has not revealed what he will do
post-WordPerfect, it is believed to be something in the industry.
What is known is that he will become a commentator for Australian
PC World magazine.

(Ian Robinson and Paul Zucker/19940204)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(DEN)(00012)

Microsoft "Disappointed" Over Chinese Software Ruling 02/04/94
REDMOND, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Microsoft
Corporation says it is "disappointed" over a recent ruling by a
Chinese court that fined a Chinese academic institution just $260
for illegally copying and shipping holograms of the Microsoft
trademark.

Microsoft Associate General Counsel Dan Curtis told Newsbytes
the company is disappointed over the small amount of damages
awarded verbally by the court. "It's pretty small. This is not a
happy result." Curtis said no written ruling was issued. Microsoft
had charged the Shenzhen Reflective Materials Institute, the
research arm of Shenzhen University, with the trademark piracy.
Microsoft has said in the past that the hologram on Microsoft-
labeled software packages is a way for consumers to know they
are buying a genuine Microsoft product.

Creation of holograms, which are also used on credit cards and
other products, is complex and only a handful of companies have
the necessary technology.

A March 1992 raid on the institute uncovered filled orders from a
Taiwanese individual for 650,000 Microsoft holograms. The man is
reportedly suspected of marketing pirated Microsoft products.
Chinese investigators from the Shenzhen Administration of
Industry and Commerce (SAIC) reportedly determined that the
institute had violated trademark laws. However Microsoft claims
SAIC delayed its investigation to protect the institute. SAIC was
also accused of insufficiently punishing the violation.

One Microsoft official told United Press International the company
is gathering evidence to show the institute shipped fake
holograms even as SAIC was conducting the investigation.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is tentatively scheduled to met with
Chinese Communist Party Chief Jian Zemin in late March and
could discuss the issue of intellectual property protection during
that meeting.

The 140-member International Anti Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC)
trade association says it has been has been working to help
resolve the problem for several years. IACC spokesperson
Margaret Morrell says US manufacturers have experienced
counterfeiting problems for at least 10 years. "It's almost a
cultural difference. In a Communist society you don't have the
brand recognition."

Morrell told Newsbytes there is some leverage available to obtain
changes in the Chinese laws and attitudes, since China hopes to
become a signatory to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariff
(GATT) treaty. The US could also withhold Most Favored Nation
status, since a requirement for that designation is the existence of
intellectual property laws.

(Jim Mallory/19940204/Press contact: Beverley Flower, Microsoft
Corporation, 206-882-8080; Margaret Morrell, IACC, 202-223-5728)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(DEN)(00013)

Intel To Pay Cyrix $10M In Patent Suit Settlement 02/04/94
RICHARDSON, TEXAS, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- You know it's
going to be a good day when you find out your going to get $10
million, and that's what happened to Cyrix Corporation this week.

The microprocessor designer will get up to $10 million as part of a
settlement reached in a patent fight between Cyrix and chip maker
Intel Corporation. The settlement ended a federal jury court trial
that opened last week.

Intel had claimed patent infringement, while Cyrix counter-claimed
antitrust and patent misuse by Intel. Both parties agreed to drop
those issues. A U.S. District court judge ruled that portions of
Intel's microprocessor patents were part of the licensing
agreement with the company that manufactures Cyrix chips.

The ruling protects Cyrix from Intel patent infringement claims and
keeps Intel from charging licensing fees to personal computer
makers that use chips designed by Cyrix.

The settlement calls for Intel to pay Cyrix $5 million, with Intel
having the right to appeal the ruling. If the appeal is upheld Cyrix
has to return the $5 million, with interest. If Intel loses on appeal, or
doesn't appeal, it has to pay Cyrix another $5 million.

Cyrix spokesperson Katherine Dockerell told Newsbytes the
settlement also calls for the loser in any future litigation between
the two companies to pay the legal costs of the winner. Dockerell
said that is intended to preclude frivolous lawsuits.

There are still some other legal issues ongoing between the two
companies, and this week's settlement calls for the loser to pay $1
million to defray legal and other expenses in those cases also.
Those cases relate to Cyrix' partnership with two other chip
makers. Dockerell declined to identify those companies.

Cyrix and Intel have been embroiled in court battles over various
chip patent issues since 1990. Dockerell said Cyrix got a check
this week from Intel for $500,000 when that company decided not
to appeal a ruling pertaining to an earlier patent infringement case
over math co-processor chips. Like this week's ruling, that
payment was because Intel decided not to appeal.

(Jim Mallory/19940204/Press contact: Katherine Dockerell, Cyrix
Corporation, 214-994-8388, ext 491; Reader contact: Cyrix
Corporation, 214-994-8388)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(DEN)(00014)

Dell Signs Resellers In Indonesia, Korea 02/04/94
AUSTIN, TEXAS, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Dell Computer
Corporation has announced the signing of authorized resellers in
Indonesia and Korea.

The deals bring to five the number of countries in the Asia-Pacific
region Dell has entered in less than six months. Last fall, Dell
established resellers in China, Thailand and India. The Asia-Pacific
region is considered to be a rapidly emerging market for personal
computers, with a number of hardware and software markets
trying to establish a toehold there.

Dell spokesperson Jill Shanks told Newsbytes the Indonesian
market is relatively undeveloped while Korea is a well-established
market and bigger in volume than Indonesia. "There is great
potential in both markets, mostly from volume in Korea and from
startup growth in Indonesia."

The company says the Indonesian reseller will market directly to
individual customers and to major national accounts, primarily
through an aggressive advertising and direct mail campaign. It will
also sell through retailers, value-added resellers, and systems
integrators. Technical support will be provided by certified Dell
engineers in service centers located throughout the area.

The Dell reseller in Korea has been in business since 1981. The
Seoul, Korea-based company will provide sales, systems
integration, installation and customer support in its outlets
throughout the country.

(Jim Mallory/19940204/Press contact: Jill Shanks, Dell Computer
Corporation, 512-728-4100)


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

Telecommuting Group Sees Earthquake Opportunity 02/04/94
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) - The head of a
group which urges telecommuting -- working from home using
technology -- is in Los Angeles hoping to make permanent the
lifestyle changes made necessary by the quake.

In the weeks since the quake a number of businesses have urged
workers to use computers, modems, telephones and fax machines to
work from home rather than try long commutes made necessary by
damage to the area's freeways. But Joe Raimondo of New Jersey,
co-founder of Telecommuting Solutions of America, has been in the
area for weeks to transform the concept from PR to reality. He's
consulted with Jack Nilles of Los Angeles, whom he credited with
coming up with the term telecommuting, on raising the issue's
visibility, and used an ongoing consulting role with Wendell
Joice from the US government's Flexi-Place program to catalog
resources.

The group has also worked for contributions from computer
hardware and software vendors, and tried to get real estate
agents interested in creating regional centers for alternative
work.

The group has put its America Online mailbox, [e-mail],
to work on the effort as a clearinghouse. As a non-profit
group, it will also lobby to get federal disaster
funds earmarked for telecommuting. Perhaps most important, says
co-founder Rick Thoma, the group is working to overcome the
biggest barrier to telework -- fear by managers they'll lose
control over the work, fear by workers they'll lose credit for
what they do.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19940204/Press Contact: Rick Thoma,
Telecommuting Solutions for America, 2200 Benson Street
Philadelphia, Pa 19152, 215/342-0664; e-mail: mci mail,
Teleworker, America Online, Teleworker, CompuServe, 71011.2162;
Internet, [e-mail], Well: joer)


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

 ****AOL's Case Responds To Prodigy News Conference 02/04/94
VIENNA, VIRGINIA, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- America OnLine
President Steve Case responded quickly to a Prodigy news
conference which claimed his company can't handle its present
growth rate, and leveled some charges of his own in return.

The problems at America OnLine have drawn wide media attention,
with even NPR's "All Things Considered" doing a story quoting
analyst Fred Davis as saying the system's present capacity crunch
is its biggest crisis ever, because customers won't stand for
delays. The negative publicity fire was fanned by a Prodigy
telephone news conference in which spokesmen for the rival
service charged their system architecture can handle any level of
demand, and AOL will continue to be constrained.

Speaking to Newsbytes from an airliner phone, Case rebutted the
charge that Prodigy's architecture, with 214 local file servers
and a main facility two football fields long, is inherently
better than America OnLine's system of Stratus computer systems.

"It seems like an odd thing to say," he said. "They may be
confusing two separate issues. The first is what's your
architecture, the second is what's your deployment strategy. Ours
is a distributed client-server architecture -- theirs is built
around IBM mainframes, which is not what we'd call modern.
They've said they want to invite people to see a facility with
two football fields of mainframes - I'd be embarrassed," he
said, to show such a facility. Case compared his own
system with those used by Wall Street brokerage firms for
their own online operations, with the additions of servers
for various services like e-mail and fax.

"Their second point is deployment," Case continued. "They decided
to deploy power in local sites, because they thought it would be
cheaper to run a network that way, and most applications could be
cached locally. We decided even though our architecture could be
distributed, and Apple's e-world service," based on America
OnLine software, "is doing that, that given the importance of
communication features and the requirement that those features be
centrally hosted, it didn't make sense to build local sites.
And I'm not sure that if Prodigy could do it over again they'd do
what they did. Their strategy was based on assumptions" of growth
and technology which didn't work out, he contended.

In an e-mail note Case himself wrote to America OnLine
users earlier this week, which noted delays on system
response and AOL promised to work on them. "We're
raising capacity by adding ports and modifying system software to
accommodate an increase" in traffic, he said. "It's a short term
capacity problem, we're adding it every day, and we think in the
next months" the problem will disappear. America OnLine doubled
its user base over the last six months, from 300,000 to 600,000,
and that has caused the problem. "We're ordering additional
ports. Some are mini-computers, some are workstations, just a
variety of things."

Case continued, "The arguments they're using seem to be focused
on their architecture, which I don't believe." Case insisted
America OnLine's design is the more modern. "They're confusing
that with deployment, and the second point essentially is they
have plenty of supply."

At this point in the conversation, Case switched from defense to
offense. "Part of the reason we have a problem is we have plenty
of demand, which grew faster than we thought, and it's a little
unusual that they're focusing the argument on that topic because
they recently announced, two weeks ago, their all-time high" in
traffic "was about 800,000 sessions in a day, and now they're
doing 700,000-something ...that says over the last 15 months
their usage has declined. At the same time our usage has increased
five-fold -- that's why we have problem."

(Dana Blankenhorn/19940204/Press Contact: America OnLine, Jean
Villanueva, 703-883-1675)


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

 ****Broadcasters Seek To Replace Shows With Data 02/04/94
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Following up on an
idea by former Apple Computer chairman John Sculley, the National
Association of Broadcasters is now seeking the right to broadcast
data along with programming so its members can become part of the
Information Superhighway.

In his keynote to last year's NAB show, Sculley suggested that
the group use the 6 MHz of new frequency they're getting for
High Definition TV for data broadcasting applications. Later, in
a magazine interview, interim FCC chairman James Quello, whose
own NAB speech had indicated there may be too many radio
stations, indicated interest in proposals to allow data
broadcasting by radio.

Last week, in testimony before Rep. Edward Markey, whose House
subcommittee is working on bills for the Information
Superhighway, spokesmen for the group asked Congress to consider
changes in regulations that would allow broadcasters to enter the
data broadcasting arena.

A staff member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
committee, chaired by South Carolina Democrat Ernest Hollings,
told Newsbytes the Senator's bill on telecommunications, S. 1822,
does partly address those concerns. "What it says is broadcasters
may use their spectrum, but for broadcast related purposes," the
spokesman said. "Data would be allowed, so long as there is a
nexus with the original broadcast. The FCC would make that call.
What's prohibited are telephony services."

Newsbytes got some technical background on all this from John
Abe, executive vice president-operations for the NAB. Abel said
that, if nothing else is done with a frequency channel then AM,
FM, and TV broadcasters can probably run 3-4 bits of information
per Hertz of frequency they have. For a 6 MHz TV station, that's
24 million bits/second, for an FM station with 200 KHz of
bandwidth it comes to a maximum of 800,000 bits/second, and for
an AM station with a sending bandwidth of 20 KHz, but a received
bandwidth of 10 KHz, it's 35,000 bits/second.

"The whole AM band is 1.15 MHz," he explained. "That's why it's
low quality sound -- there's not much information in the channel.
FM is 20 MHz total, so it's 20 times greater than AM, which is
why is sounds better. TV has 400 MHz in the entire band." By way
of comparison, the government is auctioning 200 MHz of bandwidth
in the microwave range for personal communications services, or
PCS, later this year -- that's 10 times the total bandwidth of
FM. "I think there are people who believe 3-4 bits/Hertz is too
low, who say that in two years we'll get 10, and one guy said 100
per Hertz," Abel added. "That would be massive amounts of data
being put into the home."

Sculley's point was that HDTV won't be a reality in most time
periods for years, and that data broadcasts would be an efficient
use of the spectrum in the meantime. Abel agreed with that.

"There's not enough programming for HDTV. So we should be able to
put more into the channel, and make it one bitstream." There's
urgency in Hollings' effort, he added, because the Administration
wants communications bills passed by March to clear the decks for
health care. In addition to watching Congress, Abel said, his
group is also "getting close to an FCC proposal."

But Abel cautioned against making too much of this. "In my
opinion, data broadcasting doesn't make sense locally for a long
time. It makes more sense nationally. Radio started with national
networks. TV started national networks, then local. So did cable.
Data broadcasting has to start national, in my opinion. At
Channel 7 in Washington, they have a slide show with real estate
that's the perfect data broadcast." Services like Fox
Broadcasting and Prodigy might be able to create national
services that can take advantage of the new spectrum.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19940204/Press Contact: National Association of
Broadcasters, 202-429-5350; Sen. Ernest Hollings, 202-224-3121)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(TOR)(00018)

UniForum '94 Seeks Broader Audience With IDG Aid 02/04/94
SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- The UniForum
Association has enlisted IDG World Expo, a producer of
high-technology trade shows, to help broaden the appeal of its
annual UniForum show and conference to a wider audience. IDG will
manage the 1994 show, which is scheduled for March 21 to 24 in
San Francisco.

Andrew Rodger, vice-president and general manager of open systems
at IDG World Expo, told Newsbytes this year's show will "appeal
to not just the Unix insiders if you will but to those who have
really been in a proprietary systems environment for many years."

About 25 percent of those who have registered for the show so far
this year are people who are not currently using Unix, Rodger
said. That is a higher percentage than in past years, he added.

The total attendance at UniForum '94 is expected to be more than
34,000 people, Rodger said. Some 400 exhibitors are expected to
show products. Rodger said IDG is trying to make the show less a
high-technology bazaar and more of a "solutions show," offering
an opportunity to learn about open systems in a vendor-neutral
environment.

It will also try to appeal more to those who are not Unix
insiders, he said. For instance, one of five conference "threads"
is designed for people who are new to Unix. The threads
themselves are a new idea this year. They are selections of
sessions from across the seven conference tracks, tailored to
people with a particular interest. Another thread will deal with
the Unix versus Windows NT choice, for instance, and another with
distributed computing.

Andrew Grove, president and chief executive of Intel Corp., will
give the keynote address on the first day of the conference.
Lester Thurow, former dean of the Sloan School of Management at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will give the
second-day keynote. Unix inventor Dennis Ritchie, now head of
computing techniques research at AT&T Bell Labs, is the third-day
keynoter. Robert Palmer, president and chief executive of Digital
Equipment Corp., will give a CEO address on March 23.

For the first time this year, visitors will be able to register
for UniForum on the Internet, Rodger said.

(Grant Buckler/19940204/Press Contact: Cathy Gibson, IDG World
Expo, 508-820-8636; Richard Jaross, UniForum, 408-986-8840;
Sharon Israel, Mullen Public Relations, 508-468-1155; Public
Contact: UniForum 1994, 800-225-4698, fax [phone])


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(DEN)(00019)

MCI Has 10 Million "Friends and Family" Members 02/04/94
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- MCI
Communications Corporation says 10 million telephone users
have signed up for its "Friends and Family" program.

Competitors criticize the program because in order to participate
MCI asks you to provide the names and telephone numbers of
your friends and family. MCI can then contact those people to sign
them up in a sort of multi-level marketing program. Friends and
Family offers its members reduced rates on phone calls to most-
called numbers.

Jim Hoffman, MCI senior vice president of systems engineering
says the biggest challenge for MCI was to develop the software
to keep track of who calls whom.

But that's what the MCI engineers do at the company's
Engineering Division located at the foot of picturesque Pike's
Peak south of Denver, Colorado. Their newest project is what
Hoffman calls the North American Free Telephone Agreement, a
takeoff on the recently signed and heavily debated North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a deal pushed through
by President Bill Clinton to level and eventually eliminate
the tariff on goods passing between the US and Canada and
Mexico.

The consolidation of MCI's systems engineering operations here
has exceeded the company's hopes. Predictions of employing
1,700 workers at the facility by the end of 1995 have already been
exceeded; the division already has 2,500 employees and Hoffman
says that figure will grow to about 3,000 by the end of the current
year.

MCI has recently completed a licensing agreement with Stentor, a
consortium of Canadian telephone company and a deal with
British Telecommunications PLC that will offer services to local
service providers worldwide. It also recently signed a deal to
provide long distance service in Mexico in a joint venture with
Banamex-Accival, and teamed up with British Telecom to build a
trans-Atlantic fiber optic cable that can operate at transmission
speeds as high as 2.4 gigabytes per second. The cable can handle
150,000 simultaneous phone calls per fiber pair.

Looking at the future, Hoffman says in time a small group of
supercarriers will emerge as the leaders in the
telecommunications industry. "Obviously we intend to be one of
those supercarriers."

(Jim Mallory/19940204/Press contact: Amy Starks, MCI, 719-535-
1779)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(WAS)(00020)

Electronics Firms Applaud End Of Vietnam Embargo 02/04/94
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- While trade talks with
Japan and China are giving US negotiators headaches, PepsiCola
is already, according to various news reports, for sale on the
streets of Vietnam this morning because yesterday President
Clinton finally lifted the ban on US citizens and companies
doing business with the former enemy government. The Electronic
Industries Association sees this as an important new market
waiting for US high technology.

Thirty years after it was imposed, the US Executive Branch has
now removed the trade embargo it had instituted against the
country of Vietnam.

Many US companies and investors have been eyeing Vietnam as a
key trading opportunity in Southeast Asia, especially those who
are involved in building infrastructure, such as
telecommunications and even roads, all of which are in a sad
state in Vietnam.

In a statement released yesterday, the EIA, a 70 year-old trade
association based in Washington, DC, said that US market
share and opportunities "were being lost to foreign competitors
who have not been hampered by unilateral trade restrictions."

Vietnam's population, according to the 1993 Information Please
Almanac, is about 70 million, with a literacy rate of 88 percent
and estimated 1990 gross national product of $15.2 billion or
$230 per person.

The US, by way of comparison, has a per capita income of a bit
less than $20,000, leading some observers to question whether
there is really much of a market in Vietnam.

When asked by Newsbytes about this small potential market size,
Mark V. Rosenker, vice president, public affairs, for the EIA
said that it is "relatively small early on but you have to also
look to the future. [EIA members are] looking for opportunities
in Vietnam and we believe that their markets will grow rapidly."

Mr. Rosenker also pointed out that, "exports are an important
part of our domestic economy" and that we can't afford to give
this market to competitors by default.

Asked about what he sees as the largest market segment, the EIA's
public affairs spokesperson said that he sees telecommunications
and some industrial products as being the initial sales targets
along with personal computers, but pointed out that the details
of the new trade conditions have not yet been released by the
Clinton Administration and that until all the details are
available it is impossible to know just what levels of technology
US companies will be allowed to sell to Vietnam.

As for competition, the EIA sees Japan and some European
companies as the major contenders for market share, especially
since they have been operating in Vietnam for years.

But Mr. Rosenker expressed confidence that the US can quickly
gain a share of the growing Vietnamese market because as he put
it, people there still remember the big names like IBM.

(John McCormick/19940204/Press Contact: Mark V. Rosenker, EIA,
202-457-4980)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(WAS)(00021)

Roundup - Stories Carried By Other Media This Week 02/04/94
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Roundup is a brief
look at some computer stories carried in other publications
received here this past week.

Computer Reseller News dated January 24 says that IBM may turn
its back on the proprietary Micro Channel Architecture which
caused such a stir when it was introduced as an incompatible
alternative to the earlier IBM PC bus (now generally called ISA
for industry standard architecture). But MCA never demonstrated
any significant performance superiority to ISA and IBM itself
never actually abandoned the ISA bus because its PS/2 line (which
introduced MCA) actually included the ISA-bus Model 30 as part of
the lineup.

MIS Quarterly, a publication of the Society for Information
Management and the University of Minnesota, has a study on "The
Effects of Information System User Expectations on Their
Performance and Perceptions" which appears to conclude that the
more people expect from a new IS system the greater the chance
that they will be disappointed. Another paper, "Tailoring
Database Training for End Users," concludes that if users know
more about how a database works they will be able to use it
better.

Government Computer News dated January 24 says that a Federal IRM
(information resources managers) panel has concluded that the
GOSIP or Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile standard
is inadequate for future telecommunications needs - in particular
the panel cited the fact that GOSIP is not popular in agencies
and is too costly to implement.

Computerworld for the week of the 24th of January says that
pressure is building on network software provider Novell to plug
the holes in Novell NetWare 4.0's enterprise services
implementation. Apparently the need is so desperate that some
customers are abandoning an installed NetWare base and moving to
the Microsoft NT Advanced Serve platform.

Communicationsweek for the 24th reports that Microsoft is
dropping its development of Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk network
servers and will instead focus on the new NT-based Enterprise
Messaging Server.

(John McCormick/19940204/)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(LON)(00022)

Olivetti Enters Italian Mobile Phone Market 02/04/94
IVREA, ITALY, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Olivetti, the Italian computer
and electronics giant, is about to enter the world of mobile
telephony in a big way. Olivetti has launched a range of analog
and digital phones which will be marketed all over Europe.

At home in Italy, Olivetti has formed a joint venture with Ferrovie
dello Stato (FdS), the Italian railway company, to manage its
existing private railway phone network. The idea is that Olivetti
will run Italy's second mobile phone network, using the FdS phone
network to switch calls between base stations, as well as routing
"breakout" calls on to the SIP network.

A breakout call is one where the call progresses as far as possible
over a private phone network, only routing out to the public network
on a local call basis to the destination number which is also on the
public network.

Using the FdS rail phone network will, Olivetti claims, enable its
planned cellular service to undercut existing and planned mobile
networks. It will also allow Olivetti's Omnitel network, which it
has a 51 percent stake in, to compete with landline phone networks,
just as Hutchinson Microtel's DCS1800 network, which is scheduled
for an April launch in the UK, plans to do.

Olivetti is gambling heavily that Omnitel and its planned associated
mobile phone sales division will be a success. Despite laying off
thousands of staff and seeing its share price doing yo-yo
impersonations, the Italian giant is investing 2,000,000 million
lire into mobile telephony.

(Steve Gold/19940204/Press & Public Contact: Olivetti - Tel: +39-
125-523733; Fax: [phone])


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

Italy - April 30 Is "D Day" For Cellular Network Bids 02/04/94
ROME, ITALY, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- The Ministry for Post &
Telecommunications has revealed it will announce the winner of
the second mobile phone license for Italy on April 30 this year.

The announcement follows the decision by the Ministry to invite
three companies -- Omnitel, Pronto Italia and Unitel - to tender for
the contract. Newsbytes understands that the three consortia's bids
for the contract must be in by the end of this month.

Omnitel is a group consisting of Olivetti, Bell Atlantic and
American Express' Lehman Brothers, as well as Swedish Telecom and
Cellular International of the US. Pronto Italia consists of Pacific
Telecom, SG Warburg and Marzotto. Unitel consists of Fiant and
Fininvest, itself a joint venture company between Vodafone in the UK
and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy.

Although Italy has an analog cellular network in operation, digital
mobile telephony is fast becoming the "in thing" for European
telecoms companies. The benefits include a clear call, plus the
ability to switch calls between countries, with the side-benefit of
allowing subscribers to roam between country networks at will.

(Sylvia Dennis & Steve Gold/19940204)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(LON)(00024)

Spain - Telefonica Secures Colombian Cellular Licence 02/04/94
MADRID, SPAIN, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Telefonica, the state-controlled
telephone company of Spain, has taken a 35 percent stake in the
Cocelco consortium, one of three companies chosen to run a mobile
phone service in Colombia.

Other members of the consortium include Grupo Sarmiento with 50
percent and Organizacion Ardila Lulle with 10 percent. Cocelco is
paying $158m for the licence while medium term investment is a
costing the group a further $74m.

This is on top of the cost of installing and getting the mobile
network up and running, Newsbytes notes.

Although the original contract was for an analog cellular network,
Newsbytes understands that this will almost certainly be changed to
a global system for mobile communications (GSM) digital network.

GSM allows the "intelligence" of the phone to be held in a smart
card, known as the subscriber identity module (SIM). The credit
card-sized SIM card can be slotted into other phones, allowing the
phone user to roam between networks and countries if required.

(Steve Gold/19940204/Press & Public Contact: Telefonica - Tel:


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(LON)(00025)

Germany - Nazis Online 02/04/94
MUNICH, GERMANY, 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- A bulletin board system (BBS)
network known as "The Thule Network" is claimed to have become the
communications backbone of Germany's neo-Nazi scene, with callers
using the network to exchange ideas on how to rid Germany of
foreigners, coordinate illegal rallies and swap bomb-making
recipes.

The network, access to which is reported to be guarded by
passwords and loyalty tests, consists of at least a dozen bulletin
boards in three western states, according to law enforcement
officials in Germany. Officials claim that the network is being used
by extreme rightists to avoid detection by police who are currently
unfamiliar with new computer technology.

Newsbytes understands that the network computers poll (call) each
other on a nightly basis and exchange files. Using this
method of communication, officials say that important information,
such as contact numbers for transportation on the eve of a big
rally, can be quickly disseminated in a few hours.

The Thule Network's name derives from the small, elitist 1920s
movement which was considered to be the Nazi vanguard. Thule
movement leaders included Rudolf Hess.

German officials claim that, using the network, around 500 neo-Nazis
formed a convoy that drove into the city of Fulda and rallied there
unhindered on August 14 last year, the anniversary of the birthday
of Hess. Fulda was chosen as the secret site for the rally,
following the Police's attempts to hold it at Hess's Bavarian
graveside.

Uwe Kauss, editor of Chip Magazine, a monthly computer publication,
claims that his magazines have penetrated the network using
informants.

The magazine estimates 1,500 of Germany's more than 40,000 right-
wing extremists are active on the Thule Network. It also claims that
its operators are seeking links with US comrades such as Nebraska-
based neo-Nazi Gary Lauck, who ships neo-Nazi hate literature to
Germany.

(Sylvia Dennis/19940204/Press & Public Contact: Chip Magazine - Tel:
[phone])


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SFO)(00026)

Maxtor To Cut 500, Sells 40% To Hyundai For $150M 02/04/94
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Disk drive maker
Maxtor Corp., has announced that, as part of its restructuring
efforts to reduce costs, it will cut 500 employees worldwide. Maxtor
also says that it has completed the sale of about 40 percent of the
company to Hyundai Electronics Industries Company Ltd., for a $150
million cash investment. In related news, Maxtor announced losses
for the third quarter of fiscal year, 1994, ended December 25, 1993,
totaling $121.3 million.

According to Maxtor, Hyundai has invested $150 million in the
company in exchange for about 19.4 million shares of Maxtor Series A
common stock, which represented a per share price of $7.70.

As a result of the deal, M.H. Chung, chairman of Hyundai Electronics
Industries, has become a board member and chairman of Maxtor's board
of directors. Two nominated board members are Dr. C.S. Park,
president and chief executive officer of Hyundai Electronics' Axil
Workstations, and I.B. Jeon, a Hyundai Electronics vice president.

Said Maxtor President and CEO Laurence R. Hootnick, "This equity
infusion will add strength to our balance sheet, help fund our
product developments in the mobile computing and mainstream 3.5-inch
marketplaces on which we will be concentrating, as well as helping
to ensure we can weather the inevitable cycles of the disk drive
industry."

The company took the opportunity to also announce "a major shift in
strategy" which will call for the company to mainly focus on "the
design, manufacture and sale of its successful 7000 Series of
inch-high, 3.5-inch disk drives and its new family of mobile
computing products."

The new-product development teams will be concentrated at the
company's Longmont, Colorado, facility, with "volume manufacturing
continuing at the company's Hong Kong and Singapore facilities.

Said Hootnick, "Going forward we plan to focus resources only on our
most successful products and those holding the greatest promise for
the future, namely, our broad line of 7000 Series 3.5-inch drives
and the MobileMax family. It has become increasingly clear over the
past 12 months that Maxtor must concentrate on its strengths, and
the steps we have taken today will have significant impact on our
ability to compete effectively in the future."

Revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 1994 were $318.1
million, up from $313.5 million in the second fiscal quarter and
down from revenues of $402.6 million for the third quarter of
fiscal year 1993.

The company said that a net loss for the quarter, excluding
restructuring charges was $32.9 million, or $1.12 per share,
compared to a net loss of $59.6 million or $2.02 per share for the
second quarter of fiscal year 1994, and a net profit of $18.6
million or $0.59 per share fully diluted in the year earlier period.
Including restructuring charges of $88.4 million, or $3 per share,
the total net loss for the third fiscal quarter of 1994 was $121.3
million or $4.12 per share.

According to the company, the restructuring charges were "primarily
related to Maxtor's decision to discontinue certain products and
product lines and consolidate engineering groups."

The company says that the worldwide employee cuts are an attempt "to
streamline engineering, operations and administration, which the
company expects will result in future savings of "over $10 million
per quarter."

Revenues for the first nine months of fiscal 1994 totaled $892.2
million, a decrease of 18.7 percent from revenues of $1.1 billion in
the year earlier period. Net loss for the nine month period ended
December 25, 1993, totaled $253.1 million or $8.65 per share.

The company says that the Hyundai investment is not included in the
results, which will be recorded in the March quarter.

(Ian Stokell/19940204/Press Contact: Walter D. Amaral, 408-432-4949,
Maxtor Corp.)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(SFO)(00027)

Fujitsu, Intel In Telephony Deal 02/04/94
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- Fujitsu
Business Communications Systems, the North American business
information technology unit of Fujitsu Limited, announced an
alliance with Intel Corp. to explore and develop computer telephony
integration (CTI) strategies.

The first step in this collaboration will be Fujitsu's
support of Intel's ProShare line of communication products.

Computer telephony integration is the term developed for
the relationship of PC workstations and servers to Private Branch
Exchanges (PBX). This alliance is designed to create even greater
standards for computer telephony integration.

Speaking with Newsbytes, Lee Stites, public relations director,
stated, "Our work with ProShare will stop network duplication
efforts that are currently being used and will make personal
voice, video and data conferencing a single process from the
network through the PBX."

Future developments being explored include real-time shared
access to screen-based manipulation of voice, video, and
fax/email messages, video archives and multimedia databases.
ProShare features will combine with the call processing and
bandwidth allocation capabilities of the F9600 Platform PBX
and Fujitsu customers will have no need of any additional
purchases of system hardware, the companies say.

Fujitsu has also recently reached agreements with Novell and
Microsoft to promote CTI capabilities. The F9600 family of
digital business communication systems will support Novell
Telephone Service Application Programmers Interface for NetWare
and Microsoft's Telephony Application Programmers Interface
for Windows.

(Patrick McKenna/19940204/Press Contact: Lee Stites, Fujitsu
Business Communication Systems, Anaheim, California, tel:
602-921-4807)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(BOS)(00028)

MicroTouch VP To Seek Out Products, Acquisitions 02/04/94
METHUEN, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- MicroTouch has
created the position of vice president of new business development
and acquisitions, naming James J. ("Jay") Waldron, who was most
recently president and CEO of Framingham, MA-based Visage, to fill
the new job.

"MicroTouch is the leader of the touch market in terms of unit
sales and revenues generated... MicroTouch also offers an unique
capability with its combination of touch and pen input," said
the new VP, who comes to MicroTouch from a smaller competitor
in the touch marketplace, located not far from MicroTouch's
Methuen, MA headquarters.

In his new job with MicroTouch, Waldron will search for acquisition
opportunities and product expansions in the touch, pen and
"alternative input" technologies. MicroTouch has just integrated
touch with pen in TouchPen, a new digitizer announced last month,
the VP noted, in an interview with Newsbytes.

"I'll be looking at technologies that are synergistic with
MicroTouch. These could include other touch technologies, or other
technologies that make sense for our customers as natural
extensions of the touch interface," he told Newsbytes.

Touch technology is springing up now in all kinds of places,
Waldron reported. "The key allure is that it's so intuitive. You
don't need computing skills to be able to use a touchscreen."

Touch monitors also provide ruggedness and rapid input, two traits
that suit them well to point-of-sale kiosks, as well as to emerging
applications like cash registers, automatic teller machines (ATMs),
and the factory floor, according to Waldron.

Touchscreen cash registers first hit the market about two years
ago, and many retail stores are now using the new devices to
replace an earlier generation of machines, Newsbytes was told.

"You can pound on a touch screen, or spill soda on it. You don't
have to deal with 100 different keys. And if you need to add a
product or change a price, all you have to do is change the
interface."

Touchscreen computers also offer protection from vandalism, even
when the machines are located in public areas. "You don't have
to worry about someone pulling a mouse off the system, or
smashing the keyboard."

MicroTouch's capacitive technology is especially durable, and also
exceptionally accurate and fast, according to the VP. MicroTouch
products are based on an all-glass screen with a transparent, thin-
film conductive coating fused to its surface, he said. A
proprietary glass overcoat is applied over the conductive coating
to seal the sensor from the environment. The glass is also
resistant to scratches.

Along the edges of the MicroTouch screen is a narrow, precisely
printed electrode pattern that uniformly distributes a low voltage
AC field over the conductive layer. When a finger makes contact
with the screen's surface, it "capacitively couples" with the
voltage field, drawing a small amount of current to the point of
contact.

The current flow from each corner is designed to be proportional to
the distance to the finger. The ratios of these flows are measured
by the controller and used to locate the touch, according to
Waldron, In contrast, competing touch technologies require more
force to activate the screen, and can register different locations
depending on the angle of contact and the pressure applied.

MicroTouch estimates that its capacitive technology can record a
touch within 15 milliseconds of finger contact, for virtually
instant response. The physics involved with capacitive coupling
are aimed at letting the touchscreen perform at the same levels
even in the presence of grease, water, dirt, and other
contaminants. In addition, also unlike competing technologies,
capacitive coupling uses a solid state sensor, with no active or
moving components.

When combined with pen technology in the TouchPen digitizer, the
capacitive technology can be used for signature capture at point-
of-sale. "You can also use TouchPen on notebook computers, as a
combination pointing and controlling device," Waldron added.
TouchPen made its debut in NEC's new Versa PC.

What's on the way in the future, for MicroTouch and the industry?
"We predict a proliferation of both touch and pen, because the two
technologies are so easy to use. We expect that pen and touch will
ultimately be used with handwriting recognition in point-of-sale
applications. And five years from now or longer, we'll probably
see the integration of voice recognition with touch and pen," the
VP responded.

(Jacqueline Emigh/19940104/Reader contact: MicroTouch Systems Inc.,
508-659-9000; Press contacts: Janet Pannier, MicroTouch, 508-659-
9000; Mirena Reilly or Janice Rosen, The Weber Group for
MicroTouch, 617-661-7900)


(REVIEW)(APPLE)(SFO)(00029)

Review of - Just Joking, for Macintosh 02/04/94

Runs on: Macintoshes

From: Wordstar International, Inc., 201 Alameda del Prado,
P.O. Box 6113, Novato, CA, 94948, [phone], (800)
523-3520

Price: $49

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

Reviewed for Newsbytes by: Naor Wallach

Summary: An encyclopedia of jokes and humorous quotes. Comes in the
form of a Hypercard stack and is intended to be used as a tool to
help you in writing articles, letters, and speeches.

=======

REVIEW

=======

Ever wanted to start a speech or a written piece with a joke?
Wordstar now can help the otherwise humorless with its collection
of writing tools in a Macintosh Hypercard stack.

Wordstar claims that there are nearly 3000 jokes included in the
stack, divided into almost 250 topics.

The program comes with a 12-page manual on two diskettes.
One of the diskettes contains Apple's Hypercard reader version
2.1 which is required to run this program. The other diskette
contains the actual stack. To install, one simply copies
that stack to the Mac's hard disk.

At the top of the stack, there is a row of 26 buttons representing
the different letters of the alphabet. Along the left of the
screen are another set of buttons that allow one to navigate
through the stack. The largest part of the screen is devoted
to a textual display where the actual jokes and quotes appear.

The process of finding a suitable joke begins with the letter
buttons. Pressing any of those buttons brings up a list of the
topics that start with that letter. For instance, "c" gives things
like "California, Capital Punishment, Cars, Cats, etc." This then
leads to the collection of jokes and quotes that cover that
subject. You can then scroll through the list of quotes and jokes
and pick the most suitable one.

In case your search is fruitless, or your thoughts wander and you
notice a different area that might be better suited to your topic,
you can change the subject matter in one of several ways. You can
of course repeat the process starting with the letters.
However, by using the arrow keys, search, or index keys, you
can move among related topics and subjects. Also, at the
top of the scrolling area, the program will show you a set of other
topics that may be related. For instance, the zipper topic has a
relationship with the sex topic. Clicking on the word "sex"
transfers you to that topic. Once you've identified the perfect
joke, you can use any of the Macintosh's tools to copy it into your
presentation or article.

The program works flawlessly. I am not all that excited
however, by the content of the stack. Perhaps it is simply my sense
of humor, but I did not find many of the jokes and quotes to be
exceedingly funny. Some people will find that it is probably
chock-full of jokes and statements that tickle their funny bone. If
this is the kind of assistance that you find yourself in need of,
go ahead and try it.

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

PUMA RATINGS

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

PERFORMANCE: 3 This is a Hypercard stack. As such you are getting
limited performance and slow operation at times.

USEFULNESS: 3 This stack may or may not be what you are looking
for. Some of the humor did not work for me.

MANUAL: 4 All the information is presented with many figures and
examples.

AVAILABILITY: 4 Available from mail order and software stores.

(Naor Wallach/19931219)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(SFO)(00030)

 ****Firms/Govt To Set Up Telecommuting Centers In LA 02/04/94
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- In the wake
of the horrendous traffic problems that have arisen in the
aftermath of the 6.6 earthquake in Los Angeles which destroyed
much of the freeway infrastructure, a number of high-tech
companies have joined the government in formed the Southern
California Emergency Telecommuting Partnership. One of the
tasks of the alliance is to create 18 telecommuting centers in the
area, Newsbytes has learned.

Telecommuting has long been seen as a way of reducing the high
use of freeways. In LA, because of the quake, some commuters are
now experiencing up to 10-hour daily commutes in order to get to
their places of work and back.

A number of companies are involved in the partnership, including
Intel, Pacific Bell, GTE, Northern Telecom, and IBM. Government
agencies involved include CalTrans and the National Economic
Council.

Barbara Lopez, spokesperson for Intel, told Newsbytes that,
"We are working with the City of Los Angeles and the federal
government together with several other corporate partners to set
up telecommuting centers in the LA area. At this point there are
plans to open 18 centers in the area. The idea is to provide
locations for people who would otherwise be driving to work
on freeways and roads that would be terribly congested
because of the road closures caused by the quake."

Continued Lopez, "It will give them a place to go where they don't
have to drive in and be able to do work and really encourage
telecommuting and get some of the congestion off the roadways."

Concerning Intel's involvement, Lopez told Newsbytes that, "We
are providing some brand new products that will be really useful
for people trying to work from remote locations. We are donating
full Pentium-processor-based computer systems to the telecommute
centers. We are also providing software and modems and additional
technical help to get these things up and running."

Intel will also provide its new ProShare videoconferencing and data
conferencing products to the centers. Said Lopez, "That will allow
them to videoconference with the other telecommute centers.
It will be a place for people to go to have a teleconference."

Lopez said that Pacific Bell will be working with Intel on the
project. "Pacific Bell is working with us to provide the ISDN
(integrated services digital network) lines." As reported previously
by Newsbytes, ISDN lines are required for videoconferencing with
the ProShare product. Continued Lopez, "PacBell will be connecting
these centers to whatever ISDN system they already have in place."

The federal government has already announced that $1.5 million is
available in an effort to encourage alternative forms of commuting.
The state government of California has also reportedly made $1
million available in order to support the LA region's move towards
telecommuting.

(Ian Stokell/19940204)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(MSP)(00031)

Newsbytes Daily Summary 02/04/94
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, U.S.A., 1994 FEB 4 (NB) -- These are
capsules of all today's news stories:

1 -> Guest Editorial - Franco-German Telecom Alliance 02/04/94
Franco-German  Telecom Alliance: Another Airbus Industries? By Warren
Mckenzie. (Editor's Note: Warren McKenzie is a senior partner with
Redmond Group, a Redmond WA-based consulting organization.  He is
currently on assignment in Ireland.)

2 -> Japan - New PCs From Apple, YHP, Fujitsu 02/04/94 Apple Computer
has released a new desktop color Macintosh and a new Powerbook model
in Japan. Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard has a new version of its palmtop
personal computer which is more powerful but lighter and  cheaper than
its predecessor. And Fujitsu has released a high-end version of its
FM-R series desktop PC which comes with a Pentium chip as an option.

3 -> Borland Brings dBASE To Unix 02/04/94 Borland  International
announced several new Unix versions of its  database software, dBASE
IV version 2.0 for DOS. Different  versions are being made available
for SunSoft Solaris, Santa Cruz  Operation (SCO) Unix, Novell UnixWare
and other Unix-based operating  systems. The new versions are fully
compatible with their DOS  counterparts.

4 -> Free PowerPCs To Keep Australian Mac Buyers 2/4/94 Some Apple
Macintosh  buyers in Australia are earning free upgrades to the
forthcoming PowerPC chip technology, as Apple prepares  for the launch
of the first Power Macintoshes around March  15.

5 -> Information Superhighway Survey Shows Need For Cooperation
02/04/94 While most believed private industry should play the leading
role, respondents to a survey on information infrastructure this week
indicated that industry, the federal government, university, and the
provincial governments all have key roles to play in building Canada's
information highway.

6 -> Delphi Makes First Newspaper Deal 02/04/94 Delphi made  its first
affiliation agreement with a newspaper, signing a deal  with the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch and its PostLink service.

7 -> Canada - Telcos Told To Keep Responsibility For Inside Wiring
02/04/94 Federal regulators have denied a bid by Canada's two largest
regional telephone companies to turn over on-premises wiring to their
customers and charge them for repairs.

8 -> Compaq Australia Revenues Up 53% 02/04/94 Compaq Computer
Australia  has broken with past practice by revealing its annual
Australian and New Zealand revenue figures. At a press  briefing on
Wednesday it revealed that 1993 revenues totalled  AUS$210M (around
US$147M), a 53 percent rise on 1992.

9 -> NEC Inks With Cisco On ATM Switching Device 02/04/94 NEC has
agreed with California-based Cisco to make asynchronous transmission
mode  switching devices. NEC will supply the ATM switching devices to
Cisco on an OEM (original equipment manufacturing) basis.

10 -> Review of - Silicon Mirage, Art and Science of Virtual Reality
02/04/94 From: Peachpit Press 2414 Sixth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710
800-283-9444; 510-548-4393

11 -> WordPerfect Pacific Gets New MD 02/04/94 WordPerfect Pacific
finally has its new MD, after quite a few weeks of searching.
Outgoing MD and Regional Director Doug Ruttan this week  announced his
replacement.

12 -> Microsoft "Disappointed" Over Chinese Software Ruling 02/04/94
Microsoft  Corporation says it is "disappointed" over a recent ruling
by a  Chinese court that fined a Chinese academic institution just
$260  for illegally copying and shipping holograms of the Microsoft
trademark.

13 -> Intel To Pay Cyrix $10M In Patent Suit Settlement 02/04/94 You
know it's  going to be a good day when you find out your going to get
$10  million, and that's what happened to Cyrix Corporation this week.

14 -> Dell Signs Resellers In Indonesia, Korea 02/04/94 Dell Computer
Corporation has announced the signing of authorized resellers in
Indonesia and Korea.

15 -> Telecommuting Group Sees Earthquake Opportunity 02/04/94 he head
of a  group which urges telecommuting -- working from home using
technology -- is in Los Angeles hoping to make permanent the
lifestyle changes made necessary by the quake.

16 ->  ****AOL's Case Responds To Prodigy News Conference 02/04/94
America OnLine  President Steve Case responded quickly to a Prodigy
news  conference which claimed his company can't handle its present
growth rate, and leveled some charges of his own in return.

17 ->  ****Broadcasters Seek To Replace Shows With Data 02/04/94
Following up on an  idea by former Apple Computer chairman John
Sculley, the National  Association of Broadcasters is now seeking the
right to broadcast  data along with programming so its members can
become part of the  Information Superhighway.

18 -> UniForum '94 Seeks Broader Audience With IDG Aid 02/04/94 The
UniForum Association has enlisted IDG World Expo, a producer of
high-technology trade shows, to help broaden the appeal of its annual
UniForum show and conference to a wider audience. IDG will manage the
1994 show, which is scheduled for March 21 to 24 in San Francisco.

19 -> MCI Has 10 Million "Friends and Family" Members 02/04/94 MCI
Communications Corporation says 10 million telephone users  have
signed up for its "Friends and Family" program.

20 -> Electronics Firms Applaud End Of Vietnam Embargo 02/04/94 While
trade talks with Japan and China are giving US negotiators headaches,
PepsiCola is already, according to various news reports, for sale on
the streets of Vietnam this morning because yesterday President
Clinton finally lifted the ban on US citizens and companies doing
business with the former enemy government. The Electronic Industries
Association sees this as an important new market waiting for US high
technology.

21 -> Roundup - Stories Carried By Other Media This Week 02/04/94
Roundup is a brief look at some computer stories carried in other
publications received here this past week.

22 -> Olivetti Enters Italian Mobile Phone Market 02/04/94 Olivetti,
the Italian computer  and electronics giant, is about to enter the
world of mobile  telephony in a big way. Olivetti has launched a range
of analog  and digital phones which will be marketed all over Europe.

23 -> Italy - April 30 Is "D Day" For Cellular Network Bids 02/04/94
The Ministry for Post &  Telecommunications has revealed it will
announce the winner of  the second mobile phone license for Italy on
April 30 this year.

24 -> Spain - Telefonica Secures Colombian Cellular Licence 02/04/94
Telefonica, the state-controlled telephone company of Spain, has taken
a 35 percent stake in the Cocelco consortium, one of three companies
chosen to run a mobile phone service in Colombia.

25 -> Germany - Nazis Online 02/04/94 A bulletin board system (BBS)
network known as "The Thule Network" is claimed to have become the
communications backbone of Germany's neo-Nazi scene, with callers
using the network to exchange ideas on how to rid Germany of
foreigners, coordinate illegal rallies and swap bomb-making recipes.

26 -> Maxtor To Cut 500, Sells 40% To Hyundai For $150M 02/04/94 Disk
drive maker Maxtor Corp., has announced that, as part of its
restructuring efforts to reduce costs, it will cut 500 employees
worldwide. Maxtor also says that it has completed the sale of about 40
percent of the company to Hyundai Electronics Industries Company Ltd.,
for a $150 million cash investment. In related news, Maxtor announced
losses for the third quarter of fiscal year, 1994, ended December 25,
1993, totaling $121.3 million.

27 -> Fujitsu, Intel In Telephony Deal 02/04/94 Fujitsu  Business
Communications Systems, the North American business information
technology unit of Fujitsu Limited, announced an alliance with Intel
Corp. to explore and develop computer telephony integration (CTI)
strategies.

28 -> MicroTouch VP To Seek Out Products, Acquisitions 02/04/94
MicroTouch has created the position of vice president of new business
development and acquisitions, naming James J. ("Jay") Waldron, who was
most recently president and CEO of Framingham, MA-based Visage, to
fill the new job.

29 -> Review of - Just Joking, for Macintosh 02/04/94 Runs on:
Macintoshes

30 ->  ****Firms/Govt To Set Up Telecommuting Centers In LA 02/04/94
In the wake of the horrendous traffic problems that have arisen in the
aftermath of the 6.6 earthquake in Los Angeles which destroyed much of
the freeway infrastructure, a number of high-tech  companies have
joined the government in formed the Southern California Emergency
Telecommuting Partnership. One of the  tasks of the alliance is to
create 18 telecommuting centers in the area, Newsbytes has learned.

(Wendy Woods/19940204)