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Newsbytes - Internationa…ews 1983 May to 1994 June
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Newsbytes - International Computing Industry News 1994 Edition - May 1983 - June 1994 - Wayzata Technologies (5045) (1994).iso
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1984
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1991-10-04
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[***][6/19/84][***]
AT&T MICRO TO DEBUT:
As Eddie Currie of Lifeboat Associates stated in reference to IBM at
Sybex Computer Pioneer Days (6/15) in San Francisco, "We've come into
the presence of a very large mass and we've gone into orbit around
it." Move over, here comes another planet to the orbit. AT&T's IBM-
compatible $2,900 personal computer will debut June 26 at the National
Computer Conference in Las Vegas. Olivetti is making the unit, alternately
called the "M-24" or the "Safari series". It uses an Intel 8086
microprocessor and the MS-DOS operating system. Analysts say AT&T
will come out with a hard-disk version of the M24 which will use the
Unix system sometime this year. Nobody is saying the AT&T will
set up a planetary cycle of its own.
----
CONTACT: PHIL HAFF, PR
AT&T
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
212-393-1000
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
IBM CLONES CONTINUED:
Corona Data Systems and Eagle Computer have announced price cuts on their
personal computers in response to IBM's cuts of 10-23-percent last week.
We're still waiting to see what other IBM-compatible computer makers do.
Many of them were at Comdex unveiling new products. Televideo's Personal
Mini has 256K of RAM, a 46 megabyte hard drive and one disk drive, but
unlike IBM, uses the more powerful Intel 80186 chip to run IBM programs.
It supports up to 16 users and is priced at $8,995. Corona's Model PB400
(PB=Personal Best--get it?) costs $5,595 for two 360KB floppy drives, a
10 megabyte hard drive and 512K. It's also got a foot-wide screen with
twice the resolution of Big Blue's. Eagle's Turbo GT, priced at $6995 has
a 32-megabyte hard drive, 512K of RAM, and one floppy drive. Meanwhile,
IBM, coping with a massive stock market slide (price cuts caused IBM
stock to plunge 2 7/8 points) isn't saying what caused the price cuts.
Pick your theory:
1) IBMs aren't selling well. That's certainly true of the PCjr.
2) Its the normal summer price cut.
3) IBM wants to match the price of Apple's "MacIntosh"
4) There are several "blockbusters" in the IBM closet which will take
the place of the old models.
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
TRILOGY THROWS IN THE TOWEL:
Years of delays, technical problems and hard sweat lead Trilogy, Ltd. to
the conclusion that its supercomputer was not going to happen. Gene
Amdahl, Trilogy's founder, announced the company is giving up its attempt
to build a faster, cheaper mainframe than IBM. The main problem was the
chips. The "Wafer Scale Integration" technology, with each chip designed
to pack the power of 100 convention chips, has run into problems from Day-1.
Trilogy spent $250,000 in investment capitol on the project, but has pledged
to continue working on the chips for application in other products. Current
estimates put the debut of the wafer scale integration chip at 1986. The
demise of the supercomputer project caused the layoff of 20-percent of
Trilogy's employees--that's 130 people.
----
CONTACT: TRILOGY
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
LAYOFFS AT CORVUS:
68 people got walking papers during June at Corvus Systems, maker of
local area networks and computer storage devices. That's 13 percent of
the staff. Richard Brenner, CFO, says lagging sales are the blame;
Corvus will post a loss of $1.5 million in this fiscal year. All hope
is not lost, however, as the company says a big deal with Honeywell,
signed in March, will provide record revenues in 1985.
----
CONTACT: CORVUS SYSTEMS
SAN JOSE, CA.
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
BELT-TIGHTENING AT GAVILAN:
Competition from the likes of Hewlett-Packard and Sharp Electronics have
diminished sales of Gavilan portable computers, causing the company to
cut 25 percent of its workforce in an effort to stay above the waterline.
Manny Fernandez, Gavilan's president, says July will be a critical month
for the company. Sources told "The Business Journal" in San Jose that
in addition to an image problem, Gavilan has been receiving returns on 30
percent of its portable computers for alledged "operating bugs". What
is confirmed is that Gavilan is starting shipment this month of its new
"SC" computers (which sport a 16-line vs. the 8-line display of the
original Gavilan computer) even though the "SC" was announced last November.
Preannouncement of its computers by as much as six months, has not
helped Gavilan. The company had been hoping to go public in September; the
public offering, if it happens, will now be delayed until "after the
elections."
----
CONTACT: FRED HOARE, PR
GAVILAN COMPUTER
CAMPBELL, CA.
408-
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
OSBORNE IS BACK:
A federal bankruptcy judge approved Osborne Computer's reorganization plan
(6/15) which signals the rebirth of the once bankrupt company. Osborne's
Ron Brown, president, says the new "Osborne 3" computer, a 10-pound, 16-bit
portable with a battery, 16-line X 80 column display and 2 disk drives,
will be introduced shortly in overseas markets and will be priced at $2,995.
Also look for a public offering in early '85, something Adam Osborne, when
he was with the company, could only dream about.
----
CONTACT: DAVID MILLER, VP OF MARKETING
OSBORNE COMPUTER
HAYWARD, CA.
415-887-8080
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
AMIGA WOWS 'EM:
It's a diminutive-looking little machine getting a lot of press. Amiga's
personal computer, which will be priced at $1,500 when sold this winter,
was just a printed circuit board when demonstrated to reporters at CES
two weeks ago. But it commanded a broad range of graphics capabilities--
observers report it's "Lucasfilm-quality", operated by custom graphics
and sound chips alongside the Motorola 68000 microprocessor. When the
demo is a saleable reality, the "Amiga" is expected to have 128K of RAM,
a built-in 5 1/4" disk drive and built-in software. Eventually it will be
able to run IBM programs. The "Amiga" was designed by former Atari
engineer Jay Miner.
----
CONTACT: DON REISINGER, MARKETING V.P.
AMIGA CORPORATION
SANTA CLARA, CA.
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
NEWS CONFERENCE AT MCDONALDS:
It may be a history-making affair. Jim Edlin of Bruce & James, makers
of "Wordvision" held a news conference at a Palo Alto, Ca. "McDonalds"
restaurant because "it's the only place I could afford to treat reporters
to lunch." In fact the company lost half a million dollars since its
inception and still owes that amount to a group of 90 creditors.
"We never had a profitable month," says Edlin. Now, the company
is back to Jim's kitchen table, where it began, and Jim says he's signed
an international distribution deal with a "multimillion dollar firm"
which has infused a healthy sum back into the company. Currently, Simon
& Shuster has domestic distribution rights to "Wordvision" but says Edlin,
"That deal is in a state of flux." Edlin isn't saying WHICH company has signed
the international distribution deal, explaining he can't say until his
new products are ready for market. Edlin concluded his McDonalds
news conference by adding, "The kitchen table isn't the grave." He
plans to pound the pavement himself if he has to, to establish a
direct-marketing (mail) approach to selling his products.
----
CONTACT: JIM EDLIN
BRUCE & JAMES
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.
415-775-8400
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
WHAT'S UP AT VISICORP:
Down but not out, Visicorp, which cuts its worforce by a third in May,
expects to introduce a new Visi On product at the NCC in Las Vegas
on July 9. The new Visi On software will not require a hard disk, as
Visi On does now. It reportedly is faster (with speeds up to 10X
those of the earlier spreadsheet calculations) and will be part of "a
whole new product line."
----
CONTACT: DAN FYLSTRA, CHAIRMAN
VISICORP
SAN JOSE, CA.
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
COMPUTER CRIME CRISIS:
The American Bar Association has just completed a survey of 283 firms
in which almost half of them said they've been the victims of computer
crime or from those who use computers as a crime tool. "The need for
federal computer crime legislation is unmistakable," concludes the Bar's
news release. Estimated losses from computer crime amount to between
$145 million and $730 million each year. Again, the Bar Association is
pressuring Congress to come up with a federal law against computer crime.
----
CONTACT: AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON, D.C.
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
CHIP PROTECTION ACT:
Congress HAS passed legislation to allow copyright protection for chip
masks. The unanimous vote follows approval of a similar measure in the
Senate. A compromise is in the works. The Semiconductor Industry
Association, which worked long and hard for the measure, calls the
vote "worthy of applause." Said Rep. Don Edward of Ca., bill sponsor,
"The development costs of a single new chip can reach $100 million.
Yet a pirate firm, for less than $50,000 can duplicate the mask." The
bill's passage is seen as a needed boost for U.S. research and development.
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
ROBOT NEWS:
Two items of note: 300 workers will lose their jobs at the New Stanton,
Pennsylvania Volkswagon plant. The last "Rabbit" car rolled off the
assembly line, making way for a state-of-the-art robot-controlled
line of still-unnamed new vehicles. The worst isn't over yet--another 144
are scheduled to be replaced by the mechanical men by the end of 1984.
The layoff prompted an appeal from Vincent Altamuro, president of Robotics
Research, for worker retraining in order to prevent resentment of robots.
"To get workers on the robots side," says Altamuro, Detroit (or Pa. car-
makers) should "provide retraining and keep workers informed of the
implementation's progress." Anyone listening?
----
Meanwhile, a Stanford University scientist is attempting to program a
robot to cook "Beef Wellington." Professor Brian Reid has racked up 60
pages of instruction just to tell the robot how to find, and slice beef.
He sort of gave up when he became bogged down. "It was when I had to
tell the robot how to wrap the beef in pastry...I decided to go to bed."
He's also decided that "a lot of cooking is reading BETWEEN the lines."
----
[***][6/19/84][***]
IN BRIEF--
-WANG LABS is offering a $595 circuit board which allows its computers
to use IBM software and communicate with IBM PCs. It will also offer
a $1,850 communications board to allow networking with Wang's office
automation systems.
-XEROX, through 3COM Corp of Mountain View, Ca., will offer a networking
system for IBM PCs. The equipment will link up IBM PC's to "Ethernet",
IBM's information network. The announcement precedes IBM's own LAN system,
believed to still be a few years away.
-COLECO INDUSTRIES says the Cabbage Patch Doll saved Coleco's skin during
Christmas, what with orders exceeding $250 million still racked up at the
company's Pennsylvania headquartes. As for the "Adam" computer, the highlight
of last year's Consumer Electronics Show (but which ran into reliability
problems this year) "We've resolved Adam's problems," says president
Arnold Greenberg. New suppliers and a new 60-day guarantee are involved
in "Adam" shipments.
-OLIVETTI, maker of AT&T's new micro, has signed with MICROPRO for development
and sale of Micropro software with Olivetti computers.
-CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY and MCGRAW-HILL have joined forces. McG-H will
publish the university's line of computer-assisted instruction programs
-SOFTWARE ARTS, which developed the "Visicalc" program, is laying off just
under half its 125 employees. Company president Julian Lange in Wellesley,
Massachusetts says the reduction is part of a reorganization. As "Visicalc"
sales have declined, so have Software Arts' revenues, augmented by the fact
that Software Arts is still in a costly legal battle with Visicorp, which
markets "Visicalc."
-CHILDWARE CORP of Menlo Park, Ca. has been purchased by HUMAN ENGINEERED
SOFTWARE of Brisbane, Ca. The $1 million merger brings the largest marketer
of Commodore software into holy matrimony with the maker of "Turtle Toyland
Jr." among other products.
-
SEARS, still in that videotext venture with IBM and CBS, is offering a
computer-bill-paying service for its test-market customers in Southern
California. If the $3.95/month program is successful, it may become a
national fixture by 1985.
-
MCI, capitalizing on the 50-cents long distance information charge of
AT&T, is offering its customers free long distance directory assistance.
Can Sprint be far behind?
-
CONTROL DATA CORPORATION of Minneapolis is in a partnership with PHILIPS
N.V. to develop a high-capacity laserdisk for the consumer market. N.V.
Philips reports its disk can store 1-billion bytes.
-
FMC Corporation is spending several million dollars to develop artificial
intelligence for the Defense Department. The Santa Clara, Ca. company
expects to develop such things as an unmanned tank.
-
[***][6/19/84][***]
QUOTES OF THE WEEK:
Terry Lautenbach of IBM says sales of personal computers will triple
by 1987 and will become "a necessity of modern life, comparable to the
telephone, television and automobile."
-
Alan Kay of Apple Computer, "I did not invent the mouse!" He says it was
invented at MIT in 1963. "I had nothing to do with it!" So much for
popular heroic misconceptions.
-