Newsbytes - Internationa…ews 1983 May to 1994 June/Newsbytes - International Computing Industry News 1994 Edition - May 1983 - June 1994 - Wayzata Technologies (5045) (1994).iso/mac/Text/Mac Text/1989/nb890131.292

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(NEWS)(APPLE)(SFO)(00001)

HIGH PRICED DRAMS DEPRESS APPLE EARNINGS
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Apple Computer
has announced that second quarter earnings, ending March 30, will
be in the range of 35 cents to 45 cents per share, compared to 61
cents per share for the same quarter last year. The firm blames
the lower earnings on a mass purchase, at peak prices, of one
megabit dynamic random access memory [DRAM] chips. The purchase
was made during the worst of the DRAM shortage in 1988. Now,
says Chairman John Sculley in a prepared statement, "We have
a DRAM inventory at costs higher than current market costs."

Sculley acknowledges that sales of high-end systems slowed right
after Apple raised prices, due to higher DRAM prices, late last
year. Last week, to get the high-end systems moving again, prices
were lowered. The short-term effect, he says, is a depression of
earnings.

On the plus side, Sculley predicts new marketing programs will
stimulate demand for Apple products, and the second half of the
year will show improved fiscal performance. "We expect that Apple
worldwide revenues will increase for the full year in the range of
30 percent or greater."

(Wendy Woods/19880127/Contact: Barbara Krause, Apple, 408-974-3719)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(SFO)(00002)

NEW IBM PRINTER DESIGNED TO WORK WITH MACINTOSHES
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Analysts are
still reeling about IBM's new Personal Page Printer II laser printer,
the first printer IBM has ever made to work directly with Macintoshes
on an AppleTalk network. IBM has licensed Adobe Systems' PostScript
page description language for the printer, and has given it connections
to work with a variety of machines, including its own PCs, PS/2s,
and RTs, and Apple Macintoshes. The laser printer also provides
IBM Proprinter XL and Hewlett Packard LaserJet emulation. The 300
dots-per-inch laser printer comes with 43 resident PostScript fonts
and is priced at $5,000.

Says analyst, Rick Young, associate director of research for
desktop publishing in Dataquest, San Jose, "For them [IBM] to
offer a product that supports a whole set of protocols, it's really
amazing." He told Newsbytes, "And it's even more amazing when you
consider the animosity between IBM and Apple over the years.
Remember the 1984 commercial?" Young adds that even more interesting
is the apparent IBM acknowledgement that the AppleTalk networking
scheme is significant. "It's the only user-installable and user-
maintainable network in the world. The node cost and network
management is still substantially higher for other networks."

For Adobe, whose PostScript is already the standard in a majority
of the world's laser printers, IBM's endorsement has been the final
jewel in the crown. The contract is expected to bring millions
of new dollars to the firm.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Brenda Hansen, Adobe Systems, 415-961-
4400)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(TYO)(00003)

APPLE JAPAN RELEASES JAPANESE POSTSCRIPT
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Apple Japan will begin marketing
LaserWriter II NTX-J on 15 February to catch up to the U.S.-based
Apple Computer. Apple Computer Japan hopes to strengthen its
desktop publishing business with the laser printer which has
adopted the PostScript Japanese version from U.S.-based Adobe
Systems. The price of the NTX-J is 1,198,000 yen or $9,215 with a
standard 40-megabyte font hard disk dive.

Also, the company has revised its Japanese operating
system Kanji Talk for Macintosh from Release 2.0 to 6.0. The Kanji
Talk Release 6.0 will give a Macintosh II the ability to display
the Japanese language in color, and will allow it to use the
NTX-J.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/1989126/Contact: Apple Computer Japan, 03-224-7000)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(SFO)(00004)

ADOBE ANNOUNCES NEW MAC PRODUCT, SHIPS ILLUSTRATOR FOR THE PC
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 26 (NB) -- Shipments
of the Windows version of Adobe Illustrator have started. The
product offers such features as auto trace, bezier curves, DFX
conversion, pen tool, freehand drawing, and zoom, among others,
and comes bundled with Adobe Collector's Edition: Symbols, Borders
and Letterforms. The $695 package runs on a PC with at least
640KB [kilobytes] of random access memory, 256KB of expanded memory,
a hard disk, a floppy drive, and an EGA, VGA or Hercules Monochrome
interface and display.

Adobe Streamline, slated for shipment at the end of February, is
a new product which automatically traces bit-mapped images and
quickly converts them to Adobe lllustrator files. The product
is geared toward businesses with large libraries of art and
want to use Streamline to archive them. The product requires a
Macintosh SE, II or IIX and will cost $395.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: LaVon Collins, Adobe, 415-961-4400)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(SFO)(00005)

CLARIS CEO WILLIAM CAMPBELL TO DELIVER MACDEX KEYNOTE
NEEDHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- William
Campbell, chief executive of Apple's software spin-off Claris
Corporation, is slated to give the keynote speech at the Interface
Group's newest trade show, Macdex, April 10-13 in Chicago.
Campbell is expected to talk about the Macintosh in the business,
education, scientific, and engineering markets.

(Wendy Woods/19890127)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00006)

BERNOULLI CUSTOM CACHE INTEGRATED FOR MACINTOSH
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Iomega
Corporation announced, at MacWorld Expo, the Bernoulli Box II 44 for
the Macintosh. The removable drive offers fully integrated custom-
cache software and uses barium ferrite media to deliver twice the
capacity and performance of previous models. The caching algorithm
was developed by Iomega based on its analysis of the Macintosh's
management of data. One-drive systems list for $1,999, two-drive
systems for $2,999. A 44-megabyte cartridge lists for $125.

Bernoulli Box II 44 is available for the Macintosh Plus, II, IIx,
and the new SE/30, from Apple, and for the IBM PC and PS/2 lines.
Supported operating systems include MS DOS, OS/2, Unix, Apple
Multifinder, and Novell NetWare. Iomega offers its Bernoulli File
Exchange file-transfer software to allow MS-DOS files from an IBM
system to be used on a Macintosh. Mean time between failure [MTBF]
for the device is estimated at 25,000 hours and the cartridge has
been designed to survive 1,000 gravities of force.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127 )


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00007)

NUVO DEVELOPS ACCELERATOR DRIVER
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Nuvo Labs
announced the development of its SCSI [small computer system
interface] hard-disk Accelerator Driver at MacWorld Expo. The
software supports the Jets Cybernetics SurfBoard SCSI-DMA card for
the Macintosh II. The driver will be integrated into the Nuvo
Partitioner. It is scheduled for shipment March 31.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 805-544-5766)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00008)

CALCOMP PREVIEWS NEW E-SIZE PLOTTER
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- CalComp, Inc.
gave an advance showing of its forthcoming E-size [36-inch width]
Artisan pen plotter at MacWorld Expo. The showing was a first for
the Artisan 1025. The soon-to-be announced unit shares
specifications with other models in the Artisan line such as plots
as fast as 30 inches per second on axis at an acceleration of 2
gravities and up to 42 inches per second at a 45-degree angle and
2.8 gravities acceleration. Addressable resolution is 0.0005 inches,
repeatability is 0.005 inches and accuracy is 0.1 percent of the
move or 0.01 inches, whichever is greater. The device works with the
Macintosh and most microcomputers with an RS232C interface.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: U.S. -- 800-CALCOMP or 714-821-2000)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00009)

CALCOMP LICENSES CRICKET EXPRESSION 2.0
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- CalComp, Inc.
announced, at MacWorld Expo, an agreement to license Cricket
Software's Cricket Expression 2.0 color imaging engine as a device
driver for its PlotMaster color thermal-transfer plotter/printer.
PlotMaster produces color and monochrome hardcopy for computer-aided
design and presentation graphics applications. It images at a speed
of approximately one minute per full-color page and plots in seven
solid colors at a resolution of 200 dots per inch. Cricket's
software adheres to the Apple QuickDraw graphics standard and will
allow the device to produce output directly from Apple Macintosh
files. It will drive Macintosh II, SE, and Plus computers.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 800-CALCOMP, 714-821-2000)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00010)

MODIFIED MCMAX MOVES
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Nantucket
Corporation announced major revisions to its $295 McMax relational
database for the Macintosh at MacWorld Expo. The company claims that
McMax 2.0 is the fastest dBASE compatible database for the Mac. The
new version offers greater access to the Macintosh toolbox than
previous versions including programmable Macintosh interface
features.

New features include support for large-screen displays, color,
fonts, and user-defined READs. User-defined READs allow data
validation and control of program flow from within a READ operation.
Serial support and a new HyperCard XCMD and XFCN interface are also
provided. The interface enable McMax developers to extend the
database using C, Pascal and Assembler programming languages.

Upgrades are free to registered users who purchased McMax after
August 1, 1988 and $39 for those who purchased the program before
that date.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 213-390-7923)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00011)

32 MEGAHERTZ NUBUS WORKSTATION RUNS MAC II SOFTWARE
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Sixty Eight
Thousand, Inc. announced the release of its Dash 30 workstation at
MacWorld Expo. The Dash 30 runs Macintosh II software at 32 MHz
according to the announcement.

The $15,000 system includes a 68030 CPU [central processing unit],
68882 Advanced Math Co-Processor, a high-speed cache, a Disk-DMA
[direct-memory access] channel, accelerated SCSI [small computer
system interface] circuitry, 4 MB of RAM [random-access memory],
virtual memory support, a 180 MB hard disk, and a Macintosh-style
800K floppy-disk drive. The system's tower case includes five NuBus
slots and room for ten half-height drives. Expansion features
include RISC [reduced instruction set computer], parallel, and other
processors such as the Motorola 88000, AMD 29000, Inmos T800
Transputers, TI micro Explorer LISP Engine, and DSP32 Digital Signal
Processor.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 408-626-1711)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00012)

400 DPI SCANNER ANNOUNCED FOR MAC
TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Microtek Lab, Inc.
has announced its MSF-400GS scanner with built-in SCSI [small
computer system interface] circuitry. Shown for the first time at
MacWorld Expo, the MSF-400GS provides 400 dpi [dots per inch] and
256 shades of gray for Macintosh Plus, SE or II computers. It can
present phototypesetters with up to 78 percent more raw data than
300 dpi scanners.

Microtek's new $3,995 scanner includes a single-bit-per-pixel mode
for scanning logos, line art, text, and photographs which will be
printed on a laser printer. Its multiple-bit-per-pixel mode records
up to 256 shades of gray for editing by programs such as Digital
Darkroom and Image Studio.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 213-321-2121)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00013)

MICROTEK DRIVERS ANNOUNCED FOR OMNIPAGE
TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Microtek Lab, Inc.
has announced a cooperative agreement with Caere Corporation of Los
Gatos, Calif. The agreement will result in the provision of drivers
for Microtek's scanners in Caere's new OmniPage page-recognition
software for the Macintosh SE and II. Shipment is scheduled for
early next month.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 213-321-2121)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00014)

MAC SOFTWARE BUNDLED WITH SCANNERS
TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Microtek Lab, Inc.
is including a free copy of Silicon Beach Software's Digital
Darkroom or SuperPaint V2.0 software with all of its Macintosh-based
scanners. Digital Darkroom, which allows one-step scanning and
editing, is currently shipping with all of the company's gray-scale
scanners. SuperPaint is expected to be shipped in early February and
will provide control and manipulation of non-gray-scale [single-bit-
per-pixel] images.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00015)

PRICE INCREASES DELAYED FOR DIGITAL DARKROOM
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 10 (NB) -- Silicon Beach
Software has extended the introductory $295 price of Digital
Darkroom for another quarter year through March 31, 1989. Digital
Darkroom software provides gray-scale image processing for the
Macintosh. The product has a recommended list price of $395.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 619-695-6956)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00016)

SUPERPAINT 2.0 SHIPS FOR MAC
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 18 (NB) -- Silicon Beach
Software has shipped SuperPaint version 2.0 for the Macintosh. The
$199 single-bit paint program has a large number of enhancements.

SuperPaint 2.0 has an enhanced Draw layer with a freehand Bezier
tool; transformation functions for scaling, freely rotating,
flipping and slanting text and objects; hairlines and editable
arrows and dashed lines; multiple fonts and type styles in a single
text block. The program's Paint layer has been enhanced with an
adjustable airbrush with controls for dot size, pattern and paint
flow; AutoTrace for converting bit-maps into "draw" objects; and
support for "plug-in paint tools and commands." The program can
also now display assigned colors before color printing. There are
also several additional general features.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 619-695-6956)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00017)

SUPERCARD ANNOUNCED
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 18 (NB) -- Silicon Beach
Software has announced SuperCard a multimedia authoring tool which
is an extension of Apple's HyperCard technology. The HyperCard-
compatible application adds additional graphics functions for
animation and for managing windows and menus. All stacks, scripts,
XCMDs and XFCNs can be translated by the software. The program's
scripting language, SuperTalk, is a superset of the HyperTalk
language. SuperCard applications do not require SuperCard to run and
can be distributed without a license fee. The $199 program is
scheduled to ship in the second quarter and will require a 1 MB Mac
for monochrome, or 2 MB Mac for color, operation.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 619-695-6956)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00018)

BOARD OFFERS MAC IIX PERFORMANCE FOR THE MAC II
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- CSA
introduced its Over 030 board for the Macintosh II at MacWorld Expo.
The $995 circuit includes a 68030 chip and provides developers with
the functionality of the Mac IIx.

The Over 30 fits directly into the 68020 socket, and replaces the
chip, in a Mac II. The board also eliminates the need for an
external 68851 Memory Management Unit by allowing implementation of
the 68030's on-board PMMU.

CSA also announced its FX-882 33 MHz floating-point accelerator for
the Mac II. The board replaces the 16 MHz 68881 in the Macintosh II
with a more powerful 33 Mhz 68882 chip. Floating-point performance
can be as much as doubled by the board, according to the
announcement, without compromising compatibility. The 33 MHz
version of the FX-882 lists for $1990; a $1290 25 MHz version is
also available.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 619-566-3911)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00019)

MAC II POWER AVAILABLE FOR THE MAC PLUS AND SE
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- CSA
introduced its new FasTrack accelerator board for the Macintosh Plus
and SE at MacWorld Expo. The board is designed for math-intensive
applications which use a coprocessor. FasTrack is capable of using a
relatively slow and inexpensive 12 MHz 68020 chip but is able to
take advantage of a Motorola 68882 math coprocessor running up to 33
MHz In some cases, according to CSA, FasTrack is capable of
providing the performance of a Mac II.

Installation of the board requires removal of a Mac's 68020 chip.
However, CSA offers free installation of a socket and FasTrack to
customers who buy a 20 or 25 MHz 68882. The introductory price of
$895 includes the board, socket installation, a 12 MHz 68020 and a
20 MHz coprocessor.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 619-566-3911)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00020)

TAXMATCH--HYPERCARD STACK SHAREWARE
INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 20 (NB) -- Survivor Software
has announced TaxMatch a new interface between MacMoney 3.0 and
MacInTax. TaxMatch is being offered from "major electronic
communications systems" as shareware for a $5 fee according to the
announcement. It is also available directly from Survivor Software
for $7.50. In either case, says the company, $5 goes directly to the
program's author.

The HyperCard stack application matches MacMoney categories to the
tax-form categories of MacInTax federal 1988 by SoftView, Inc. Once
the match is made, data can be automatically transferred from
MacMoney to the tax form.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 213-410-9527)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00021)

AKER TO CO-EDIT MAC BIBLE
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN (NB) -- Sharon Zardetto Aker
has been conscripted to prepare updates to the Macintosh Bible and
will co-edit the next edition with Arthur Naiman, the book's current
editor.

The Macintosh Bible is a collection of tips, tricks, shortcuts and
product evaluations for the Mac. More than 150,000 copies are in
print. The publisher, Goldstein & Blair, claims that sales have been
helped by rave reviews and scurrilous exaggerations like "as good as
sex" spread by readers and reprinted in the Second Edition.

Ms. Aker is a contributing editor at MacUser and Hands On Macintosh,
a contributor to many other magazines, the author of several books,
and the head of the PictureBase II design team at Symmetry Corp.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 415-524-4000)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00022)

NUBUS EXPANSION CHASSIS FOR MAC SE/30 ANNOUNCED
AUSTIN, TEXAS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Second Wave, Inc. has
announced Expanse II/SE30, an eight-slot NuBus expansion chassis for
the Macintosh SE/30. The new product is an adaptation of the
company's Expanse II for the Mac II and IIx. The $2295 product will
ship sometime in April.

Connection to the expansion chassis is made with an included
interface card that resides in the Mac's 030 Direct Slot and by an
internal cable assembly from the interface card to the I/O port in
the back of the Mac SE/30 case. The chassis contains a 130-watt
power supply, cooling fan, eight NuBus slots, and all hardware
required to support three SCSI [small computer system interface]
devices.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 512-343-0923)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00023)

DATA ACQUISITION BOARDS ADD PROGRAMMING INTERFACES
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 1 (NB) -- National
Instruments Corporation has announced an enhanced version of its
software driver package that simplifies the programming of data
acquisition with the company's NB series plug-in data-acquisition
boards for the Macintosh II. A Mac II equipped with one or more of
the NB Series boards becomes a personal laboratory system for analog
and digital measurement and control. The enhancements, shown at
MacWorld Expo, add HyperCard and Lightspeed Pascal interfaces to
NB LabDriver. The software remains priced at $295 and free upgrades
are available to present users.

NB LabDriver is a Macintosh device driver that is installed in the
system and becomes a resource available to any programming language
that can make system toolbox device manager calls. NB LabDriver 3.0
retains all the features of the previous release while adding a
HyperTalk interface with HyperCard stacks, a language interface
library for Lightspeed Pascal, and digital input and output [I/O]
enhancements. Board functions perform analog-to-digital [A/D] and
digital-to-analog [D/A] conversion, digital I/O, double-buffered
data acquisition, timed waveform generation, and timing I/O.

(Wayne Yacco/19890112)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00024)

NEW RELEASE OF MGMSTATION CAD
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Micro CAD/CAM
Systems demonstrated the latest releases of its MGMStation CAD and
CAD/CAM [computer-aided design or manufacturing] software for the
Macintosh at MacWorld Expo.

MGMStation Professional Mill 2.0 supports multipart machining and
automatic processing of similar shapes through description of the
process for only one of the objects. The company claims that the
program offers a comprehensive climb-milling routine which is not
available in any other microcomputer-based CAM system. The routine
allows roughing of pockets and islands. Professional Mill 2.0 will
provide post-processor support for over 100 machine tools.

The program also reduces the amount of keyboard and mouse input
required and provides cut, copy and past of full technological
processes with automatic updates of CNC programs. Shipment is
scheduled for February.

Release 2 of MGMStation CAD versions 2.5 I and II, which feature
advanced layering, macros, rotated text and extended edit commands,
were also shown. Both versions have been shipping since November.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 818-376-0008)


(NEWS)(APPLE)(LAX)(00025)

NUVO HARD-DISK PARTITIONER OFFERED
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Nuvo Labs
announced, at MacWorld Expo, that it will begin selling its Nuvo
Partitioner Next Generation Hard Disk Formatting and Partitioning
Software directly to end users this March 31. The $129 product was
formerly available only bundled with the hard disks of the company's
OEM [original equipment manufacturer] customers.

The sesquipedalian product offers formatting and partitioning
features for the Macintosh including true SCSI partitioning, the
ability to create multiple password-protectable partitions, and
partitions of varying sizes. The company boasts, "all others format
only, but do not partition."

According to Nuvo, the company is also embroiled in a law suit with
Jasmine Technologies over proprietary software. The company expects
that a settlement "may be eminent [sic]" according to its
announcement."

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 805-544-5766)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SFO)(00001)

TELEVIDEO CUTS MORE HEADS TO CUT COSTS
SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Televideo Systems
has eliminated a third of its U.S.-based workforce since November
in an attempt to stop the flow of red ink. Televideo laid off
60 workers last week, admitting 50 others have been laid off or
left of their own will since November. That brings the
domestic workforce to 270 and 660 worldwide.

Several factors have conspired to give the company a $39.6
million loss on sales of $95 million in its most recent quarter,
among them cut-throat competition in the terminal market, the
high price and shortage of dynamic random access memory chips
and a strike at a Korean assembly plant. The first quarter
results are due January 31 and will also be unkind -- "significant
losses" is the term the firm is using to describe them.

But Televideo expects to return to profitability through the
staff reductions, an internal restructuring, and an assembly
line switch to surface mount technology, which is expected to
reduce costs and increase efficiency.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: John DiMatteo, Televideo, 415-745-
7760)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SFO)(00002)

COMPUTERLAND FRANCHISEES WIN LAWSUIT
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- ComputerLand
Corporation has settled a class action lawsuit with its
800 franchisees by giving them cash and letting them keep more of
what they make. The dispute was started in 1984 by Michael
Belling and Kenneth Klein, the former operators of the Marin County
ComputerLand stores, who alleged that their giant parent was
failing to honor contracts, ship products, and offer them discounts,
leading to at least one business failure for a franchisee.

After five years in litigation, ComputerLand Corporation has decided
to award the plaintiffs a permanent contractual reduction
in franchisee royalty rates from eight to five percent. $5.2
million in debts will be forgiven for the class action suit
members, and a $720,000 fund will be distributed as well.
The entire settlement is valued at over $30 million.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Ralph Miller, Legal Media News
Service, 415-821-2115)


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

INFORMIX PLAYS CHESS WITH MANAGEMENT
MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 26 (NB) -- Informix
Corporation has reorganized into two product divisions, the Workstation
and the Advanced Products Division, as well as separated its sales
staff into domestic and foreign groups. The changes take advantage of
the firm's two locations. The Lexana, Kansas facility will house
the Workstation Products Division where work on Wingz, SmartWare,
and other office productivity products will take place. The Advanced
Products Division, in Menlo Park, will work on database, network,
and application development products. Informix' advanced database
engine, originally scheduled to ship during the first half of 1989,
is now expected to be out the door sometime in the second half of
the year.

Finally, Informix announced that Mark Callegari has resigned from the
firm's board of directors. Callegari was a founder of Innovative
Software, the developer of Wingz, which has yet to reach the market.
He has been replaced by Phil White, new Informix president.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Cathy Donohue, Informix, 415-322-4100)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(ATL)(00004)

DELL KEEPS GROWING WHILE EXECUTIVES KEEP WALKING
AUSTIN, TEXAS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- Dell Computer founder
Michael Dell, who started his business while a University of
Texas student, is fast gaining a reputation as a tough boss. Another
five top executives have left in the last few weeks, clearing out a
division built by Graham Beachum. Dell had hired Beachum from
Tandy as vice president of marketing and sales after deciding to
turn his small mail-order outfit into a brand name. Dell replaced
the five by promoting from within. Beachum, now at Wang Labs, had
hired away two of the five, while a third went back to Tandy and
Mark Yamagata, yet another one-time Dell manager.

Aside from the problems of suits who won't listen to the boss,
Dell is doing well. On January 23 Dell signed leases for six
buildings with 500,000 square feet of space in Northwest Austin.
He'll replace a 123,000 square-foot facility and expand his
present 55,000 square foot offices at a Trammell Crow development
called Braker Center. Moving will take Dell employees most of the
year, but they should then stay put, because Dell has options on
land adjacent to the new digs. Included in the new offices will
be a new cafeteria, volleyball courts, softball fields and an
exercise room. Dell still calls its computers "IBM compatible,"
not Compaq-compatible, and is licensed to make PS/2 clones.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(ATL)(00005)

INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS BUYS IN SHARES AS CLEARANCE SALE CONTINUES
NORCROSS, GEORGIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Negotiations
continued with the purchasers of Princeton Graphics about selling
more of its operating units, and Intelligent Systems Master, a
limited partnership traded on the American Stock Exchange,
confirmed it repurchased 675,000 of its "shares" [called
depositary units], over half the number it authorized last month.
The units were trading at well under their book value of $5.50
per share, and Chairman Leland Strange is hoping to sell most of
the company, in pieces, for more than book.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(ATL)(00006)

WORLDWIDE HIGH-TECH REPAIR BUSINESS NOW WORTH $65 BILLION
FORT MYERS, FLORIDA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- The business of
repairing equipment containing micro chips grows merrily on.
It was a $65 billion business last year, with a 10 percent annual growth
rate. The people who manage the repairmen, who prefer to be
called technicians, are members of the Association of Field
Service Managers. Executive Vice President George Keller told
Newsbytes the word "field service" is a misnomer, and his 6,000
members manage 350,000 people who fix everything from airline
terminals to the mainframes those terminals feed. Newsbytes
readers are welcome to take a crack at a new name, he added.
Keller also said that the $65 billion figure came from the Boston
consulting firm of Ledgeway & Associates, which got figures from
the Top 100 companies in the field, like IBM and AT&T, Siemens,
Philips and Eastman Kodak, then extrapolated, figuring the big
boys represented 85 percent of total volume. The U.S., Keller adds, has
60 percent of the total high-tech service market.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: George Keller at 800-333-
5786)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(ATL)(00007)

AT&T, KDD, AND BT TO LINK CREDIT CARDS ON FEBRUARY 1
BASKING RIDGE, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- In an
agreement which could be the first of many, the largest phone
companies in England, the U.S. and Japan have agreed to cross-
connect their telephone credit card systems. This means if you
have a credit card for American Telephone & Telegraph, Kokusai
Denshin Denwa, or British Telecom [BT], you can use it for calls on
all three networks starting February 1. One hitch -- BT doesn't yet
have a telephone credit card service. This agreement merely
commits BT's planned credit card service to cross-connect once
it's open. The deal follows by one week an agreement between BT
and AT&T to link their electronic mail networks, allowing all of AT&T
Mail's 40,000 subscribers to send and receive messages with
Dialcom's 130,000 U.S. subscribers.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(WAS)(00008)

PRIME REPORTS LOSSES DUE TO TAKEOVER BATTLE
NATICK, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Prime Computer
says resistance to a hostile takeover attempt being waged by MAI
Basic Four has led to red ink for Prime. The company said it lost
$14.4 million -- 30 cents per share -- for the quarter ended December
31. That compares to profits of $21.3 million -- 44 cents per
share -- in the same quarter a year earlier.

MAI launched its takeover attempt in November and since then the
companies have been battling in courts and boardrooms. In the
latest maneuvering, MAI Basic has asked a U.S. District Court
in Boston to lift a preliminary injunction that prevents it for
pushing the bid. Prime continues to contend that the offer is
incomplete and inadequate.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(WAS)(00009)

GENERAL DATACOMM LAYS OFF 150
MIDDLEBURY, CONNECTICUT, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- General
Datacomm Industries has laid off 150 salaried employees and cut
pay for managers and executives, following a loss of $490,000 for
the quarter ended December 31, 1988. The computer systems and
equipment company said the layoffs and pay cuts were part of a
reorganization begun last year. Last November, the company
dropped 150 jobs worldwide.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(WAS)(00010)

GTECH PRESIDENT RESIGNS UNEXPECTEDLY
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Deward
Manzer, 49, president of GTECH Corp. since 1987, has unexpectedly
resigned. The announcement said Manzer quit to "pursue other
professional interests." GTECH is a leading company in the
lottery systems market. The company has experienced several
quarters of declining profits and stockholder complaints during
Manzer's tenure, although the company was back in the black in
the most recent quarter.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(WAS)(00011)

COMPUTER IDENTICS BAR CODE BUSINESS UP FOR GRABS
CANTON, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Computer
Identics Corp. says it is looking for buyers for its handheld
laser scanner bar code reader business. The company said it is
negotiating with Spectra-Physics, Inc., of Eugene, Ore., for the
business. Spectra-Physics exercised a right of first refusal when
Computer Identics told it that an offer of $1.4 million had been
made by another company. Computer Identics says it wants to
concentrate on products for the materials handling and data
collection industrial markets.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(LAX)(00012)

MICRO CAD/CAM TO USE VECTOR APPLICATIONS GENERATOR
VAN NUYS, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Micro CAD/CAM
Systems has formed a strategic alliance with MicroConcepts of Fort
Wayne, Indiana to use its Vector Engineering Application Generator
to develop full 3D versions of its line of CAD/CAM [computer-aided
design or manufacturing] software for the Macintosh. The generator
will provide 3D geometrical tools, associative dimensioning, text,
and other attributes. Micro CAD/CAM will also sell and distribute
Vector, and Vector related products, to users and developers.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: 818-376-0008)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(LAX)(00013)

AST CONFIRMS 2ND QUARTER LOSS
IRVINE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- AST Research, Inc.
[ASTA:NASDAQ] today announced second-quarter figures which confirmed
a loss predicted by the company three weeks ago. The report, which
appeared in Newsbytes several weeks ago, closely approximated the
actual figures of an $8.9 million loss on increased sales of $110.9
million. Overall sales increased 20 percent over the same period a
year earlier. AST's greatest gains came in its sales of 80386
machines which increased 38 percent over the same quarter a year
earlier.

A company spokesperson blamed several factors such as higher
component costs and the sale of the company's Camintonn product line
for the net loss. The unaudited income statement released by the
company confirmed this with disproportionate increases in cost of
sales and general and administrative expenses. However, selling and
marketing expenses were also up by nearly half and interest expenses
more than tripled as well. AST plans to respond with labor
reductions.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127/Contact: AST, 714-863-1333)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(TYO)(00014)

SUN DOMINATES JAPANESE WORKSTATION MARKET
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- Seiko Instruments has begun
marketing two series and four models of engineering workstations,
receiving its OEM, or original equipment manufacturing, supply from
U.S.-based Sun Microsystems. Sun's workstations have been sold
through its general agent in Japan, C.Itoh Techno Science Co., and
a total of seven companies are receiving an OEM supply from Sun,
including Toshiba, Fujitsu, Nippon Steel and Fuji Xerox.

Seiko Instruments has been receiving a supply of SUN 3-60, 3-260,
4-110 and 4-260, to resell these under the name of SN-3060, SN-3260,
SN-4110 and SN-4260 with additional value, such as the graphic
display GR series and graphic devices, software, and so on. The price
range of these products will be from 1,348,000 yen or $10,370 to
7,199,000 yen or $55,3775.

Meanwhile, Seiko Instruments is developing a graphic
workstation and a high-end network server, using Sun's SPARC
chip technology.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/1989124/Contact: Seiko Instruments Inc. 03-682-1111)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TYO)(00015)

PCS NOW PIT TIMEPIECE RIVALS CITIZEN AND SEIKO
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- Citizen, a leading clock
manufacturer vying with Seiko for a lion's share of the world's
clock and watch market, is now planning to challenge its rival
in the personal computer market.

Citizen has been supplying 3,000 to 5,000 units of its
IBM-compatible laptop computer to a computer maker in the U.S.
on an original equipment manufacturing [OEM] basis but will now get
PCs from U.S. and European makers on an OEM basis for sale
overseas. Citizen has already started sales of IBM PC/AT compatible
machines in the U.S. through its subsidiary, Citizen America.

The company has been selling 50,000 units of printers for PCs per
month in the U.S. and European market but now it is ready to sell
with a set of PCs.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/1989124/Contact: Citizen Watch Co., 03-342-1231)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TYO)(00016)

TI TO PRODUCE 4M DRAMs IN SINGAPORE
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- U.S.-based major semiconductor
maker, Texas Instruments has revealed that the company produces
four-megabit dynamic random access memory chips in Singapore. A silicon
wafer is prepared in Japan and the assembly process takes place in
Singapore. The company has already begun sample shipment of this
product and it will start commercial production within this year.

TI Singapore is producing 80 to 90 percent of TI group's total
output and it currently produces one-megabit DRAMs and 256 kilobit
DRAMs. TI of the U.S. had announced plans to invest 330 million
Singapore dollars in the next five years. The cumulative investment
to the subsidiary will reach 780 million Singapore dollars.

Now there are plenty of U.S. and Japanese semiconductor makers
around in Singapore, Pinang and Kuala Lumpur of Malaysia, so the
area is called Silicon Peninsula.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/1989126)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TYO)(00017)

INTEL JAPAN TO LIST ON THE TOKYO STOCK MARKET
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Japanese subsidiary of the
U.S.-based leading semiconductor maker, Intel Japan, has called
for a third party quota to double its capital from the
current amount of 548 million yen or $42 million. The quota
will come from nine companies, which include
Mitsubishi Corp., C.Itoh &Co., Mitsubishi bank, Sumitomo bank and
Fuji bank. Intel of the U.S. is likely to put Intel Japan on the
Tokyo Stock Exchange market to supply funds for the entire Intel group.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/1989124)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SYD)(00018)

MICROBEE LIVES TO FIGHT AGAIN
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1989 JAN 13 (NB) -- Microbee Systems, one
of Australia's earliest success stories in the computer
industry, has been saved from receivership. Trading company
MicroCorp Pty. Ltd. bought out the assets of the troubled
company, which had been placed in receivership in the first
week of 1989.

Microbee is an established company in the domestic education
market, with endorsement in many state schools; it also
exports to Scandinavia and the Soviet Union, but its
financial fortunes have waxed and waned over the years.

(Bob Futcher/19890106)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SYD)(00019)

IBM SHOWS HEALTHY PROFIT
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1989 JAN 28 (NB) -- IBM Australia this
week reported a gross profit for 1988 of AUS$1246 million,
a rise of AUS$133 million over the previous year. The 12 percent
rise in gross profit resulted in a hefty 66 percent rise in
after-tax revenue, to AUS$38 million. Managing Director
Brian Finn said that the revenue growth was greater than
the industry average, and was derived from rises across the
entire product range.

The paid-up capital of IBM Australia rose by AUS$50 million
to AUS$110 million during the year, the result of a AUS$30
cash injection by the parent company and capitalization of
AUS$20 million from retained earnings.

(Bob Futcher/19890128)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SYD)(00020)

EPSON SETS SITES ON 40 PERCENT IN AUSTRALIA
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1989 JAN 26 (NB) -- Leading printer
supplier in Australia, Epson, is not satisfied with 35
percent of the total market. The new target of 40 percent
will be achieved within the next quarter, according to
Marketing Manager Andrew Phillips. To achieve his goal
Phillips has dropped prices by more than 20 percent on most
models. Industry observer Neville Angove says, "They've
removed any excuse for not buying their printers so I don't
see why they won't achieve their aim."

(Paul Zucker/19890126)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00021)

STRONG EXPORT GROWTH BOOSTS IBM CANADA REVENUE
MARKHAM, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1989 JAN 20 (NB) -- IBM Canada Ltd. had
revenues of C$3.693 billion in 1988, up 19 percent from 1987's
figure of C$3.104 billion. The company's exports, which rose 36
percent to C$1.352 billion in 1988, helped to boost revenues. Net
income for 1988 was C$260 million, up about 12 percent from
1987's C$231 million.

At the end of 1988, IBM Canada had 12,605 employees, including
4,147 working in manufacturing and development.

(Grant Buckler/19890127/Contact: Stan Didzbalis, IBM Canada Ltd.,
416-474-3900)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00022)

SEMI-TECH ON ACQUISITION TRAIL AGAIN
MARKHAM, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- International Semi-
Tech Microelectronics Inc. will acquire SSMC Inc., a Delaware
manufacturer of consumer goods. SSMC will be merged into a new
United States subsidiary of Semi-Tech Microelectronics [Far East]
Ltd. of Hong Kong, which is in turn a subsidiary of International
Semi-Tech. In announcing the deal, Semi-Tech emphasized SSMC's
strengths in distributing consumer durables. A spin-off of the
Singer Co., SSMC holds exclusive rights to the use of the name
Singer and manufactures sewing machines. The company also
distributes other consumer goods such as stoves, irons,
televisions and video-cassette recorders. Semi-Tech is expected
to use SSMC to help it export products made in the Far East to
the United States.

Under the purchase agreement, a subsidiary of Semi-Tech Far East
will offer to buy all outstanding shares of SSMC common stock for
$23 per share plus $7 worth of Class B cumulative preferred stock
in the merged company. The tender offer is expected to begin
February 2 and to be completed within 20 working days. The
transaction is valued at $220 million.

(Grant Buckler/19890128/Contact: Michael List or Robert Day,
International Semi-Tech Microelectronics Inc., 416-475-2670)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00023)

NORTHERN TELECOM INCOME DOWN, PARENT'S PROFIT AFFECTED
MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Northern Telecom
Ltd.'s net income fell 47 percent to $183.2 million in the year
ended December 31. Although revenue rose 10 percent, from $4.9
billion to $5.4 billion, a major restructuring program cut into
Northern's profits, resulting in a net loss of $17.5 million in
the fourth quarter. Northern Telecom reports its results in
United States dollars.

Northern's parent company, BCE Inc. of Montreal, Quebec, saw net
income drop 18 percent to C$887 million, although revenue rose
four percent to C$15.3 billion. BCE blamed the restructuring at
Northern, along with write-downs at another subsidiary,
TransCanada Pipelines Ltd.

Meanwhile, Northern Telecom announced an agreement under which it
will supply the Turkish PTT with a packet-switched network worth
approximately $4.3 million.

(Grant Buckler/19890127/Contact: Northern Telecom Ltd., 416-566-
3029)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00024)

DATAPOINT, TRICORE SYSTEMS FORM JOINT VENTURE
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Datapoint Canada
Inc. and Tricore Systems and Consulting Ltd. have established a
joint venture to enhance Vista-Law, a law office automation
system developed by Tricore for Datapoint hardware. Vista-Law
Systems Inc., based in Toronto, will be jointly owned. Tricore, a
software development and support company, developed Vista-Law in
1983. The software is available in Canada and the United States.

(Grant Buckler/19890127/Contact: Sam Donkoh, Datapoint Canada
Inc., 416-222-8005)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00025)

LASER MANUFACTURER SELLING SOFTWARE OPERATION
KANATA, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Lumonics Inc. will
keep a 10-percent share of a new joint venture to be formed out
of its subsidiary Lumonics Software Ltd. and the software
business of Applications Development & Enhancements Inc. of
Boston. The new company, still unnamed, will be based in Kanata,
where Lumonics has its headquarters. Lumonics will concentrate on
its core business, manufacturing laser hardware.

(Grant Buckler/19890127)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00026)

IBM CANADA UNVEILS SERVICEPLAN
MARKHAM, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Like its U.S.
parent, IBM Canada Ltd. has announced a comprehensive customer
service package called ServicePlan. The package includes
maintenance, site management and IBM ServiceLink, as well as
software, telecommunications and education services. Special
services are also included, and a variety of financial options
are available. Elements of the plan are not exactly the same as
in the United States, but IBM Canada spokesperson Karen Grant
emphasized that the Canadian plan offers no less than its U.S.
counterpart.

(Grant Buckler/19890128/Contact: Stan Didzbalis, IBM Canada Ltd.,
416-474-3900)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00027)

HALF OF CELLULAR PHONE MANUFACTURER SOLD TO PROVINCIAL CARRIER
CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA, 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Alberta Government
Telephones, a provincially owned telephone utility, will acquire
50 percent of Novatel Communications Ltd., the only Canadian
cellular telephone manufacturer. Nova Corp., a pipelines and
petrochemicals company, announced the sale of its stake in
Novatel as part of an asset-trimming program. Nova will get C$60
million for its half of the six-year-old company. Novatel had
sales of C$150 million last year and has 12 to 15 percent of the
cellular telephone market in the United States. Alberta
Government Telephones buys most of its cellular equipment from
Novatel.

(Grant Buckler/19890128/Contact: Novatel, 403-295-4500; Alberta
Government Telephones, 403-493-4777)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00028)

UNIVERSITY, HOSPITAL CHOOSE UNISYS LIBRARY SYSTEM
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA, 1989 JAN 12 (NB) -- The University of
Manitoba and St. Boniface General Hospital have signed a C$1.3-
million contract with Unisys Canada for the Unisys PALS library
system. The library network, to serve 14 libraries associated
with the university and the hospital, will handle more than 1.9
million volumes.

(Grant Buckler/19890127/Contact: Don Edwards, Unisys Canada Inc.,
416-495-4921)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TOR)(00029)

HEWLETT-PACKARD TO SUPPLY WORKSTATIONS TO BELL-NORTHERN
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Bell-Northern
Research will buy a minimum of 500 engineering workstations from
Hewlett-Packard [Canada] Ltd. of Mississauga, Ontario. Under the
$11.5-million contract, HP will supply HP 9000 engineering
workstations, peripherals, software, file servers, network
components, training and installation. BNR will use the equipment
in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom to develop
software for Northern Telecom Ltd. switching systems. Northern
Telecom is a part owner of Bell-Northern, along with its sister
company Bell Canada.

(Grant Buckler/19890127/Contact: Hewlett-Packard Canada, 416-678-
9430)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(LON)(00030)

INMAC CUTS U.K. PRICING BY 20 TO 35 PERCENT
BRACKNELL, ENGLAND, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Inmac, the U.K.'s largest
supplier of computer goods, has slashed its prices by between
20 and 35 percent. According to Peter Hill, the company's UK
director, the move follows similar reductions in the U.S., and
shows that Inmac is now aggressively competitive with other
catalogue suppliers, as well as discount merchants.

"We've built our business on a firm foundation of outstanding
quality, award-winning products and first class service. This
philosophy has made us the market leaders and enabled us to grow
to a size where we can now pass on the benefits of economies of
scale directly to the customer," he said.

Inmac isn't slow on its deliveries either. Newsbytes notes that
same-day delivery in London costs UKP5-95, with the same price
charged for next-day delivery anywhere else in the U.K.

(Steve Gold/19890127/Inmac, 0344-860606)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(LON)(00031)

RACAL ACQUIRES QUANTA COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS
BRACKNELL, ENGLAND, 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Racal Electronics has
acquired Quanta Communications Systems, the Californian fibre
optics specialist company. The new company will be called Racal-
Quanta.

Prior to the takeover, Racal held a 30 percent stake in the
Anaheim company. Terms of the deal have not been released, but
the company swells Racal's worldwide annual income to a projected
$500 million.

(Steve Gold/19890124 Racal Electronics, 0734-782158)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(BRU)(00032)

ZILOG EXPANDS DISTRIBUTION INTO INDIA
CAMPBELL, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- Zilog has announced a
joint marketing agreement with American Components Incorporated
[ACI]. The agreement calls for ACI to market Zilog's complete
range of semiconductors in the Indian sub-continent. ACI has said
will concentrate its marketing effort through its sales offices
in Bombay and New Delhi.

(Peter Vekinis/19880123)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(BRU)(00033)

IBM REPORTS EIGHT PERCENT INCREASE IN REVENUES IN FISCAL 1988
POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 20 (NB) -- IBM
has reported that its revenues for fiscal 1988, which ended in
December, 1988, reached $59.7 billion - an increase of more than
eight percent over 1987.

Although sales increased by eight percent, profits slumped a little,
reporting at $9 billion, or an increase of 4.05 percent. $9.8
was paid as a share dividend, representing a gain of 12.85 per
cent. Outside the U.S., the company earned $4.1 billion on sales of
$34.4 billion - an increase of 15.5 percent.

(Peter Vekinis/19890127)


(EXCLUSIVE)(GENERAL)(SYD)(00001)

COMDEX - GAME'S OVER DOWN UNDER
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1989 JAN 28 (NB) -- Little more than two
weeks after the latest round of press releases went out from
the Interface Group about its 1989 Comdex series, the
Australian branch has packed up shop. Comdex Asia Pacific '89,
which was to have been held in Sydney in August, has been
cancelled.

On Wednesday January 18th the board of the Interface Group
in Boston made its decision to close the Australian branch.
The next day the Australians were told and within 24 hours
most of the staff had been paid up. "It wasn't a question of
us losing money, they just decided to make the cut," said
almost former Managing Director in Australia Alan Tayt. The group had
staged three Comdex shows in Australia in '86, '87 and '88, and
had announced at Comdex Fall that in the future the show would
rotate between Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore, from this
year.

"They had expectations about our rate of growth. They wanted
1000 booth units for the third show and we had 350. We made
a profit but that wasn't enough to stop the axe. They're
buying the Sands hotel in Las Vegas and that's a couple of
hundred million dollars they'll have to find," said Tayt.

(Paul Zucker & Bob Futcher/19890106)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(SFO)(00002)

EXECUTIVES NIX NEXT, BACK EISA IN TECHNOLOGIC SURVEY
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- A survey of more than
500 industry executives and investors polled at the Technologic Partners
PC conference in December showed most never think NeXT Computer
Systems will report a $500 million year. The thumbs-down attitude also
extended to Apple Computer's "look and feel" copyright lawsuit against
Microsoft and Hewlett Packard, 67 percent of respondents saying that
they felt Apple would lose.

Among other surprises of the survey was that most expect Business
Week magazine will pronounce that the shortage of dynamic random
access memory chips over in June, 1989; IBM's OS/2 operating
system will finally become the dominant operating system in 1992,
they said. 18 percent, interestingly enough, responded to the question
of when OS/2 would achieve dominance with "never." Most [80 percent]
expect the anti-OS/2 group EISA to succeed, meanwhile.

Finally, when asked which technology will be the more commercially
important in five years, CD-ROM, Compact Disk Interactive, or Digital
Video Interactive [DVI], a majority chose DVI [39 percent] while
CD-ROM got second place with 37 percent; CDI got 24 percent of the
votes.

The Technologic newsletter Computer Letter is a weekly intelligence
report on the computer industry priced at $495 a year in the U.S. and
Canada.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Richard Shaffer, Technologic Partners,
212-696-9330)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(SFO)(00003)

HP TO GIVE AWAY MERCEDES-BENZ, ROLEX WATCHES AND GOLD PENS
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- Hewlett Packard
calculates that its new calculators add up to a celebration, so it's
giving away a Mercedes-Benz automobile, 10 Rolex watches, and 100
gold pen and pencil sets in a sweepstakes. Between February 1 and
April 30, Hewlett Packard will sponsor a calculator promotion. "We've
just turned over our entire product line, "explains Carmen West,
marketing manager for HP's Corvallis, Oregon Division which makes the
calculators. Ten new models, prices from $50 to $235, were introduced
in 1988. "It was a lot of work and now we're ready to celebrate."

A drawing will be held of entry forms on May 15 and prizes will be awarded
before June 15.

(Wendy Woods/19890127)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(WAS)(00004)

DUMBER BUT FASTER MACHINE WINS IN COMPUTER CHESS
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 28 (NB) -- Five
Carnegie Mellon University computer science graduate students
have built a machine, Deep Thought, that has turned the chess
world on its ear. The computer, which knows less about chess but
picks its moves faster, has defeated Carnegie Mellon Professor
Hand Berliner's Hitech to become the world's best electronic
chess player. Deep Thought has also become the first computer to
defeat a grandmaster in tournament play. Deep thought is now the
30th-ranked chess play -- animal, vegetable, or mineral -- in the
U.S. Chess Federation rankings. The computer has also won its
creators the $10,000 Fredkin Intermediate Prize for becoming the
first computer to surpass the 2,500 barrier in the Chess
Federation ranking system. Deep Thought can analyze 700,000 board
positions per second, versus 120,000 for Hitech. The machine was
built on a shoestring, versus heavy corporate and government
funding for other approaches to computer chess built at Bell
Labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Carnegie Mellon.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(ATL)(00005)

IBM STARTS RESEARCH INTO HIGH-TECH JOURNALISM AT MISSOURI
COLUMBIA, MISSOURI, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- IBM will donate $2
million in equipment and software to a University of Missouri
journalism study of how reporters and editors can use PC
technology, both professionally and in education. Datastorm
Technologies of Columbia will also donate a site license to its
Procomm Plus shareware communications program, and Eastman
Kodak's Atex subsidiary, which makes computer systems used by
newspapers, will contribute publishing systems. The project will
run three years. Dean James D. Atwater told reporters the donations
will completely computerize the school's news operations,
including the Columbia Missourian, KBIA-FM, a National Public
Radio station, and NBC television affiliate KOMU-TV, as well as
link them with each other and the University library.

A school spokesman told Newsbytes journalism students at
Missouri will now be using computers even in entry-level classes.
He added that if IBM develops new technology which makes the
present stuff obsolete during the next three years, Missouri will
get it free.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: Dean James Atwater 314-882-
4821)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(ATL)(00006)

AT&T DONATES $650,000 IN UNIX EQUIPMENT TO OHIO COLLEGES
CLEVELAND, OHIO, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 26 (NB) -- AT&T has given away
$650,000 in computer and networking products to three Ohio
colleges and universities through its University Equipment
Donation Program [UEDP], which gave equipment to 52
schools nationwide last year. The winners are the Case Western
Reserve University School of Medicine, the University of Akron
Polymer Science Center and the Oberlin College School of
Psychology. They all get Unix-based minicomputers, PCs, local
area networks, and applications software.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: Stuart J. Vosler, 216-328-
3070)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(TYO)(00007)

PORTABLE VIDEO GAME MACHINE DUE FROM NINTENDO
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 18 (NB) -- Japan's largest home video game
machine manufacturer Nintendo will release a portable video game
machine on April 14th. Called Game Boy, the handy gadget is powered
by batteries and can be installed with its special cartridge software
like a conventional family computer, or famicom. The machine will
comes with an 8-bit central processing unit, about which the company
spokeswoman did not disclose details. Measuring 148mm x 90mm x 32mm
and weighing 300 grams, including batteries, it is designed to be
conveniently carried by a user. The display is a high-speed black & white
supertwisted liquid crystal panel with some 23,000 pixels. The
optional communication cable, priced at 1,500 yen or $12, will
enable two game users to play at once, with each viewing
a different screen.

The price for the new game machine is 12,500 yen or $100.
Nintendo promises to produce 300,000 units of hardware and one
million special software cartridges per month in the initial year.
Export of Game Boy to the United States is expected this summer
but no price for the unit has been set.

(Ken Takahashi/19890126/Contact: Nintendo Co., Ltd., 075-541-6111)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(TYO)(00008)

NEC TO MARKET INTERACTIVE VIDEO SYSTEM
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- NEC Corp. has developed and will
soon release a video education system which processes several
media, such as moving pictures, characters, human voice, and graphics.
IV1000 Interactive Video System, as it is called, is designed to
be a teaching tool, asking and responding to questions. The
interface the learner sees is a touch panel screen, not a keyboard.
The components of the integrated machine consist of NEC's PC9801UX
with 80286 and V30 central processors, two 3.5-inch floppy disk
drives, a laserdisk player NEC has received from Pioneer on
an original equipment manufacturing basis, and a board
for data processing. The board means the IV1000 also can be used as a
personal computer. The price for the hardware is 1.9 million yen or
$15,000. NEC expects 1,000 units to be sold in the initial year.

(Ken Takahashi/19890126/Contact: NEC Corp., 03-451-1111)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(TYO)(00009)

NEC DEVELOPS A CHINESE-LANGUAGE WORD PROCESSOR
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 20 (NB) -- NEC Corp. has developed a
Chinese-language laptop word processor in cooperation with two
Chinese corporations. Called Citic Mini 5H, the newly-developed
machine based on NEC's Bungo Mini 5H Japanese word processor
has gone out for sale in China. The keyboard of the laptop
has been changed for entering Chinese language phonetic symbols,
while the Japanese character set has been replaced with some 8,000
characters currently in common use in China.

The Chinese-language word processors will be produced by NEC and
all of them will be taken by the China International Trust and
Investment Corp. Group.

(Ken Takahashi/19890126)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(TOR)(00010)

SOURCEDISC HAS INFO FOR CD-ROM USERS
WATERLOO, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- Trillium Computer
Resources Inc.'s CD-ROM Sourcedisc is a catalogue of commercially
available CD-ROM titles. For each entry it contains an outline of
the disc's contents, and in many cases there are demonstrations
as well. The disc also contains two reference databases. One
lists acronyms commonly used in the CD-ROM industry. The other is
a glossary of more than 500 CD-ROM-related terms. The CD-ROM
Sourcedisc sells for C$119.

(Grant Buckler/19890127)/Contact: Trillium Computer Resources
Inc., 519-886-4404)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(LON)(00011)

IBC TO ORGANISE TELECOMS POLICY CONFERENCE
LONDON, ENGLAND, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- IBC Technical Services is to
organize a two-day conference on U.K. telecommunications policy.
The conference will take place on the 12/13 April, 1989, at the
London Cafe Royal.

Speakers at the conference include Professor Bryan Carsberg, head
of the Office of Telecommunications [OFTEL], the government-
appointed telecommunications watchdog, and several other prestigious
industry people. The bad news? The conference costs UKP395 to
attend.

(Steve Gold/19890127/IBC Technical Services, 01-236-4080)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(BRU)(00012)

CHIP MAGAZINE READERS SELECT COMPAQ DESKPRO 286 AS BEST SELLER
MUNICH, WEST GERMANY, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Chip magazine, West
Germany's widest-read computer magazine, selected Compaq's
Deskpro 286 as the best seller for the month of January, 1989.
This is the first time that the Compaq machine has hit the top
spot in the magazine, and is probably due to Compaq West
Germany's intensive marketing campaign with the machine.

Following on in number two position is Commodore's budget PC-10
system, followed by the Schneider PC-1512. Both the Commodore and
Schneider systems seem to be enjoying a sales surge, at the price
of even-cheaper Taiwan clones, which are reported to have
questionable reliability.

Fourth position is held by IBM PS/2 Model 30, closely followed by
the Commodore PC-20, the Apple Macintosh II, the Atari PC3, the
Amstrad PC-1640, the IBM PC XT-286, and finally the Tandon PCA
series.

On the home computer front, the Commodore 64, which has been
number one for the last 5 years, still holds strong. A Commodore
spokesman commented that the C-64 has sold 11 million units to
date - more than any other computer in the market.

(Peter Vekinis/19890127)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(BRU)(00013)

FORCE COMPUTERS ANNOUNCES TWO NEW 68020-BASED SYSTEMS
MUNICH, WEST GERMANY, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Force Computers, one of
major players in the Motorola 68000 market, has announced
shipment of its SYS68K/CPU-23 and SYS68K/CPU-27 processor boards.

Offering capabilities designed for their respective markets [CPU-
23 for business and CPU-27 for industrial] the boards are
designed to fill a need for powerful and easily integrated
processor cards for the VME bus environment. Both of the boards
use a 68020 processor running at a switchable 12.5/16.7/25.0MHz
speed, along with a floating point coprocessor and one megabyte of main
memory fitted as standard.

The CPU-23 unit, which comes with SCSI and SA-460 disk
interfaces, supports four serial connection standards including
RS-232 and RS-422.

The CPU-27, which is targeted at machine control applications,
includes 38 parallel I/O signals and three serial lines. Using
small piggyback circuits, the parallel interfaces can be
configured for either unidirectional or bidirectional operation.

(Peter Vekinis/19890127/Contact: Force, Daimlerstrasse 9, 8012
                 Ottobrunn, West Germany, tel:
                 089/609 7793)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(SFO)(00001)

MILLARD COMPLAINT AGAINST MICROPRO KILLED BY THE COURT
SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 26 (NB) -- A California
Superior Court has thrown out a suit by Computerland founder
William Millard against MicroPro International which charged
the firm with stealing the program that become WordStar.
Millard filed the suit in April 1988, too late, said the court,
to be judged, since statutes of limitation regarding the
matter, alleged to have occurred in 1980, have run out.

Millard and his attorneys had contended that elements of WordStar, the
world's most-used word processing package, was stolen from Millard's
now-defunct company Imsai Manufacturing Corporation. Millard
believes charged MicroPro founder Seymour Rubenstein, and
former MicroPro programmer John Barnaby, misappropriated
elements of an early Imsai product called NED in the design for
WordStar and its predecessor Word-Master. When the suit was
filed, nobody at MicroPro gave it much heed, former Chief Executive
Leon Williams saying he was "as concerned about this as about an
iceberg hitting the Golden Gate bridge."

MicroPro attorney Jay Jones says the court has awarded MicroPro,
Rubenstein, and Barnaby the right to recover their legal and
court costs from IMSAI, which was resurrected from bankruptcy
during the dispute simply to file the suit.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Deb Lovig, MicroPro, 415-499-7676 x4068)


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(SFO)(00002)

COMPUTERLAND FRANCHISEES WIN LAWSUIT
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- ComputerLand
Corporation has settled a class action lawsuit with its
800 franchisees by giving them cash and letting them keep more of
what they make. The dispute was started in 1984 by Michael
Belling and Kenneth Klein, the former operators of the Marin County
ComputerLand stores, who alleged that their giant parent was
failing to honor contracts, ship products, and offer them discounts,
leading to at least one business failure for a franchisee.

After five years in litigation, ComputerLand Corporation has decided
to award the plaintiffs a permanent contractual reduction
in franchisee royalty rates from eight to five percent. $5.2
million in debts will be forgiven for the class action suit
members, and a $720,000 fund will be distributed as well.
The entire settlement is valued at over $30 million.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Ralph Miller, Legal Media News
Service, 415-821-2115)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(WAS)(00003)

GSA DENIES HONEYWELL APPEAL OF COMPUTER CONTRACT
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- The General Services
Administration's board of contract appeals has turned down
Honeywell's protest of an Air Force personal computer
contract awarded last year to AT&T. The board rejected
Honeywell's claim that the Air Force made unpublicized changes in
contract requirements during the bidding for the billion-dollar
deal.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(GOVT)(BRU)(00004)

U.S. CITES EUROPE AND KOREA AS CLOSED TELECOMMUNICATIONS MARKETS
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Clayton Yeutter, the
U.S. Trade representative, has switched posts to become the U.S.
Secretary for Agriculture. His last statement, due to be
presented before Congress later this month [February] is likely
to cause a furor on account of its anti-European nature.
In the paper, which Yeutter prepared on the closed European
markets, he recommends that the U.S. should impose trade sanctions
against Europe.

The Trade Act on Telecommunications, which was passed a few
months ago, enables the U.S. government to impose 100 percent
tariffs on products coming from markets where the U.S. has no
access, such as France and West Germany.

A European Community [EC] spokesman said, "this seems to be the
first example of unilateral application of the US trade act."

Critics of the new Trade Act said the U.S. can now set trade
standards without regard to General Agreement on Trade and
Tariffs [GATT]. The Act was forced through President Reagan's
office by a powerful business lobby in Washington, D.C.

(Peter Vekinis/19890124)


(NEWS)(IBM)(SFO)(00001)

NEW IBM PRINTER DESIGNED TO WORK WITH MACINTOSHES
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Analysts are
still reeling about IBM's new Personal Page Printer II laser printer,
the first printer IBM has ever made to work directly with Macintoshes
on an AppleTalk network. IBM has licensed Adobe Systems' PostScript
page description language for the printer, and has given it connections
to work with a variety of machines, including its own PCs, PS/2s,
and RTs, and Apple Macintoshes. The laser printer also provides
IBM Proprinter XL and Hewlett Packard LaserJet emulation. The 300
dots-per-inch laser printer comes with 43 resident PostScript fonts
and is priced at $5,000.

Says analyst, Rick Young, associate director of research for
desktop publishing in Dataquest, San Jose, "For them [IBM] to
offer a product that supports a whole set of protocols, it's really
amazing." He told Newsbytes, "And it's even more amazing when you
consider the animosity between IBM and Apple over the years.
Remember the 1984 commercial?" Young adds that even more interesting
is the apparent IBM acknowledgement that the AppleTalk networking
scheme is significant. "It's the only user-installable and user-
maintainable network in the world. The node cost and network
management is still substantially higher for other networks."

For Adobe, whose PostScript is already the standard in a majority
of the world's laser printers, IBM's endorsement has been the final
jewel in the crown. The contract is expected to bring millions
of new dollars to the firm.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Brenda Hansen, Adobe Systems, 415-961-
4400)


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

ADOBE ANNOUNCES NEW MAC PRODUCT, SHIPS ILLUSTRATOR FOR THE PC
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 26 (NB) -- Shipments
of the Windows version of Adobe Illustrator have started. The
product offers such features as auto trace, bezier curves, DFX
conversion, pen tool, freehand drawing, and zoom, among others,
and comes bundled with Adobe Collector's Edition: Symbols, Borders
and Letterforms. The $695 package runs on a PC with at least
640KB [kilobytes] of random access memory, 256KB of expanded memory,
a hard disk, a floppy drive, and an EGA, VGA or Hercules Monochrome
interface and display.

Adobe Streamline, slated for shipment at the end of February, is
a new product which automatically traces bit-mapped images and
quickly converts them to Adobe lllustrator files. The product
is geared toward businesses with large libraries of art and
want to use Streamline to archive them. The product requires a
Macintosh SE, II or IIX and will cost $395.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: LaVon Collins, Adobe, 415-961-4400)


(NEWS)(IBM)(SFO)(00003)

MICROSOFT LAUNCHES ANTI-LOTUS CAMPAIGN
REDMOND, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Microsoft
will offer free evaluation copies of Excel for Windows and nationwide
Excel seminars in an effort to nip a Lotus 1-2-3 promotion in the bud.
The spreadsheet war will also see Microsoft double its sales
force and marketing group devoted to Microsoft Excel. To address
any remaining barriers to change, Microsoft will also offer a price
promotion and additional incentives for resellers and distributors.

Microsoft Excel has garnered 12 percent of the market for spreadsheets
on the '286 and '386 microprocessor platform and the company is
out for more. As of February 1, Microsoft will send out a demo
version of Excel which is copyable and has all the product features,
but with the size of the worksheet restricted to 16 rows by 64
columns. U.S. customers can get a copy by calling 800-541-1261.

Current Lotus 1-2-3 users who switch to Excel for Windows will
be rewarded with a $75 rebate or a free copy of Windows/286 or
Windows/386. The final incentive is Microsoft's guarantee, which
states that anyone unhappy with the product can receive a full refund
through January 31, 1990. The guarantee is designed to give
customers ample time to evaluate the coming update of Lotus 1-2-3.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Sarah Charf, Microsoft, 206-882-8080)


(NEWS)(IBM)(ATL)(00004)

COMPAQ USES TI CHIP TO GO BEYOND IBM'S VGA STANDARD
HOUSTON, TEXAS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- Compaq has put Texas
Instruments' new 34010 graphics processor onto a circuit board,
bundled it with a new monitor, and created the Advanced Graphics
1024 standard, which it says offers higher resolution than IBM's
VGA standard. Compaq Product Manager Lorie Strong said the new
graphics board boosts AutoCAD operations 500 percent with special
drivers, compared to a VGA board. Compaq is working to develop
those special drivers with graphics software outfits like CADkey
and Graphic Software Systems.

IBM's VGA resolves pictures at 640 by 480 pixels, Compaq says,
while its new board resolves at up to 1024 by 768 pixels,
displaying 16 colors off a 16-million color palette at once. The
new monitor is 16 inches in diameter and, Compaq says, has less flicker.

The Advanced Graphics 1024 board is priced at $1499, the monitor
at $1,999. An optional 512K-byte memory board, which adds the
capability to display 256 colors at once, costs $599. The
importance of the announcement should not be underestimated,
Compaq said, pointing to a study conducted by Dataquest Inc.
estimating that last year PC-based design and engineering systems
accounted for 73 percent of units shipped to those markets.

While announcing the new products, Compaq executives were openly
using the term "Compaq compatible," a term coined by Newsbytes two
years ago, to describe their role in computing standards.
Compaq is working with nine other IBM PC cloners to set a new
standard for buses. Its design for new EISA [Extended Industry
Standard Architecture] slots is expected to dominate among the
clone-makers who don't license IBM's MCA bus, including Hewlett-
Packard and Tandy. The cloner, in other words, is becoming the clonee.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: Bob Beach at 713-370-0670)


(NEWS)(IBM)(ATL)(00005)

TRAVELING SOFTWARE VIEWLINK SHIPS
BOTHELL, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- Traveling
Software Inc. has begun shipping Viewlink, a PC software package
that lets you deal with your work in a more natural fashion,
without thinking like a computer. The software identifies links
between files written under many different applications and
collects these new groupings, which it calls links, into a larger
file it calls views, hence the name. The program also acts as a
DOS shell, because you can start applications off it by hitting
"enter" or clicking on their names or finding them on a pull-down
menu. A prerelease version sent to Newsbytes hung up our machine
and lacked connections to PC-Write, the ASCII word processor used
in our Atlanta Bureau, but those bugs will likely be stomped out
in commercial versions. If not, President Mark Eppley says he'll
help you stomp them.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: Mark Eppley at 206-483-8088)


(NEWS)(IBM)(ATL)(00006)

PC VERSION OF MATHEMATICA RELEASED
CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Wolfram Research
has released a PC version of its Mathematica program.
Mathematica, which does numeric, symbolic algebra, and graphic
calculations, is available only for 80386-based computers with one
megabyte of extended memory running MS-DOS. It comes in separate
versions for machines with 80x87 and Weitek coprocessors, and is
also distributed by IBM for AIX/RT systems and by Sun
Microsystems for Sun-3 and Sun-4 workstations. The PC version is
limited in that it does not support the notebook interface used
on the Macintosh or Next computers. Mathematica, which first came
out for the Macintosh in June, 1988, was created by Stephen
Wolfram, a professor at the University of Illinois who was the
youngest doctorate recipient in Caltech history, getting the
degree at age 20.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: Wolfram Research 217-398-
0700)


(NEWS)(IBM)(WAS)(00007)

DOCTOR REFERENCE ON CD-ROM
ORADELL, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 9 (NB) -- Medical Economics
Company has the 1989 edition of its standard reference book,
Physicians' Desk Reference, available on a single optical disk.
The disk contains the complete prescribing information on 3,000
pharmaceuticals listed in the PDR and its three companion
volumes, PDR for Nonprescription Drugs, PDR for Opthalmology, and
PDR's Drug Interaction and Side Effects Index. A $595
subscription includes the current disk and two updates, in May
and September. The disks can be read on any IBM PC or clone
running MS-DOS 3.1 or later, 640 kilobytes of memory, and a DC-
ROM drive. It is compatible with most CD-ROM equipment, including
Philips, Sony and Hitachi-made drives.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(IBM)(TYO)(00008)

VIRUSES TRAPPED BY KEYTECH
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Japanese software house OCT Corp.
has been licenced by U.S.-based Key Logic to sell a secure
operating system designed to thwart invasion by viruses.

Usually a kernel operating system manages all orders but the secure
operating system, named KeyTECH, will separate all control ability
except communication and memory management. With this isolated
system, a virus invading a computer would be sealed off within
a kernel.

The first computer virus was found in PC-VAN, one of the largest
computer networks in Japan, last year, and infection by other
viruses is feared in related industries. OTC Corp. is
expecting demand of KeyTECH technology by the banking industry,
by database firms, and by those operating wide area networks.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/1989126/Contact:OTC Corp. 03-555-0640)


(NEWS)(IBM)(TYO)(00009)

HITACHI RELEASES A 16-BIT LAPTOP WITH 8 GRADATION LCD
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 18 (NB) -- Hitachi has released a laptop
personal computer with an eight-gradation liquid crystal display
and white-color backlit feature. Conventional color software
can be installed on the machine. The B16LXw comes with an 80286
central processor and one megabyte of main memory, expandable to two
megabytes. The B16LXw, with two floppy disk drives, is priced at
468,000 yen or $3,700, and weighs 7.2 kilograms; the 40-megabyte
hard disk drive is 688,000 yen or $5,400 and weighs 7.7 kilogram.

(Ken Takahashi/19890126/Contact: Hitachi, 03-258-1111)


(NEWS)(IBM)(SYDNEY)(00010)

BETA SITE UNHAPPY WITH OS/2 SECURITY
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- A report in
Australian PC World throws a shadow on acceptance of OS/2
Extended Edition by large corporate users, until the product
has "the security features users require." The Commonwealth
Bank of Australia is a beta test site for IBM's product and
General Manager Ken Willet says that his bank wouldn't replace its
present system in favour of OS/2 until the product has
improved. He claims that his bank will network 10,000 PCs
with OS/2 when the product is ready.

(Paul Zucker/19890124)


(NEWS)(IBM)(TOR)(00011)

Q.W. PAGE ANNOUNCES NEWVIEWS DISCOUNT FOR PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- Q.W. Page
Associates Inc. will knock 28 percent off the price of its
NewViews accounting software for public accounting offices. Q.W.
Page has also announced a Professional Accounting Partner program
for those who provide accounting services with NewViews. "As the
number of New Views users grows, more and more of our customers
want an accountant who is familiar with the program they use,"
said Cathy Mallove, director of marketing.

NewViews, for personal computers running the MS-DOS operating
system, lists for $995 in the United States, C$1,295 in Canada.

(Grant Buckler/19890127/Contact: Cathy Mallove, Q.W. Page
Associates Inc., 416-923-4567)


(NEWS)(IBM)(LON)(00012)

BICC NETWORKS ANNOUNCES SPEED-BREAKING ISOLINK ETHERNET PC CARDS
HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, ENGLAND, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- BICC Data Networks
has announced two Ethernet cards for the IBM PC-AT and PS/2-MCA
and compatible PCs that break the one megabyte per second speed
barrier.

The Isolink AT and MCA cards, which retail [respectively] for
UKP395 and UKP475, support a 16-bit architecture. According to
BICC, the cards support a single station throughput of
527Kb/second and a file server throughout of 1060Kb/second under
Novell Netware software.

Ian Scott, BICC's product marketing manager, reckons that the
cards are the fastest on the market today. "They represent a
major step forward for the professional workstation user, re-
affirming our commitment to OSI standards," he said.

(Steve Gold/19890127/BICC Data Networks, 0442-231000)


(NEWS)(IBM)(LON)(00013)

AMSTRAD HITS HARD DISK PROBLEMS WITH PC-2000 PRODUCT LINE
BRENTWOOD, ENGLAND, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- In a surprise move,
Amstrad has recalled its PC-2086 machines to dealers, owing to a
hard disk problem. The problem, which causes data on the hard
disk to be lost during File Allocation Table [FAT] corruption, can
be solved by the addition of a component on the machine's circuit
board.

Amstrad has taken full-page ads in several U.K. computer trade
journals, and is mailing information to its dealers about the problem.
Newsbytes understands that around 15 percent of the machines may
be affected, but it seems that Amstrad is taking no chances.

According to Microscope, a computer trade weekly, the problem
does not affect PC-2086 machines delivered to dealers after 20
January, 1989. For machines delivered before that date, Amstrad
is recommending that dealers add a capacitor to the PC's circuit
board, and reformat the hard disk. Newsbytes hopes that the
dealers take a backup of the customer's hard disk before carrying
out this instruction.

(Steve Gold/19890127)


(NEWS)(IBM)(BRU)(00014)

GENOA ADOPTS 16-BIT STANDARD FOR GRAPHICS CARDS
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 16 (NB) -- Genoa Corporation
has announced a new range of graphics cards products. The new
cards expand Genoa's product range into true 16-bit territory,
making them of interest to 80386 as well as power 80286-based
PC users.

Genoa's first new products in the 16-bit arena are the Super VGA
16 series. The cards come in two configurations, with either 256Kb
or 512Kb memory, and support resolutions of 1024 by 768 pixels in
16 colour mode, or 800 by 600 pixels in 256 colour mode. A 132-
column mode is also supported.

The Super VGA 16 series comes bundled with screen drivers for
most popular graphics-oriented software, such as DR-GEM, Lotus 1-
2-3, Symphony, Microsoft Windows and Ventura Publisher. Pricing
on the new cards has been set at $499 for a 256Kb populated board,
and $699 for a 512Kb popular board.

(Peter Vekinis/19890127/Contact: Larry Liang, Genoa Corp., 75
                 East Trimble road, San Jose, CA
                 95131, Tel: [phone])


(NEWS)(IBM)(BRU)(00015)

DIGELEC ANNOUNCES POWERFUL GRAPHICS ADAPTER CARD
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Digelec has announced the
GB-786A, an 82786 microprocessor-controlled graphics card.
Digelec is best-known for its range of EPROM [erasable programmable
read-only memory] programmer units, which are marketed in the U.S.
and Switzerland through the company's subsidiaries.

The GB-786A offers high speed EGA compatibility [100 times the
speed of normal EGA], 256 colours from a 16 million colour-plus
palette, on-board list processing, almost unlimited font
capacity, and screen pixel formats of 640 by 480, 800 by 600 and
1024 by 768.

The board, which comes fitted with one megabyte of random access memory
[RAM], expandable to four megabytes onboard, is bundled with drivers for
Autocad, DGIS, DR-GEM and MS-Windows. Pricing has yet to be
decided, but the card will compete with similar products from
Control Systems, Galaxy and Matrox when it ships later this
quarter.

(Peter Vekinis/19890127/Contact: Digelec Israel Ltd., 25 Galgaley
                 Haplada str, Herzliya 46722,
                 Israel. Tel: [phone])



(REVIEW)(IBM)LAX)(00001)

Review of: HOWTO CROSS-REFERENCE TO AGENDA

Runs on: IBM PC; requires Lotus Agenda

From: The AgendaWare Specialists; 660 Fairmont Ave.; Westfield, NJ
 07090; 201-232-4674

Price: $19.99

PUMA Rating: 4

Reviewed by: Wayne A. Yacco, 1/10/89

SUMMARY: HOWTO CROSS-REFERENCE TO AGENDA is a macro learning tool that
uses the organizational power of Agenda to provide a complete cross
reference to the program's features.

REVIEW
--------
HOWTO is a cross reference to Agenda's features
which resides in the program's own database and uses the program's
data management facilities. The user can study the construction of
the product's own database while using it to answer questions about
Agenda features such as Items, Categories, Views, and verbs. Since
the product is itself an Agenda macro, it is also useful for
learning to create other applications.

Robert and Lauren Flast are also the authors of The Lotus Guide to
Agenda, the official guide to Lotus's complex personal information
manager [PIM]. HOWTO includes cross references to the book and is
designed to work with it. References to the book are valuable
because of Agenda's complexity. The book can provide initial
orientation to new concepts while HOWTO provides a ready reference
during practice or when creating an application.

The key to Agenda's power is its ability to quickly and easily
experiment with models of data. But access to that power requires
using a wide variety of commands and several different modes of
operation. It is far too much to be quickly retained. HOWTO is
essential for learning these Agenda features. It can continue to be
useful as a reference when designing new databases.

PUMA RATING
--------------

PERFORMANCE: N/A

USEFULNESS: 4. Not just useful--essential to easy access of the
power of Agenda.

MANUAL: N/A

AVAILABILITY: 4. Available directly from the authors.

( )


(NEWS)(IBM)(ATL)(00001)

Review of: INSET by Inset Systems, Inc.

Runs on: PC-XT/AT-compatibles with 640K-bytes or better, and two disk
drives

From: Micropro International, attn: Customer Service, P.O. Box 7079, San Rafael,
CA 94901-9910, phone: [phone] or 415-499-1200

Price: From $79 to $99 by itself or $125 with Micropro's "Productivity
Package"

PUMA Rating: 3.4 [on a scale of 1 to 4]

Reviewed by: Dana Blankenhorn and tbass, 2/14/89

Summary: Inset is used to pickup, modify, and/or create a graphic
to be printed within a text document.

REVIEW
--------
Inset itself only requires 128K-bytes, but remember the word processor
with <printer> and text all need to fit with the environment
in that 640K-bytes. I found this out as I tried to print a text letter
with a small graphic. It was 'no go' until I exited and dropped
my TSR program.

What a pain; let's modify our autoexec.bat again and get all them
nice little conveniences out each time it is time to print. I
guess that is not Inset's problem; it's just something to think
about.

The program did as promised. And with a degree of ease. I found
it easy to use to cut graphics from other CAD programs while they
were on screen. Then stored in *.PIX files for pasting in
document files later. Expansion and reduction of the graphics for
placing in documents can be done referring to L&H-inches, R&C's,
or %.

It is really nice that Inset provides a way to remove itself from
RAM when it is not being used. I might add that a lot of TSR
programs would do well to take note of this. It is a really
convenient feature. I might add that other than during printing
Inset did not run afoul of the other TSR programs I tried it
with.

PUMA RATINGS
╨╨╨╨╨╨╨╨╨╨╨╨╨╨╨

PERFORMANCE: 3. The graphic editor does quite well at picking up
and modifying graphics.  The preview function is not a true
WYSISWYG preview, but it does give an 'idea' of what will be
printed.

USEFULNESS: 3.7. Inset usefulness is obvious if graphics are needed
along with text.

MANUAL: 3.4.   The manual is well-printed and slick. It is
short and written well enough to read with a little computer
experience.

AVAILABILITY: 3.5. Can be found in word processor add-on
catalogs with 800-#'s. For Wordstar 5.0 owners it can be gotten
as an add-on "Productivity Package" along with Showtext
and Comparerite.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890214)


(REVIEW)(APPLE)(SFO)(00002)

Review of: Jasmine DIRECTPRINT PostScript language-compatible liquid
crystal shutter [LCS] printer

Runs with: Macintosh, although will run with PCs, Apple IIGS or
OS/2 computers when used with an Apple LocalTalk PC card.

From: Jasmine Technologies, 1740 Army Street, San Francisco,
California, 94124, 415-282-1111.

Price: $3,495.00

PUMA Rating: 3.375 [on a scale of 1 to 4]

Reviewed by: Wendy Woods, 3/21/89

Summary: The Jasmine DirectPrint printer uses an unique liquid
crystal shutter technology to produce printed output comparable to a
laser printer.

REVIEW
------
Were it not for the fact that as this review went to press, you
could pick up an Apple LaserWriter NT for the same price, the
Jasmine DirectPrint LCS printer would be a great deal.  Similar to
the NT, it's quiet, the print quality is virtually identical --
300 dots per inch with rich grey and black tones -- and it's a
PostScript-compatible printer.

The Jasmine DirectPrint, whose cousin is Qume's CrystalPrint
Publisher, is different from laser printers in that it uses electro-
photography and strips of liquid crystal shutters -- technology
which has fewer mechanical parts and is said to be more
reliable.  All of this, however, is invisible to the user.

While the Jasmine's ability to assimilate page instructions is
faster due to the Weitek RISC-based controller chip, its pages-per-
minute output is actually slower -- five or six pages per minute
compared to the Apple LaserWriter NT's eight pages per minute.
But where the Jasmine speed is visible is with complicated documents;
the time between issuing a command to print and getting the output
is up to 40 percent faster.  The speed depends on the complexity
of the job.

Jasmine claims this printer is also portable.  It's not, really.
It weighs 35.2 pounds.  It may be more portable than an
Apple LaserWriter -- but only because it has a smaller footprint
and you can literally wrap your arms around it.  But in transporting
it back to Jasmine we needed a very strong person to help us
lift it in and out of the Newsbytes station wagon.

Other disadvantages include trying to get customer support.  There
is a single toll number, 415-282-9555, which was busy virtually all
day. There was no waiting time reaching Customer Service, however,
with a convenient toll-free number, at 1-800-347-3228, where I
received the help I needed talking to the product manager.
This is also the number where service centers can be located --
Decision Data Services. This is also the number to call for a free
sample of the printer's output, and to order toner cartridges.

Jasmine fails to publish an end-user maintenance schedule for
the printer.  Apple, for instance, suggests scheduled maintenance
when 300,000 pages have been printed.  By press-time Jasmine had
not release data on the printer's expected engine life [mean time
to failure], so those interested should request to see such technical
specifications.

PUMA RATING
-----------
PERFORMANCE: 3.5.  The output was consistently clear, with well-
defined pages and good grey scale.  We experienced a paper jam
once but it was easily fixed.

USEFULNESS: 3.5.  Once Apple raises the price of its NT, the
crowds will most likely flock to Jasmine's low-priced alternative.

MANUAL:  3.5.

AVAILABILITY:  3.0. Call Jasmine at 1-800-347-3228 to
order or locate a dealer with showroom models.

(Wendy Woods/19890323/Contact: Hunter Gooch, PR for Jasmine, Amidei
and Company, 55 Green St., Suite 100, San Francisco, 94111 or Vince
Carella at Jasmine)


(REVIEW)(IBM)(ATL)(00003)

Review of: QUADRAM JT FAX9600 --facsimile Board,

Runs on: IBM PCs and compatibles

From: Quadram, One Meca Way, Norcross, GA, 30093 Phone: 404-923-
6666

Price: $795

PUMA Rating: 3

Reviewed by: Dana Blankenhorn, 1/10/89

SUMMARY: The JT Fax offers fast Group III fax service from your
PC.

REVIEW
--------
Quadram's biggest hit of 1988 first came out a year ago
under the name of the Asher JT Fax. It plugs in with a modem or
other add-in card, and all set-up functions are done in software.
It's recommended you have a hard disk and modify your Autoexec.Bat
program so the fax board will be set to receive incoming messages
as soon as the PC is turned on in the morning. The software itself is
memory-resident, so it will also have to reside comfortably with your
other memory-resident programs. In the case of Newsbytes, the
software got in the way of Cruise Control, a cursor-control utility. If
you run into problems, a memory-resident management program like
"Referee" might cure the problem.

If you can dedicate a computer to being on 24 hours per
day, the JT Fax board can be better than a dedicated fax for you.
By using the computer's power, you can get a lot of flexibility,
broadcasting copies of a file to many different fax machines late
at night, for instance. And, since the "receive" program is on as
long as the computer is on, you can keep using the machine when
someone makes a fax call to you. You'll lose most of your control
of the disk drive and the CPU, but you won't lose your place.
With the JT Fax' display feature, which you can get either off
the menu or from the DOS prompt, you can keep only those files
which are important to you, and dump junk fax before it sees the
light of day.

Here's the biggest problem with the JT Fax -- printer
support. Only four manufacturers are supported -- Brother, IBM,
Hewlett-Packard and Epson. But compatibility with such
"standards" as the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet isn't always a sure
thing. Make sure the board works with your printer before buying
it.

PUMA RATING - 3
-----------------

PERFORMANCE: 4. Flawless when it's working.

USEFULNESS: 2. But can it work with your printer, and can you
leave its PC on 24 hours per day?

MANUAL: 2. Constantly being revised, it doesn't always match the
board and software it's packaged with.

AVAILABILITY: 4. In leading computer stores, mail order, or direct
from the company.

(  )


(REVIEW)(APPLE)(SYD)(00004)

Review of: MACLINK PLUS - Version 3.0

Runs on: Macintosh 512k, Plus, SE and Mac II

From: DataViz Inc., 35 Corporate Drive, Trumbull, Connecticut 06611,
1-203-268-0030

Price: US$195, AUS$315

PUMA Rating: 3.5 [on a scale of 1 to 4]

Reviewed by: Paul Zucker, 2/21/89

Summary: MacLink Plus is a file transfer and conversion utility
for Mac-Mac or Mac-PC.

REVIEW
------
Maclink is an indispensable accessory wherever two or more are
gathered. Not only does it make communications between Macs and
PCs effortless, it also converts most common word file formats
between the two systems. It consists of three software disks
[3.5" Mac, 3.5" PC and 5.25" PC] and a cable with Mac circular
8-pin plug on one end and PC DB25 and DB9 adaptor on the other
end. The cable connects the RS232 serial port on the PC with
either the comms or printer serial port on the Mac.

Installation consists of copying the relevant files to a
subdirectory [folder] on the machines, plugging in the cables and
starting the applications - all of a five minute job. Unlike the
earlier version 2 which had maximum data transfer of 9600 baud,
version 3 works at a blinding 57600 baud.

The PC is a slave during the session - all control being given to
the Mac. It's just a matter of selecting file types for both
machines, highlighting the files to be transferred and
translated, and hitting the convert button on the Mac desktop.
Again, unlike the earlier version, it's now possible to select a
group of files for batch processing.

The modes available are:

 MacLink Mode:      Transfers files between a Mac and any other
                    computer (PC or Mac) running Maclink. Usually
                    Mac to PC via the  supplied serial cable.

 Desktop Mode:      Used for translating files already on the
                    Mac  or another Mac on a network.

 Comms Mode:        Used with a modem to give the same
                    facilities as direct connect.

 Answer Mode:       Answers calls from other Macs. May be used
                    unattended.

The PC files which can be translated to or from include:
Binary, dBase, Comma delimited, DIF, Excel, Multiplan,
DisplayWrite, Multimate, OfficeWriter, Ascii, WordPerfect,
WordStar, WPS/VMS, XYWrite III, Word, Lotus, Symphony,
Pagemaker.

Mac file types for translation include:  Excel, Macbinary,  Jazz,
Macwrite, Word and Pagemaker.

Word processing translators handle almost all formatting features
except page breaks and footnotes. Maclink isn't capable of
translating/converting graphics files but it can transfer them
for conversion by other utilities.

The supplied cable can't be used for Mac to Mac connections, and
in fact, since the package is only licensed for use on one Mac at
a time, you need two packages and a PC null-modem adaptor joining
the cables. Pragmatists will probably install the software on
both machines and use an 8-pin to 8-pin Apple null-modem cable.

Short of installing an Appletalk compatible network, Maclink Plus
is the best way we've seen to move files between the two most
popular business PC machines, and even with a network you'll
still need a translator!

One annoying aspect is that the PC files are displayed, sorted,
on the Mac. That means you can't yell across the room "Hey Chess!
Pick up the last three files in my OUTBOUND directory," because
they're not necessarily shown in that order on the Mac. Nor can
you tag files or initiate transfer on the PC. Next version please
DataViz?

PUMA RATING
-----------

PERFORMANCE: 4. Nice and fast and accurate with conversions.

USEFULNESS:  3. Really needs some graphics conversions to be
                completely useful.

MANUAL:      3. Very good but probably too many pages for the
                amount of information which tends to be a bit
                scattered.

AVAILABILITY:4. Not in PC stores, but in Mac stores. Popular
                mail-order product.

(Paul Zucker/19890217/Contact:Margaret Martin,35 Corporate
Drive,Trumbull,CT,06611,USA)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00001)

GENIE ADDS QUIKNEWS SERVICE TO COMPETE WITH COMPUSERVE'S ENS
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- GEnie has
announced QuikNews, a clipping service designed to compete with
CompuServe's ENS offering. The monthly cost for QuikNews is $25,
$15 more than ENS, an option with the basic CompuServe password.

As with ENS, QuikNews users get to create up to ten search terms
[GEnie offers additional search terms for $1 per item], including
"and" or "not" delimiters, and get news matching those keywords
forwarded automatically to their GEnie mailbox. Sources for
QuikNews include Telebase' Newsgrid, USA Today, and GEnie's own
columnists. Stories remain live in users' mailboxes for 30 days.

Because GEnie is now available on NEC's PC-VAN, QuickNews will be
the first keyword search service readily available in Japan.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: Steve Haracznak, GEnie, 301-340-4494)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(LON)(00002)

SOURCE TELECOMPUTING CORPORATION OFFERS CUT-RATE SUBSCRIPTIONS
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- The Source is to offer cut-
rate minimum subscriptions to its subscribers, provided they pay
one or two year's minimum subscriptions up-front.

According to a release from the giant U.S. database service, the
company is charging $95 for a one-year minimum subscription -- a
20 percent saving on the normal $10/month costs -- and $175 for a
two-year minimum subscription, a 27 percent saving on normal
monthly costs.

The Source is currently mailing all its U.S. and international
subscribers details of the deal, which simply involves
signing a form and returning it to the company's headquarters.

(Steve Gold/19890127)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(SFO)(00003)

SUPERMAC SPIN-OFF DESIGNS MACINTOSH COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE
VACAVILLE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- SuperMac is
throwing a new software concern, LAMIR Software Corporation,
out of the nest to develop programs for the personal computer
communications market. The new firm will have as its premier
product Acknowledge, a communications software tool kit for the
Macintosh with which front-end, Macintosh graphical interfaces
can be designed for communication with online services and
centralized databases. LAMIR head Raymond Vizzone, who
developed Acknowledge, told Newsbytes the field is exciting
because, "there are more modems being sold and the online
market is exploding." And, he adds, Macintosh users want more
than the plain-text interface they now get with online services.
"They want their Mac back."

He says Acknowledge has been used by Apple Computer to design an
interface between telex services and Applelink; Electronic Data
Services uses an Acknowledge application for their Vax-to-Mac
electronic mail communications; and Dow Jones News and Retrieval
is designing a Macintosh graphical interface for their Macintosh-
owning customers.

LAMIR will license its technology to hardware and software companies
and plans to publish retail products under the LAMIR label in 1989.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Raymond Vizzone, LAMIR, 707-448-5901)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(SFO)(00004)

FAX MAILBOXES WITHOUT A FAX
SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- On the road and need
those faxes fast? PayFAX Mailbox service has the fax for you. The firm has
just started a new service that will allow a subscriber to dial a
local number, and have the day's facsimile messages sent on the
spot to a publicly-accessed PayFAX terminal. The mailbox service
carries a $60 annual fee and a $1 per page charge upon delivery.
There are more than 1,000 PayFAX Public Communications Centers
being installed throughout the U.S. They serve as gateways to corporate
networks and electronic mail services including Dialcom, Western
Union Easylink, Dow Jones News and Retrieval, and MCI Mail.

Headquartered in Santa Clara, the company projects an expansion
to 30,000 centers handling more than 600,000 daily transactions by
1993.

(Wendy Woods/19890127/Contact: Donna Stein, PR, 415-362-3950)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00005)

CONNECT TO SELL RACAL-VADIC MODEMS FOR ONLINE GRAPHICS SERVICE
MILPITAS, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Racal-Vadic of
Milpitas will make the modems Connect Inc. of San Francisco will
sell in its new 9600 baud V.32 service. The modems will be
bundled with Connect's own desktop software to provide easy
worldwide transfers of graphic files from Macintoshes and PCs
equipped with Microsoft Windows or OS/2 with the Presentation
Manager. Graphics-based PCs are treated like second-class
citizens on regular online systems, which offer all the charm of
a typed page, a real contrast when you're used to windows and
playing with picture files or PostScript pages. Attempts in the
past to offer these graphics capabilities online have floundered
because the slow-speed modems used on such nets took too long to
do their work. V.32 is a way out of that box.

Connect is one of two groups promising graphics-based, currently
Mac-specific, online services. MacUser Magazine is sponsoring
MacLink, a version of Quantum's AppleLink for Macintosh users.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127)


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

AT&T, KDD, AND BT TO LINK CREDIT CARDS ON FEBRUARY 1
BASKING RIDGE, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- In an
agreement which could be the first of many, the largest phone
companies in England, the U.S. and Japan have agreed to cross-
connect their telephone credit card systems. This means if you
have a credit card for American Telephone & Telegraph, Kokusai
Denshin Denwa, or British Telecom [BT], you can use it for calls on
all three networks starting February 1. One hitch -- BT doesn't yet
have a telephone credit card service. This agreement merely
commits BT's planned credit card service to cross-connect once
it's open. The deal follows by one week an agreement between BT
and AT&T to link their electronic mail networks, allowing all of AT&T
Mail's 40,000 subscribers to send and receive messages with
Dialcom's 130,000 U.S. subscribers.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00007)

AT&T SELLING PART OF MOBILE PHONE BUSINESS TO PLAY A VSAT HAND
BASKING RIDGE, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- AT&T is
selling pieces of its booming cellular phone business and quietly
planning to jump over it with new, smaller satellite earth stations. Within
the last week, it handed over the U.S. government's cellular phone
business to McCaw Cellular of Kirkland, Washington, 22 percent of
which was recently sold to British Telecom for $1.5 billion. That could
look cheap if the bureaucrats all leave their offices. Next, AT&T
passed along a part of its Frequency Division Multiple Access technology,
which could increase mobile network efficiency 300 percent, to Oki
Electric of Japan. Oki will use it to make a new generation of cellular
phones for sale under both AT&T's and Oki's brand names. The only
fly in the ointment came January 24, when the Cellular
Telecommunications Industry Association approved a competing
standard, Time Division Multiple Access, pushed by L.M. Ericcson
of Sweden.

The trump card in all this, however, could be a lot of little
deals like the 250-site VSAT network its Tridom subsidiary of
Atlanta sold January 25 to an outfit called Farmland Industries,
a farm co-op with 700 offices. Farmland will run its data traffic
over Skylink, the AT&T satellite service, using transponders it
leases on the GE Americom K-2 satellite. Skylink was once
considered a low card in AT&T's deck. But satellites can carry
huge volumes of data traffic alongside voice and video, bypassing
packet switches as well as local and long-distance phone systems.
Plus you have a custom TV network for employees or affiliates.
The deal looks big to Tridom, bought just last year, but could be
a drop in the bucket of future success. Tridom spokeswoman Mindy
Littman told Newsbytes the company is actively seeking new deals
like Farmland's.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00008)

TELENET'S DATACALL PLUS AIMED AT MARKET NOW HELD BY VOICE LINES
RESTON, VIRGINIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- A few weeks ago
Newsbytes reported Telenet was planning a business version of PC
Pursuit, its low-price packet switch alternative for bulletin
board users. That service emerged January 25 under the name
DataCall Plus, a packet switch service using the X.25 protocol
which Telenet claims costs 30 percent less than AT&T WATS lines or
direct dial long distance. With DataCall Plus, Telenet also
promises more detailed billing. There are no traffic charges with
the new service -- just flat rates based on network access
location and billed according to connect time.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: Robin Carlson at 703-669-
3343)


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

SPRINT TO OFFER ONLINE SERVICES PAY-PER-CALL CAPABILITY
KANSAS CITY, KANSAS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 26 (NB) -- United
Telecom's Sprint Gateways will open for business in July,
offering complete audio and data service bureau services in
competition with AT&T. The audio service bureau business using
the 900 exchange is fairly straight-forward, and the national
audiotex market is booming. Using "900" numbers and plenty of
advertising, you can get people to pay big bucks for simple
telephone calls. Sprint Gateways will mount the tapes, handle
the calls, and do the billing. Whether the attraction is a voice
which talks dirty, a famous face talking just to you, or a high-
priced online chat, 900 services are proving increasingly popular
with the same people long coveted by online systems like
CompuServe.

Data 900 may help the online services compete, Sprint Gateways
spokesman Don Forsythe told Newsbytes. "The attraction would be
for the casual user of data network services. We'll call on big
online systems, giving them the opportunity to bill users on a
per-call basis rather a monthly charge." The new data service, by
the way, represents the first data competition between United
Telecom and GTE since Uninet was sold to GTE's Telenet a few
years ago.

Data 900 will go for 38 cents for the first minute and 20
cents for additional minutes. Additional charges from The
Source, CompuServe, or your other favorite services can be
tacked onto that. Pricing for Network 900 will be 35 cents for
the first minute and 28 cents for additional minutes. Voice 900
is priced on a scale of 40-48 cents for the first minute and 30-
38 cents for additional minutes, with a price break at 50,000
minutes per month.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: Don Forsythe at 913-676-3343)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(WAS)(00010)

JUDGE NIXES BELL ATLANTIC GATEWAY
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Federal Judge Harold
Greene has denied a Bell Atlantic proposal to use a central
computer to link customers with information services. Greene
said the service would violate the ban on Regional Bell companies
providing long-distance service. Bell Atlantic wanted to use one
large computer in Pennsylvania for the gateway. The ban would
require that Bell Atlantic install computers in each of five
local telephone zones in the state in order to offer the gateway
to other information providers. Bell Atlantic argued that would
drive up prices. Other Baby Bell companies were upset with
Greene's ruling. Ameritech Corp. complained that it was "another
indication that telecommunications policy-making needs to be
moved to an agency more in turn with the realities of the
marketplace."

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(TOR)(00011)

TELEGLOBE CANADA LOWERS INTERNATIONAL FAX RATES
MONTREAL, QUEBEC, CANADA, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Teleglobe Canada
Inc. has reduced rates for Globefax, its store-and-forward
facsimile service, by an average of 22 percent. For some
destinations, reductions are as much as 35 percent. The rates
took effect January 1. Teleglobe has also introduced new discount
Globefax rates for deferred delivery in off-peak hours to 44
countries, including Hong Kong, India, Switzerland and New
Zealand.

(Grant Buckler/19890127/Contact: Philip van Leeuwen, Teleglobe
Canada, 514-289-7481)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(BRU)(00012)

U.S. CITES EUROPE AND KOREA AS CLOSED TELECOMMUNICATIONS MARKETS
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Clayton Yeutter, the
U.S. Trade representative, has switched posts to become the U.S.
Secretary for Agriculture. His last statement, due to be
presented before Congress later this month [February] is likely
to cause a furor on account of its anti-European nature.
In the paper, which Yeutter prepared on the closed European
markets, he recommends that the U.S. should impose trade sanctions
against Europe.

The Trade Act on Telecommunications, which was passed a few
months ago, enables the U.S. government to impose 100 percent
tariffs on products coming from markets where the U.S. has no
access, such as France and West Germany.

A European Community [EC] spokesman said, "this seems to be the
first example of unilateral application of the US trade act."

Critics of the new Trade Act said the U.S. can now set trade
standards without regard to General Agreement on Trade and
Tariffs [GATT]. The Act was forced through President Reagan's
office by a powerful business lobby in Washington, D.C.

(Peter Vekinis/19890124)


(EXCLUSIVE)(TELECOM)(LON)(00013)

HAYES #2: CUTS EXISTING MODEM PRICES & REVEALS FUTURE PLANS
LONDON, ENGLAND, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- In parallel with the introduction
of new modems, Hayes has cut U.K. pricing on all its current
products. The new product pricing, which takes immediate effect,
is as follows:

Smartmodem 2400 [V22/22Bis]...     UKP499 - down from UKP649
Smartmodem 1200 [V21/22/23]...     UKP399 - down from UKP499
Smartmodem 1200B [PC Card V21/22/23]... UKP349 - down from UKP449
Smartmodem 1200B + Smartcom III...   UKP299 - down from UKP399

Hayes also revealed its 1989 and beyond strategy for modem
communications. The V.42 standard, which encompasses LAP-M and
MNP Class 4 error correction, was agreed at the CCITT's plenary
session in Australia last November. There now appears to be
discussion on the subject of the proposed V.42Bis standard.

The proposed V.42Bis standard, which was under discussion in
Italy last month [January], is fully-compatible with the V.42
standard, but includes a data compression system that works on
both 7- and 8-bit files. Three different compression systems are
under consideration, according to Dennis Hayes', the company's
founder and president, who hopes that the Hayes' data compression
system will be accepted as the standard by the CCITT. The other
contenders are algorithms from British Telecom and Microcom.

One feature of V.42 which became apparent during the major
product launch in London last week, was that V.42 is only a
stepping-stone towards dial-up X.25 connections to data networks.
X.25 Dialup, known as X.32 in Europe, will allow multiple data
sessions to take place over a single modem link.

Experimental X.25 dial-up ports are already in use with several
US data network service providers, said Hayes, and it seems
likely that the standard will be available to all on a public
basis from later this yea onwards - once the V.42Bis standard has
been agreed upon.

(Steve Gold/19890125/Hayes, 01-848-1858)


(EXCLUSIVE)(TELECOM)(LON)(00014)

FRONTIER BEGINS SHIPMENT OF CHEAPEST U.K. MULTISPEED MODEM
HARROGATE, ENGLAND, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Frontier Software, the
Amiga and ST software/hardware specialist, has begun shipment of
a tri-speed PC card modem. The modem - a PC card version of the
popular Supra 2400 unit - will retail for UKP146-95 plus tax
[UKP169-00 incl].

According to Frontier's managing director, Andrew Bennett, the
modem is the cheapest high-speed modem available for the PC in
the U.K. at the moment. "We're bundling the modem with Softklone's
Mirror II software - the full version with manual - which we
think is an unbeatable package," he told Newsbytes.

The Supra 2400 PC card supports the extended Hayes command set,
and is capable of V21 [300/300 baud], V22 [1200/1200 baud], and
[2400/2400 baud]. The half-card modem also comes with all UK
connecting leads necessary for connection to the telephone
network.

(Steve Gold/19890127/Frontier Software, 0423-67140)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00001)

SMART INTERPRETATION MACHINE MAY HELP JAPANESE OVERSEAS TRAVELERS
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 19 (NB) -- Matsushita Electric Industries
has developed a prototype Japanese-English interpretation unit
with the cooperation of Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania.
When a native Japanese speaks Japanese sentences to the machine,
it will in turn understand and translate the message into English;
afterwards translated English messages are conveyed aloud through the
attached speaker as if by a native English speaker. The smart unit
recognizes every human voice, regardless of sex, and there is no
need to speak messages paragraph by paragraph to it. The prototype
model consists of a voice recognition unit, a voice synthesis unit,
and Matsushita's general-purpose workstation Sun 3. The firm says
the word recognition rate is a staggering 80-percent, which is
expected to be upgraded to 90-percent, if precise Japanese sentences
are spoken to it, Matushita has asserted.

Newsbytes watched the translated scene on a television and found
that the machine was not able to translate ambiguous Japanese
sentences into English, such as Atama Ga Warui, which literally means
"my head is bad" in Japanese, but which must be translated into
"I am stupid, dumb, dull," etc. Regarding untranslatable sentences,
the machine responded with "Pardon?" on the screen and through the
speaker.

Matsushita boasts that a portable translation machine could be
available in four or five years.

(Ken Takahashi/19890126/Contact: Matsushita Electric Industrial,
03-908-1121)


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

VISUAL COMPUTER TO APPEAR IN FIVE YEARS?
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Japan System has launched
a project to realize a visual data processing computer in cooperation
with a group at the University of Tokyo represented by professor
Toshiyuki Kunii. According to the report conveyed by Nikkei
newspaper, the so-called Visual Computer could easily input, process,
and output visual information in a manner that mimics human eyes.
For instance, the computer would visualize three-dimensional space
or objects, synthesize the design or images based on the visual
data, and then output picture information.

The researchers expect to apply the technology in the
fields of robotics, medicine, and education. The project is
scheduled to be complete by 1994 and a product could possibly
be on the market by 1999.

(Ken Takahashi/19890126)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00003)

BREAKING THE SPEED BARRIER
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- NEC Corp. says it has successfully
developed a parallel processing computer capable of several kinds
of simulations. The computer, so called Cen-ju, has a built-in
high-grade parallel processing architecture which can process
over one hundred central processing units in parallel and it has
a neural network, making ultra-high-speed data processing feasible.

Though the prototype model comes with sixty-four central processors
working in parallel, it can operate as fast as the company's
supercomputer. NEC is aggressively trying to break the current
computer speed barrier of ten giga floating point operations
per second.

(Ken Takahashi/19890126)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00004)

HITACHI RELEASES A 16-BIT LAPTOP WITH 8 GRADATION LCD
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 18 (NB) -- Hitachi has released a laptop
personal computer with an eight-gradation liquid crystal display
and white-color backlit feature. Conventional color software
can be installed on the machine. The B16LXw comes with an 80286
central processor and one megabyte of main memory, expandable to two
megabytes. The B16LXw, with two floppy disk drives, is priced at
468,000 yen or $3,700, and weighs 7.2 kilograms; the 40-megabyte
hard disk drive is 688,000 yen or $5,400 and weighs 7.7 kilogram.

(Ken Takahashi/19890126/Contact: Hitachi, 03-258-1111)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00005)

MATSUSHITA LAUNCHES INDUSTRY'S FASTEST DISPLAY PROCESSOR
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Corp.
and Matsushita Electronics Corp. have jointly developed the
industry's fastest display processor, EDPU MN8510. The processor is
a large-scale integrated circuit that increases the reading speed of data
stored in a computer's main memory for multiwindow display. The EDPU
operates three times faster than Matsushita's late model and it will
replace 50 kinds of images in one second with resolution of
horizontal 640 and vertical 400 pixels. Sample shipment will start
in June at the price of 30,000 yen or $230 per unit.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/1989124)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(WAS)(00006)

APOLLO TO UNVEIL PERSONAL SUPERCOMPUTER
CHELMSFORD, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- Apollo
Computer is poised to unveil a line of personal supercomputers
designed to push the company a step ahead in the hot workstation
market. Few details of the new machines are available. Also,
Apollo has announced that it earned $3.2 million -- 9 cents per
share -- in the most recent quarter, down 68 percent for the year-
earlier quarter. But the earnings represent the first profits for
Apollo after two losing quarters. The company bragged of "record
worldwide revenues and a return to profitability."

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(WAS)(00007)

VIRUS AT LIBRARY OF CONGRESS REVEALED
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- An official at the
Library of Congress has disclosed that a virus was spotted and
killed in the main catalog computer system last fall before it
could harm files in the world's biggest library. The virus was
found after staff logging onto computer at the library discovered
they had less memory than expected. The virus apparently got into
the system via a piece of software that came from the University
of Maryland.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(WAS)(00008)

DUMBER BUT FASTER MACHINE WINS IN COMPUTER CHESS
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 28 (NB) -- Five
Carnegie Mellon University computer science graduate students
have built a machine, Deep Thought, that has turned the chess
world on its ear. The computer, which knows less about chess but
picks its moves faster, has defeated Carnegie Mellon Professor
Hand Berliner's Hitech to become the world's best electronic
chess player. Deep Thought has also become the first computer to
defeat a grandmaster in tournament play. Deep thought is now the
30th-ranked chess play -- animal, vegetable, or mineral -- in the
U.S. Chess Federation rankings. The computer has also won its
creators the $10,000 Fredkin Intermediate Prize for becoming the
first computer to surpass the 2,500 barrier in the Chess
Federation ranking system. Deep Thought can analyze 700,000 board
positions per second, versus 120,000 for Hitech. The machine was
built on a shoestring, versus heavy corporate and government
funding for other approaches to computer chess built at Bell
Labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Carnegie Mellon.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TOR)(00009)

CEBUS ON A CHIP FROM CANADIAN COMPANY
VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- AISI
Research Corp. is the first to put the proposed CEBus home
automation standard on a chip. The company has introduced Spirit,
a single-chip implementation of the Consumer Electronics Bus
standard it helped to develop. CEBus is a standard for signalling
among household appliances over ordinary power lines. It is
designed to let appliances interact and be controlled by
computers. The Spirit chip will sell for about five dollars.

(Grant Buckler/19890127/Contact: AISI Research, 604-477-1415)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(SFO)(00001)

EVEREX LEAPS INTO UNIX MARKET
FREMONT, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 26 (NB) -- Everex Systems will
come out with a line of high performance Unix workstations in the second
quarter of this year, thanks to an agreement it just inked with Opus
Systems of Cupertino, California. Opus makes Unix systems and has
over 9,000 installations of its Personal Mainframe line of products
worldwide. Opus sees the Everex alliance as a ticket to wider
distribution. "Everex's extensive distribution network opens new doors
for our technology. This alliance promises a long and fruitful relationship,"
says Opus Systems President Gene Rosen. Until now, Everex has
sod only IBM-compatible personal computers and storage devices.

(Wendy Woods/19890127)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(ATL)(00002)

AT&T DONATES $650,000 IN UNIX EQUIPMENT TO OHIO COLLEGES
CLEVELAND, OHIO, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 26 (NB) -- AT&T has given away
$650,000 in computer and networking products to three Ohio
colleges and universities through its University Equipment
Donation Program [UEDP], which gave equipment to 52
schools nationwide last year. The winners are the Case Western
Reserve University School of Medicine, the University of Akron
Polymer Science Center and the Oberlin College School of
Psychology. They all get Unix-based minicomputers, PCs, local
area networks, and applications software.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19890127/Contact: Stuart J. Vosler, 216-328-
3070)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(WAS)(00003)

DEC LAUNCHES NEW MINI LINE
MAYNARD, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1989 JAN 24 (NB) -- Responding to
the hot-selling IBM AS/400, Digital Equipment Corp. has unveiled
a new line of the VAX minicomputer series. The new VAX-6300 line
delivers 35 percent better performance than the nine-month-old
VAX 6200s, at only a five percent increase in price. The base
price is $184,100 and rises to $751,900 for a six-processor
machine.

(Ken Maize/19890128)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(TYO)(00004)

CAN X/OPEN BE THE UNIX MESSIAH?
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 25 (NB) -- The president of the X/Open, Geoff
Morris, visited Tokyo on 23 January and announced plans to establish
a Tokyo office by the end of January. Fujitsu will be the
Japanese leader of X/Open because Mikio Tanaka, an assistant manager
in research and planning at Fujitsu, has been appointed
the head officer of the Tokyo office. Hitachi and NEC have
missed a chance to take leadership even though they formally put
their name on the list of X/Open on 25 January.

X/Open will call for Japanese makers, software houses, and users,
through its Japan office, to join the group and introduce its Common
Application Environment. Also, it plans to publish the latest
issue of specifications, the Portability Guide 3, in Japanese within
this year.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/19890126)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(TYO)(00005)

SUN DOMINATES JAPANESE WORKSTATION MARKET
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1989 JAN 23 (NB) -- Seiko Instruments has begun
marketing two series and four models of engineering workstations,
receiving its OEM, or original equipment manufacturing, supply from
U.S.-based Sun Microsystems. Sun's workstations have been sold
through its general agent in Japan, C.Itoh Techno Science Co., and
a total of seven companies are receiving an OEM supply from Sun,
including Toshiba, Fujitsu, Nippon Steel and Fuji Xerox.

Seiko Instruments has been receiving a supply of SUN 3-60, 3-260,
4-110 and 4-260, to resell these under the name of SN-3060, SN-3260,
SN-4110 and SN-4260 with additional value, such as the graphic
display GR series and graphic devices, software, and so on. The price
range of these products will be from 1,348,000 yen or $10,370 to
7,199,000 yen or $55,3775.

Meanwhile, Seiko Instruments is developing a graphic
workstation and a high-end network server, using Sun's SPARC
chip technology.

(Naoyuki Yazawa/1989124/Contact: Seiko Instruments Inc. 03-682-1111)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(BRU)(00006)

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY ADOPTS UNIX AND AT&T SYSTEMS
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, 1989 JAN 27 (NB) -- The European Community
[EC], which regulates trade, social and financial issues in
Europe, has installed a Unix-based system for use at its Brussels
headquarters. The system is an AT&T 3B2/700 computer system from
Olivetti, AT&T's partner in Europe, for use in the Directorate
General for External Relations' office in Brussels.

Some 100 terminals have been connected to the AT&T computer,
which will to be used in several departments, including those of
the GATT, press and public relations, personnel and
administrative offices. The system will run Q-Office, an
integrated office application package.

The press and public relations office will use another Unix
system to prepare EC press releases and offer a live world news
wire feed from Agence France Press [AFP], Associated
Press, Belga, Dow Jones and Reuters.

Ironically, the Wyse terminals connected to the AT&T system are
Taiwan-produced. Taiwan has no diplomatic connections with the
EC. Another foreign touch to the system are the U.S.-originated QMS
laser printers and the Q-Office software. The Belgium-sourced
modems, meanwhile, are the only part of the system produced in
the EC.

The EC is proud of its new Unix-based system, and defends the
purchase of foreign components vigorously. "The EC feels that the
equipment purchased represents the best quality and reliability
to be found and offers superb performance," said a spokesman.

(Peter Vekinis/19890127)


(EDITORIAL)(APPLE)(LAX)(00001)

W Y S I W Y G -- Wayne Yacco's Gazette

WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANY MORE DOROTHY
BURBANK, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A, 1989 JAN 31 (NB) -- Welcome to the world
of Mac. Last week's MacWorld in San Francisco was my first. I'm just
starting to make the transition from PC exclusivity to Mac
awareness; so, I went and handed out dozens of Newsbytes business
cards to vendors hailing from Southern California. It was an
interesting experience especially from the standpoint of the
availability of information.

Things in the land of Oz just don't work quite like they do back in
White Plains--or anywhere that IBM has a major influence. Let's take
COMDEX as an example. When I attend a show or conference, I will
typically ask for a press release on products about which I'm
interested in writing. In the IBM world, the dealers usually have
them on hand and they are only too willing to follow up with more.
Even IBM-compatible products often arrive unnanounced. Especially
interesting ones sometimes make my day.

MacWorld seemed to work the same way--until I scratched the surface.
First of all, there wasn't any way to get all the press releases and
announcements. Many companies didn't put their material out in the
press room the first day, a surprising amount disappeared before the
last day was over, and some had none at all although they had new
products to show. The same thing happens at COMDEX but here it
seemed rampant. More emphasis seemed to be placed on low-volume
sales.

So, several companies with new products promised to send copies of
their announcements. I gave the Mac vendors an assurance that their
announcements would be used if sent immediately. PC vendors in the
same circumstances will typically send material by Federal Express
and have it waiting at my office before I get back from a
conference. And I've never failed to have one fax me material in
time. But the next week, all of the promised fax transmissions and
letters failed to arrive.

It's hard to believe that something so highly prized by PC vendors--
media coverage--is dealt with so carelessly by Mac vendors. Among
the third-party vendors, the one consistent exception was the group
of companies like DCA, Fox, Iomega, Nantucket, and others with
their feet in both markets.

There seemed to be a clear difference in the level of sophistication
between the two groups in other ways as well. The press releases
that I did obtain were frequently less polished than those I am used
to receiving. The worst examples were prepared in-house. Typical
problems were releases which didn't clearly state their point, one
contradicted itself, even one with the wrong choice of words:
"eminent" instead of "imminent" for example.

It isn't that I don't see these same flaws among third-party PC
vendors; I do. In fact I collect them. There just isn't nearly as
high a proportion of them. So, from the standpoint of my collection,
Mac is way ahead of the PC. The impression that I was left with is
that the players in the Mac markets are still learning some of the
basic lessons of marketing. And since their market's growing into a
more and more tantalizing prize, they may not have much longer to
catch up before more heavy hitters move in for a share. As many
vendors have found to their chagrin, and as certain software moguls
are fond of saying, offering a quality product isn't always as
important as how successfully it's marketed.

(Wayne Yacco/19890127)