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/1993/NB930317

Text File | 1993-03-17 | 76KB | 1,649 lines

(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TOR)(00001)

DEC Sees Second-Source Deal Boosting Alpha Chips 03/17/93
MAYNARD, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- An agreement
that makes Japan's Mitsubishi a second-source supplier for
Digital Equipment's Alpha AXP microprocessors will strengthen
the chips in the merchant semiconductor market, DEC
officials said during a telephone press conference announcing the
deal.

"This relationship is key to our strategic goal of establishing
the Alpha AXP architecture as an open standard in the market,"
said Ed Caldwell, vice-president of semiconductor operations at
Digital.

"We do believe the second-source agreement will definitely have a
positive impact on the market in general," said Art Swift,
marketing and sales manager for semiconductor operations.

Caldwell said the licensing agreement, which provides for
Mitsubishi to make Alpha chips from DEC designs and later design
its own chips based on the Alpha architecture, will make the
chips more attractive to other manufacturers by encouraging
competitive pricing and ensuring a secure supply.

DEC announced the Alpha architecture in February, 1992, and
launched its own computer systems based on the chips in November.
According to Digital officials, more than 35 companies have
signed up to use the chips in various types of equipment, and DEC
is operating 34 application migration centers worldwide to help
with their implementation.

Mitsubishi is expected to play a key role in bringing Alpha chips
to low-cost, high-volume applications, for example use as
embedded controllers in a variety of devices.

Mitsubishi will begin producing the chips in Osaka, Japan late in
1994, Caldwell said. He deflected questions about the volume of
chips the company will produce, saying only that the Japanese
firm has "considerable volume capacity" and its involvement
should ensure there will be no shortages of Alpha chips.

DEC officials were also noncommittal about when Mitsubishi might
start producing chips from its own designs. In response to a
question from Newsbytes, Caldwell narrowed it down by saying this
would happen "some time in the future."

Similar agreements with other chip makers are a possibility,
officials said. Caldwell said that while "we're not looking for a
large number of semiconductor partners," discussions are going on
with some other companies, which he would not name. He said
future relationships would not necessarily be as broad as that
with Mitsubishi, which provides for the Japanese firm to design,
make, and market chips. DEC might arrange for a company to do
limited manufacturing only, for example.

(Grant Buckler/19930317/Press Contact: Mark Fredrickson, Digital
Equipment, 508-493-4930)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(TOR)(00002)

Microsoft Canada Has Program For Small Consultants 03/17/93
MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO, CANADA, 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Microsoft
Canada has launched Microsoft Consulting Channel, a
made-in-Canada program designed to help out smaller consulting
firms. Managed by the Toronto-based Virtual Corp., the program
will provide consultants with information, programming tools, and
access to contacts at Microsoft.

The new program is intended to complement Impact, a program for
larger consulting firms that Microsoft Canada launched last fall,
said Ken Nickerson, director of technical services. While Impact
is designed for the 20 to 25 largest consulting and systems
integration firms in the country, he said, "thousands upon
thousands" of one-person to mid-sized consulting firms need a
regular flow of information on Microsoft products.

In the past, Nickerson said, these small consultants have been
"very difficult for us to reach."

Virtual Corp., a support organization for independent consultants
and other professionals, provides its members with electronic
mail, volume purchasing agreements, and a way to network with
potential clients and suppliers. It will run the Consulting
Channel program for Microsoft.

Somewhat ironically, Virtual was one of the early adopters
in Canada of Notes, workgroup applications development software
from Microsoft's rival Lotus Development Corp.

Consultants will pay C$250 per year to become "alliance members"
of the Microsoft Consulting Channel. For that they will get a
monthly newsletter, access to a forum on the CompuServe online
service where they can exchange information with Microsoft
technical support staff, and access to programming information
and tools from the Microsoft Developer Network.

Those who pass Microsoft Certified Professional examinations can
become MCC Partners, gaining the right to resell advanced
Microsoft products and receive advance information on beta
releases of the company's software.

(Grant Buckler/19930317/Press Contact: Ken Nickerson, Microsoft
Canada, 416-568-0434 ext. 4246; Public Contact: Microsoft Canada,
800-563-9048)


(NEWS)(IBM)(TOR)(00003)

IBM Client/Server Moves Affect IMS, Decision Support 03/17/93
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Moving to
enhance its support for client/server computing, IBM announced a
new version of the OS/2 client software for its Information
Management System (IMS) database at a press conference.

IMS Client Server/2 Version 2 for OS/2 gives an OS/2 workstation
access to IMS transactions running on IBM's MVS operating system
on a mainframe computer. Brant Davison, program manager for
enterprise data in IBM's programming systems group, said the tool
is intended to protect customers' existing investments in
mainframe IMS databases, while allowing them to take advantage of
new technology.

IBM also said it plans enhancements to the IMS/ESA Transaction
Manager and IMS/ESA Database Manager software, which run on MVS.

The IMS announcements came at the same time as IBM unveiled a
version of DB2, its relational database management system, to run
on its Unix-based RISC System/6000 workstations and servers
unveiled March 16.

They were part of a group of announcements that had the common
thread of recognizing the growing importance of client/server
computing, an approach in which central systems -- which may be
powerful personal computers, Unix systems, or in some cases
mainframes -- provide services to desktop PCs.

Faced with a decline in the traditional mainframe market, IBM
hopes to preserve a role for the machines that have been its
bread and butter, as large database repositories and servers.

Much of its strategy for doing so falls under Information
Warehouse, a blueprint that encompasses a number of products from
IBM and third parties.

At its San Francisco press conference, IBM announced the
publication of the Information Warehouse architecture, which will
be available to customers and software developers in April,
according to Mike Kiyosaki, manager of enterprise data in the
programming systems group.

IBM also announced relationships with two companies aimed at
tying Executive Information Systems (EIS) software into the
Information Warehouse strategy.

IBM and Comshare, Inc., a prominent EIS vendor, said they will
expand their joint marketing relationship and cooperate to make
their respective software products work more closely together.
IBM also announced that Comshare will join its DSS Design
Council, a small group designed to give others input into the
evolution of IBM's Decision Support System (DSS) software.

A similar deal was struck with Intelligent Office Co., a British
software vendor.

IBM expects to create more such relationships, although
membership on the DSS Design Council will be kept to a
"single-digit" figure, Kiyosaki said.

At the press conference, Richard Belles, director of enterprise
information for IBM USA, said these connections will
"complement" IBM's existing relationship with Metaphor Inc., a
provider of decision support software.

IBM also extended its Distributed Relational Database
Architecture (DRDA) with a feature called Distributed Unit of
Work (DUOW). This allows users to read and update data that is
spread across multiple remote systems.

This feature is included in Release 3 of the DB2 database
software for the MVS operating system, also announced at the
press conference. Rick Jensen, manager of software marketing at
IBM programming systems, said the next releases of DB2 for OS/2
and the RS/6000 machines will also have this capability.

IBM also announced a Callable Structured Query Language (SQL)
application interface and an EDA/Extender for the OS/2 version of
DB2, both to be available in the third quarter.

IBM said the callable SQL interface will be consistent with the
preliminary specification of the SQL Call Level Interface (CLI)
by the X/Open standards body. The interface is to include a set
of function calls that are used by application programs for
processing SQL requests and for related services. IBM said it
will simplify developing and distributing applications in the
workstation environment.

IBM Query/6000 is a new query and presentation software product
for IBM relational databases and workstations. IBM also launched
an improved query interface for the Query Management Facility for
its VSE/ESA mainframe operating system.

The announcements also included a new release of IBM's Data
Propagator for MVS and the Common Data Facility/MVS Version 1
Release 2, an industry and cross-industry application enabler.

First shipments of Data Propagator are due by September 24 to an
already selected group of customers. Common Data Facility,
previously announced last November, will be available March 26.

A new release of IBM Application System (AS) has enhancements for
client/server applications, the company said, and new versions of
IBM Personal Application System/2 add prototype and application
development functions.

The company also joined a trend to new software licensing options
by saying customers can now license Application System on a
per-user basis rather than just for a flat price based on the
supporting hardware.

(Grant Buckler/19930317/Press Contact: Steven Malciewicz, IBM,
914-642-5449)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00004)

AT&T-Huntington Part Company On Smartphone 03/17/93
COLUMBUS, OHIO, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Huntington Bancshares
will seek a new manufacturer for its version of the AT&T
SmartPhone, while AT&T will also go back to the drawing board and
try to reduce the unit's cost, turning it into a multiple-use
device. AT&T spokesman Steve O'Donnell discussed the arrangements
with Newsbytes.

Originally, the plan was for Huntington to take a $500 AT&T
SmartPhone unit, program it for use by its own customers, then
take those applications to the industry. O'Donnell termed the new
relationship "cooperative, but not in as tight an alignment,"
adding that Huntington's basic plan remains unchanged.

"There are a number of different products. In the original
agreement, AT&T and Huntington had an exclusive arrangement. We
developed the phone, and they would sell the services. That was
how we felt we could establish a new market.

"Since then, a number of things have happened in the marketplace.
There have been a number of new transaction technologies
developed, like Bellcore's ADSI standard," for transaction
processing, "and a tremendous surge of interest in transactions
services from non-financial companies. Anyone who has a touchtone
interactive service," call-processing systems in which callers
press keys to activate features, much like a voice mail network
has extensions, "has now gotten information about how ADSI and
similar services can display a table of choices. Partially
because of the work AT&T and Huntington did, there are a lot of
end users interested in this kind of service."

O'Donnell also addressed AT&T's new stance. "In the normal course
of development of Smartphone, we started looking at the changes
in the marketplace, and realized we don't need to have that
exclusive arrangement, and we're probably better off if we handle
our own strengths to develop different areas of the market. We
want to work with other industries and sell phones to the average
consumer now buying a corded phone."

He added, "Part of the original problem with the old paradigm
was you needed to buy a transaction phone and a regular
corded phone for regular conversations. We think now it's
best if transaction services are a natural outgrowth of
corded phones. We will start adding transaction capability to our
higher-end phones." In time, he said, the company could add
transaction-based services to its videophones, but that is a long
way off. "Phones should do lots of different things," he said.

As for Huntington? "Huntington will take the Smartphone
technology as it currently exists and work to develop a phone and
service they will implement for their own customers, then sell to
financial service organizations. They'll find a manufacturer to
make their own phones. It probably will not be AT&T."

(Dana Blankenhorn/199303016/Press Contact: Steve O'Donnell, AT&T,
201-581-3904)


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

Cellular Phones For Inland China 03/17/93
RICHMOND, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA, 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- After
weeks of rumors it was being excluded from the market, and
heated denials, MTC Electronics Technologies finally announced
it has a joint venture in China.

The deal, signed February 18, is with the Hubei San Gao
Telecommunication Technology Development Corporation. It will
create a joint venture aimed at developing cellular phone
networks in Hubei, which is up the Yellow River from China's
heavily populated coast. Hebei has 55 million people and is the
home of a controversial dam along the Yellow River, now under
construction, which will sink environmentally fragile areas
underwater. The capital of Wuhan, with a population of 6 million,
will get the network first.

MTC holds 51 percent of the new joint venture. The joint venture
last 11 years. MTC, which also makes telecommunications equipment
in China, will be given a preference in supplying equipment to
the venture. The venture has a total capitalization of $30 million.

(Dana Blankenhorn/199303016/Press Contact: Goodwin Wang, MTC,
604-278-8788)


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(LAX)(00006)

Intel Supercomputing Div. Picks Up Cray Executives 03/17/93
BEAVERTON, OREGON, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Intel is
boasting it has picked up three top executives, formerly
employed by supercomputer competitor Cray Research, to take
leadership roles in its Supercomputer Systems Division. The
company says it has placed the three, along with promoting one
internal employee, in critical positions to head the growth in
the company's parallel supercomputing technology.

Mike Wall, former general manager at Cray Research, will head
North American Sales for Intel's Supercomputing Division. Dick
Bland, who served at Cray for nine years as marketing support
manager, joins Intel as director of sales support. And Dick
Ammerman, former director of customer service at FPS Computing
which became Cray Superservers, will now head Intel's Customer
Support Organization. Former Intel Supercomputer product
marketing manager Elliot Swan is moving to take the federal
programs manager slot.

Cray has been losing its executives to Intel one at a time
since last February when Cray's twelve-year veteran and
executive vice president of sales and marketing, Ed Masi, left
to join Intel. Masi came on board at Intel as president of its
Supercomputing Systems Division. Since then the other three
former Cray executives have migrated to Intel.

Intel says it feels its leadership in supercomputing is the
reason for the moves of the Cray executives. With nearly 400
scientific and industrial sites located in 18 countries, Intel
is boasting the largest installed base of supercomputers in the
world. The Intel Paragon supercomputer, introduced in November
1991, appears to be growing in popularity.

The Concurrent Supercomputing Consortium (CSCC) plans to
purchase a second Paragon for installation at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California and the San
Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) in San Diego, California is
obtaining a 192-node Paragon. The SDSC is spending roughly $6.7
million, largely through grants from the Defense Advanced
Research Project Agency, the National Science Foundation, and
Intel itself, for the Paragon. With 192-nodes, the SDSC's new
Paragon is expected to be able to deliver 19.2 gigaflops
(billion floating point calculations per second) performance.

(Linda Rohrbough/19930316/Press Contact: Rick Johnson,
Intel, tel: [phone], fax: [phone])


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(LAX)(00007)

Touchstone Delta To Be Retired At Cal Tech 03/17/93
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Rumors have been
circulating that Intel's Touchstone Delta Massively Parallel
Supercomputer is being retired at the California Institute of
Technology because the Concurrent Supercomputing Consortium
(CSCC) is unhappy with the system, but Intel says those rumors
aren't true. The Touchstone Delta drew much attention in May of
1991 when it was installed at Cal Tech as the world's fastest
computer.

Dr. Paul Messina, director of the CSCC has confirmed the
Touchstone Delta is being replaced with a new Intel Paragon
IP/S supercomputer this summer, but says the Delta is not being
replaced because the CSCC was unhappy with it or because it
wasn't being used.

Messina says scientists from all over the world have been using
the Delta, and at times as many as 23 concurrent computational
programs have been logged on the system at one time, though 15
to 20 are the average. Cal Tech reports it has a six-week
backlog of scientists who wish to run programs on the Delta. In
fact, three out of five of the 1992 Gordon Bell finalists were
Delta users. However, Messina admits the CSCC has dedicated the
Delta to a relatively small number of very large computational
research projects.

However, the CSCC at Cal Tech is replacing the Delta, a
one-of-a-kind supercomputer installed as a prototype of the
Paragon that Intel planned to market commercially. The CSCC
plans to replace the Delta with a 150-node Paragon this summer,
which it eventually plans to upgrade to a 500-node
supercomputer. The CSCC has already ordered and received a 60-
node Paragon supercomputer, but continues to utilize the Delta.

The Touchstone Delta was heralded as having enough power that
scientists would finally be able to solve some of the Grand
Challenge problems, such as human brain simulation or how
galaxies form. The world's largest massively parallel
supercomputer, the Delta had hundreds of central processing
units (CPUs), working in parallel, dividing computing tasks
into little chunks among the group, as opposed to the
traditional approach of one CPU doing all the processing. The
Delta was predicted to be able to reach computational speeds of
up to 32 gigaflops (GFlops), or 32 billion instructions per
second, and was benchmarked at the world record computational
speed of 8.6 GFlops at its installation.

However, the Delta, despite is 528 CPUs working in parallel,
never reached 32 GFlop performance. However Messina said the
Delta did more than any other system so far. "We've achieved 14
gigaflops on some real applications, and a fair number of
applications have seen 10 gigaflops of sustained performance. I
don't think any other system can boast these kinds of numbers,"
Messina added. The Paragon replacing the Delta when it is
upgraded to 500-nodes (or CPUs) is theoretically capable of
computing speeds of 36 gigaflops, Intel said.

(Linda Rohrbough/19930316/Press Contact: Mike Bernhart,
Intel, tel: [phone], fax: [phone])


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

Hearst Hires Citizen Sikes 03/17/93
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Former FCC
chairman, now private citizen Alfred C. Sikes will head a New
Media and Technologies Group within Hearst Corp. He'll officially
come on-board March 29.

Sikes, 53, was FCC chairman for four years. During that time he
was best-known for seeking auctions of new spectrum, which the
Clinton Administration will pursue, and seeking competition
between phone and cable as a replacement for regulation. He
pushed hard for the opening of new slices of radio spectrum, and
set consortia of high definition TV against each other in
technical trials which resulted in a number of all-digital
alternatives to a Japanese HDTV offering.

In the Reagan Administration, Sikes was an assistant Secretary
of Commerce and headed the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration, the government's high-tech think
tank. Before joining the government, however, Sikes was a
broadcaster, owning a group of radio stations and acting
as a consultant. His primary political sponsor in Washington,
Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, recently announced he will
not seek re-election in 1994.

At Hearst, Sikes will work on finding new markets in multimedia
for the company's newspaper, magazine, book, broadcasting, and
cable properties. It's similar to an effort being launched by
other major media companies. Paramount, for instance, has opened
a high-tech "skunk works" in California to pursue opportunities
in this area, and Cox Enterprises of Atlanta has begun investing
in audiotex, videotex, and United Kingdom cable franchises that
double as telephone companies.

While Paramount is after technology and Cox is looking for new
businesses, Hearst President Frank Bennack Jr. said Sikes will
mainly be a deal-maker, looking for alliances that create
businesses employing new technologies. Hearst, like the Cox
company, is privately held. Its best known properties include
Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and Good Housekeeping magazines, the
Houston Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner newspapers, and
stakes in the Lifetime, ESPN, and Arts & Entertainment cable
networks.

(Dana Blankenhorn/199303016/Press Contact: Tom Campo, Hearst,
212-649-2000)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(DEL)(00009)

India - Information Highway Plan Approved 03/17/93
NEW DELHI, INDIA, 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- The government of India
has approved a Rs 10 billion (around $33.3 million) high speed,
high performance "information highway" network connecting all
academic and research institutes and laboratories.

"In fact we are planning to reach not only some 500 institutions of
national importance but also resource centers of academia,
government, private and public sector research and development,"
said N. Vittal, secretary of the Department of Electronics of the
Government of India.

Vittal conceived this information highway proposal to combat a
resources crunch which constricts institutions from subscribing to a
large number of important journals and books. On the network they
can share material. Network services will include electronic mail,
file transfer, remote log-in, bulletin boards, and news. There will be
specialized services like database access, network information
services, directories, and documentation retrieval.

Vittal says the information highway will have a gateway to access
international networks and databases. At the hub of this highway will
be a high-speed multimedia information processing and transfer
facility that will, to begin, have a speed of 64 kilobits per second.

(C.T. Mahabharat/19930317)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00010)

MCI Frame Relay Goes International 03/17/93
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- MCI will take the
frame relay service linking local area networks international
through an agreement with Stentor of Canada. Stentor is an
alliance among Canada's nine major local phone companies, headed
by Bell Canada.

The Stentor-MCI link, which was announced in September, has
become controversial because MCI is giving Stentor rights to its
Intelligent Networking software platform. The plan is
controversial because AT&T claims rights to parts of the platform
and has sued MCI. Frame relay is the first data service to be
available under the new "seamless" MCI-Stentor platform.

MCI has had a hard time in the frame relay market, according to
Dataquest analyst Joe Noel, who estimated it won only 8 percent
of the $7 million market last year. But the game is early, he
noted, and MCI could catch up. WilTel led the market last year
with a 38 percent market share, and AT&T is expected to lead this
year.

Frame relay runs data at speeds from 56,000 bits/second to 1.544
million bits/second by removing some of the internal error-
correction found on X.25 networks like Sprintnet. A faster
service, sometimes sold by local phone companies as Switched
Multimegabit Data Serivces, or SMDS, takes advantage of a
technology called Asynchronous Transfer Mode, or ATM. AT&T, Cisco
and Stratacom say they want to work and make sure that as ATM
standards develop, they are backward-compatible with frame relay.

MCI calls its frame relay service HyperStream, while Stentor
calls its service Impac. Integration through a single point of
contact should be complete by the third quarter this year, the
two companies said.

(Dana Blankenhorn/199303016/Press Contact: MCI, Pam Small, 202-
887-3000)


(NEWS)(TELECOM)(ATL)(00011)

International Telecom Update 03/17/93
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- American companies
could finally be getting competition in the race to buy other
phone units worldwide.

Telefonos de Chile could be the first Third World telephone
network to get into the game. It recently expressed interest in
Hondutel, the Honduran phone unit now controlled by that
country's military. Telefonos de Chile is 43.6 percent owned by
Telefonica de Espana of Spain, which also has interests in
Argentina, but its American Depository Receipts are offered for
sale in New York stock markets. The Chilean phone network brags
it is a leader in privatization moves worldwide.

Elsewhere Turkey, which has had a hard time privatizing local
telephone companies like Netas, said it has signed deals to set
up phone networks in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Netas, which is
51 percent owned by Northern Telecom of Canada, will put 100,000
phone lines into the Azeri countryside and make phones in the
country. It has contracts to build a 120,000-line network for the
Kazakhs.

Closer economic links to the former Soviet republics is a key
part of Turkey's foreign strategy. It is battling with Iran for
influence in those areas, with language being a key battleground.
The former Soviet Republics are deciding between using an Arabic
alphabet like Turkey's or a Farsi alphabet like Iran's, replacing
documents previously written in Russia's Cyrillic alphabet. In
that fight, Turkey's links to the West, especially western
technology, are considered a key asset, but Iran is physically
closer to most of the republics.

Netas is also aiming to make similar deals in Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikstan. Teletas, 18 percent owned by Turkey's
government and 39 percent owned by Alcatel of France, has deals
with Azerbaijan and the Uzbeks. Teletas has put a digital
switching system into Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey's PTT gave a
switchboard to Turkmenistan.

In Eastern Europe, Deutsche Bundespost Telekom of Germany
formally approved its deal with Ukranian Telecommunications,
under which it will take nearly a 20 percent stake in that PTT,
joining AT&T of the US and a Dutch group. Ukranians still own
51 percent. Slovakia, formerly the northern province of
Yugoslavia, said it will switch to straight sell-offs instead of
mass coupon give-aways for future privatizations. Coupons had been
given to citizens to encourage participation in capitalism, but
the country is now more interested in obtaining foreign capital.
Slovakia, whose capital is Llubjana, has been largely spared the
civil war that has engulfed the rest of that nation. It lies to
the north of Croatia, and is the most industrialized section of
that former country.

Finally, Japan is sending telecommunications experts to Vietnam
next month for a seminar on infrastructure development. US
firms are still prohibited from dealing with that nation by an
18-year old embargo, and the Clinton Administration has said it
has no plans to lift it soon.

(Dana Blankenhorn/199303016)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00012)

Kyocera Upgrades Pen Computer 03/17/93
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Kyoto-based Kyocera has developed
an advanced version of its pen-input personal computer, the
Rifalo. The new version is called the Rifalo Pro. Kyocera is
aiming the device at corporate users.

Kyocera's Rifalo Pro is equipped with a 16-bit processor and a
larger LCD screen. It weighs only 450 grams -- light enough
to be held in the palm of a hand. Its operating system is
MS-DOS and it comes with database and graphics program.

The Rifalo Pro has two IC card ports. One  is compatible with
JEIDA's (Japan Electronics Industry Association) telecom standard
version 4.0 and 4.1. This allows the port to accept a modem card.
With an extension box, a printer and a fast modem can also be
connected to this device.

Kyocera will not sell this device via retail stores, but
directly to corporate customers upon receipt of their purchase
orders. The firm is expecting to start OEM (original equipment
manufacturer)-based production of this device in the near
future. The Rifalo Pro can be used for sales people and factory
automation sites or at construction sites.

Kyocera is also selling a low-end consumer version of the Rifalo.
It is equipped with Lotus 1-2-3/Notebook and basic business
organizing programs. It is also equipped with a 256 kilobyte
SRAM (static random access memory). The retail price is
206,000 yen ($1,700).

(Masayuki "Massey" Miyazawa/19930316/Press Contact: Kyocera, +81-3-
3708-3717, Fax, [phone])


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(TYO)(00013)

Japan - Sharp Hikes Mini-Disk Production 03/17/93
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Sharp will release more
Mini-Disk products this year and announced that it expects to
sell some 300,000 Mini-Disk players this year, a figure second
only to Sony's production goals.  Sharp is banking that the
Mini-Disk will help end an overall industry electronics slump.

Sharp will release a portable Mini-Disk, and a unit which offers
both a compact disc (CD) and a cassette tape player.
The portable Mini-Disk player has both playback and recording
options. Sharp has used an original large-scale integrated chip
on these players, making them smaller than previous versions.
The new portable Mini-Disk will be only half the size of
competing products.

Sharp already released a Mini-Disk headphone player at the end of
February, and has been shipping at 10,000 units per month.
In early March, the firm released an advanced model with
a relatively larger LCD (liquid crystal display). Sharp claims to
be shipping a total of 20,000 units per month.

Sharp is planning to release the portable and the multiple-type
Mini-Disk this summer. 200,000 units of these two machines alone
are expected to be shipped this year. Add on the headphone type
and some 300,000 units total of Mini-Disks players could be
shipped in 1993.  Sharp will export around 50,000 units per year.

Meanwhile, music software makers such as Sony Music and Warner
Music Japan are preparing the release of more Mini-Disk software.
Some 1,500 titles are expected to be available in Japan by the
end of the year.

(Masayuki "Massey" Miyazawa/19930317/Press Contact: Sharp, +81-43-
299-8212, [phone])


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(NYC)(00014)

Chair Chosen For 1994 Privacy Conference 03/17/93
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- George B. Trubow,
professor of  law at the John Marshall Law School, will chair the
fourth annual conference. CFP'94 will be held in Chicago, Illinois
during the week of March 22, 1994.

Bruce Koball, chairperson of the third annual Conference on
Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP'93), made the announcement.
CFP'93 was held March 9th through 12th at the San Francisco Airport
Marriott and was attended by more than 500 persons. San Francisco
was also the site of the first conference and Washington, DC hosted
the second.

CFP'93 was attended by civil libertarians, lawyers, hackers, computer
scientists, academics, law enforcement officials, and corporate
personnel. Major conference speeches were provided by  Clifford
Stoll, astrophysicist and author of the "Cuckoo's Egg;" Rosemary
Jay from the England-based Office of the Data Protection Register;
and Willis Ware of the Rand Corporation.

Trubow told Newsbytes, "It is an honor to be asked to chair a
conference of the breadth, depth and importance of CFP. It is a
distinct opportunity to gain knowledge from other disciplines as
we prepare to meet the challenges of the next decade."

Trubow added, "I certainly have a large task in front of me.
It will be difficult to follow Bruce Koball, Lance Hoffman, and Jim
Warren, who have all performed superbly as CF general chairs. I will
do my best to follow in this tradition."

(Barbara E McMullen & John F. McMullen/19930316))


(NEWS)(GOVT)(SFO)(00015)

No Driving Record Privacy In Massachusetts 03/17/93
BURLINGAME, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Perhaps one of
the most interesting revelations at a session on privacy
issues at the third conference on Computers Freedom and
Privacy last week was that almost all Massachusetts DMV records are
public knowledge, and anybody can get them.

According to David Lewis of the DMV, policy on what is
public and what is not varies from year to year, and right
now everything is public, which is how he thinks government
records should be.

The biggest customers of DMV data, says Lewis, are insurance
companies, followed by Boston's two largest newspapers,
which come to get a complete tape on all 4.2 million driver
records on a regular basis. Due to a lawsuit launched by the
newspapers, the DMV provides this tape for $77 -- the cost of
copying.

The tape lists every vehicle, who owns it, who financed it,
and more, as well as every driver, with typical driver's
licence information such as address, weight, height, traffic
tickets -- and in the case of 95% of drivers, the social
security number, which is commonly used as the DL number.

Of the states which have started using the SSN as a DL
number (states are now required to collect the SSN for use
in tracking down delinquent parents) Massachusetts at least lets
drivers check a box to have another number become their DL
number -- but only 200,000 of 4.2 million licenced drivers
have done this. There is widespread concern among privacy
advocates about the growing use of the SSN as a dreaded
national ID number.

The newspapers are no doubt looking for interesting DUIs
(driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs) and
other useful data -- but anybody can get the data, and one
member of the audience came to the microphone to ask if he
could also get it for $77. The answer was "probably yes" --
and it was speculated that somebody will do it and soon
release it on CD-ROM.

While the information above may be frightening to some,
Lewis has been a crusader to stop the DMV from being abused
by other agencies of government as a tool against the
public. The temptation is strong -- the DMV is the one
place that almost every adult in the USA goes to regularly
and is identified. Recent laws have made the DMV the
collection point for child support, traffic, and parking
tickets (which are a police, not DMV matter) and more, but
DMVs have fought efforts to become collectors of everything
from library fines to other court judgements.

Another panelist was Steve Harris of Pacific Bell. The
Bells, as regulated companies, actually try pretty hard to
protect customer's privacy, says Harris. They have a
detailed program that dictates what information they can and
can't give out. Bells have a history of supporting the
unlisted number concept and enforcing it. Others have
disputed the role of the Bells due to recent efforts to
launch Caller-ID services which have been criticized by PUCs
and privacy advocates as a serious invasion of the caller's
privacy.

Harris reported that AT&T breakup regulations have forced
the Bells to give out a lot of information they did not wish
to give out. For example, all the competing long distance
companies had access at the start to all the Bells' customer records
-- names and addresses of all phone users -- in order to put them
on even footing with AT&T. The RBOCs (regional Bells) also provide
phone number and billing information on every long distance and 800
call that goes out, although the long distance carriers are expected to
use this only for billing.

Barbara Petersen, an attorney for the Florida State
Legislature reported that in the last election, voters
approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing public
access to all state records. Indeed, the privacy of
individual citizens who have dealings with the state are
superceded by this law.

There are some exceptions, including a suspicious one made
just before the law was to go into effect. Florida judges
ruled that their own evaluation forms be sealed and not
available for public access.

The third conference on Computers Freedom and Privacy took
place near the San Francisco airport, and ended Friday.

(Brad Templeton/19930316)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(TYO)(00016)

Mitsubishi's 32-bit Pen Computer 03/17/93
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Mitsubishi Electric has developed
a pen-input 32-bit computer which it claims is the smallest pen
computer on the market. Operating under Pen Windows,
Mitsubishi's first pen-input computer is called the Amity.

The machine has a 1.8-inch, 40-megabyte hard disk and a 32-bit
20-megahertz 80386SL processor. The display is  monochrome but is
backlit, measuring 9.4-inches in diagonal. Also, Mitsubishi has
applied a nonslip transparent sheet on the surface of this
display, making it easy to write on.  The screen supports VGA
mode and has a 4-megabyte memory. A keyboard is available as an option.

This pen computer can be connected to desktop computers to exchange
data. Two IC card drives are included -- one  supports a modem card.
With a hard disk, the unit is the size of a sheet of paper and
weighs only 1.4 kg, making it is easy to carry around.

The retail price of this pen computer is 478,000 yen ($3,980).
Mitsubishi is planning to ship 20,000 units for the initial year.

(Masayuki "Massey" Miyazawa/19930316/Press Contact: Mitsubishi
Electric, [phone], Fax, [phone])


(NEWS)(BUSINESS)(DEL)(00017)

India - Computer Firms Profits Down 03/17/93
NEW DELHI, INDIA, 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- The computer industry has
decided to squeeze profit margins in the last month of the current
fiscal year (April to March 31). Reductions in customs charges
are the major reason for price cuts, but some are also cutting
into their profit margins to sell that extra machine.

The Union government's budget calls for the duty on assembled
sets to come down from 145 percent to 107 percent and for
subassemblies it has come down from 158 percent to around 125 percent.

Companies which have already announced cuts include HCL-HP
(Hewlett-Packard); Wipro, a Bangalore-based company; PCL, Delhi-
based, having a tie-up with Dell Computers; and Modi Olivetti, a
Delhi-based joint venture between one of India's premier business
house, the Modis, and Olivetti Spa., of Italy. Sterling Computers
splashed the cut prices of its Siva range of 386 and 486 systems the
very next day after the budget announcement. Siva now goes cheaper by
15-20 percent.

A spokesperson for the Manufacturers Association of Information
Technology (MAIT) bemoaned the fact that the budget was more
beneficial to the traders than the manufacturers. He felt that if
there was to be a perceptive reduction in prices, the duty on CPUs
and memory chips should be 30 percent (this is currently 50 percent).

The computer industry was suffering due to the prices offered
in the grey market. Sourcing of components in this market is
through illegal channels, so no customs duty, excise, or even sales
duty is charged.

He said MAIT had approached the Department of Electronics of the
Government of India to get a further cut in duty. By deadline
there was no further information on the government's reaction to
their demand.

(C.T. Mahabharat/19930317)


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

Digital Cellular Patent Fight 03/17/93
KING OF PRUSSIA, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- A
fight has begun over patents for a digital cellular standard
called Code Division Multiple Access, or CDMA. Ironically, it's
been launched by the company holding rights to a competing
scheme.

InterDigital Corp., which holdes key patents on Time Division
Multiple Access, or TDMA, technology, told a standards committee
of the Telecommunications Industry Association that proposals by
Qualcomm Inc., for a CDMA standard may infringe on its patents.
InterDigital acquired its book of CDMA patents by buying SCS
MobileCom last October.

This comes at a time when many cellular companies are expressing
new interest in CDMA, which in its present form offers 10 times
the capacity of current analog networks -- the present version of
TDMA offers only three times current capacity. Bell Atlantic and
US West have both said recently they will implement CDMA instead
of TDMA in their networks. PacTel and NYNEX, which hold equity in
Qualcomm, are expected to make the same decision.

In response to the InterDigital filing, Qualcomm said the patents
are either unnecesary for building CDMA equipment or embody
technology belonging to Qualcomm. To date, Qualcomm has licensed
AT&T, Motorola, Northern Telecom, Oki Electric, Nokia Mobile
Phones and Alps Electric to make and sell CDMA equipment.
Qualcomm said it expects the CDMA standard to be adopted by the
TIA this spring.

David Smith of InterDigital says that's unlikely. "The rules of
the TIA standards-making process are explicit," he told
Newsbytes. "Those pursuing a standard must have permission from
patent holders or a license." He speculated the TIA may form a
committee to look into InterDigital's claims, but called them
"ironclad."

(Dana Blankenhorn/19930317/Press Contact: Dick Grannis, Qualcomm,
619-597-5705; David Smith, InterDigital, 215-278-7800)


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

Iridium Faces Host of Competitors 03/17/93
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Iridium, the
Motorola-sponsored effort which hopes to spend billions launching
satellites in low-Earth orbit delivering wireless telephone
service everywhere, is suddenly facing a host of competitors.

Most want to replicate part or all of its service area spending
much less money than the $3.37 billion Motorola figures Iridium
will cost, with 66 satellites planned. Motorola itself hopes to hold
no more than 15 percent of the stock in Iridium, and has been
spanning the globe in its search for partners. Among the
companies it has approached is DDI, a Japanese long distance
competitors. Iridium said in January it has lined up $800 million
in financing, but declined to divulge the names of its partners.

In the US, Volunteers in Technical Assistance, Orbital Sciences
and Starsys Inc., are all aiming to take the US portions
of worldwide frequency allocations Iridium and Motorola
successfully lobbied for in 1992. All have tentative go-aheads
from the Federal Communications Commission, which only means they
have the chance to prove their ideas can work economically. VITA
already has a satellite in orbit to communicate with its
worldwide network of volunteers, and hopes to launch 15-20 more.
Orbitel claims its system will cost just $135 million, using 22
satellites as light as 32 pounds. Starsys, most of whose backing
comes from France, wants to start putting up 24 satellites in
1996.

TRW and a group called Globalstar are also in the running among
US companies. TRW's Odyssey network would require just 12
satellites, and Globalstar, which is competing with Iridium for
frequency licenses, is being led by Loral.

There are other foreign competitors. Newsbytes' Moscow bureau has
been reporting on KOSS, a Russian consortium headed by NPO
Energija, the top Russian space agency, which wants to put up 48
satellites by 1994, and is looking for financing. Most of NPO's
system would cover Europe, using its Signal satellites, with
calls costing about one cent per minute, against several dollars
a minute for Iridium. But the Khrunichev factory has a $200
million contract with Motorola to launch Iridium satellites, and
both plans may be scuttled by internal political difficulties.
All the satellite plans are based on the idea of turning military
facilities to civilian use, and opponents of President Boris
Yeltsin prefer to keep the military strong.

India, meanwhile, is cooperating with Inmarsat, which wants to
launch a series of low-orbit geostationary satellites called the
P series. The Indian Satellite Research Organization and the
Videsh Sanchar Nigam are both showing a keen interest system.
Inmarsat is based in London, and Motorola was trying for a time
to cooperate with it, in hopes it would not become a competitor.

But Inmarsat, an international consortium charged mainly with
offering marine communications, has been going its own way, and
Comsat of the US is reselling its services here. VSNL has an
agreement with Inmarsat in marine communications, and has an
earth station near Pune for a direct link-up.

Of course, the real question is whether any of these groups can
get their money out. Cellular concessions are being granted
around the world, and in some countries they're replacing wired
phones. The US network is fully built, so satellite coverage
would be needed only in remote Western mountains.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19930317/Press Contact: John Windolph,
Iridium, 202-371-6889)


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

Time Warner Rumors Swirling 03/17/93
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Time Warner, the
nation's second largest cable television operator, is at the
heart of a swirl of rumors involving both partnerships and buy-
outs.

The company's direction is in some doubt since the death of
Steven Ross, who put it together through merger a few years ago.
Ross was a continual deal-maker but new head Gerald Levin has yet
to make a serious move since taking the helm.

Perhaps the most important rumor involves the possible buy-out of
Turner Broadcasting System Inc., owner of CNN. Paramount is
rumored to be a buyer, but if that happens, Time Warner has an
option on CNN it might seek to exercise.

But the most persistent rumor involves possible phone company
interest in Time Warner equity. US West, which owns part of a
United Kingdom cable system which also offers local telephone
service, is the name most frequently mentioned in this regard.
Both companies are involved in cable consortia in Sweden and
Hungary. But US West has, over the years, been much closer to
TeleCommunications Inc., the largest cable operator. TCI is its
partner in the UK, and the two companies are cooperating in a
test of television delivery over its phone network in the Denver
area.

AT&T is another rumored Time Warner suitor, since it is now
selling equipment to cable companies designed to make them more
interactive. Time Warner, like all entertainment companies, is
looking to multimedia opportunities for its library of
properties, and telephone technology is seen as a route there.

To get phone company investments the company would need a waiver
from the 1982 Bell break-up decree to welcome any phone company
interest. But, under Ross, Time Warner was very creative
financially, having gotten $1 billion from two Japanese
conglomerates in 1990 by selling one-eighth of its entertainment
operations only.

(Dana Blankenhorn/19930317)


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

Wang Files Reorganization Plan 03/17/93
LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Wang
Laboratories has filed a plan of reorganization in US
Bankruptcy Court, saying it hopes to return to profitability in
1994. The company has been operating under the protection of
Chapter 11 of the US bankruptcy law since August, 1992.

The plan would turn over Wang stock to its creditors, continue
with staff cuts, and focus on the company's image processing
software to compensate for falling revenues from its outdated,
proprietary minicomputer systems.

Wang officials said all common stock in the reorganized company
will be issued to general unsecured creditors, including
debenture holders. Creditors with priority claims will be paid or
their claims will remain outstanding, the company said.

Current holders of Wang Class B and C common stock, whose shares
are expected to be worth only a few cents, will receive warrants
to purchase common stock in the reorganized company. Those
stockholders will hold about 20 percent of the stock in the
reorganized company, Wang said.

The American Stock Exchange announced it will stop trading the
Wang Class B and C stock at the end of March.

Wang, which has already reduced its payroll to 9,300 employees
from a peak of more than 20,000 in the 1980s, plans to keep
cutting until the head count is down to about 6,000. The company
said about half the lost jobs will be in the United States, but
would give no timetable for the reductions.

Company officials said Wang's revenues this year are expected to
be about $1.25 to $1.3 billion, dropping next year to about $1
billion due mainly to falling sales of its VS minicomputers.
After 1994 the company expects revenues to begin rising again,
and it also expects a profit in 1994 and afterward.

Wang is pinning its hopes to image management software, which
allows businesses to work with electronic images of documents
stored on computers rather than with the paper documents
themselves. The company resells IBM RS/6000 workstations running
the software it developed, and recently announced a similar
arrangement to sell systems from Hewlett-Packard with its
image software.

Wang also said it is aiming to be a major provider of network
integration and support services for offices.

Wang officials did not return repeated telephone calls seeking
further comment.

(Grant Buckler/19930317/Press Contact: Frank Ryan, Wang, 508-967-
7038; Ed Pignone, Wang, 508-967-4912)


(NEWS)(UNIX)(DEN)(00022)

Wordperfect To Support Solaris, Next Platforms 03/17/93
OREM, UTAH, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Wordperfect says
future releases of its popular word processing program will support
both NextStep and Solaris 2.X.

Support for NextStep for Intel processors will be available with the
upcoming interim release of Wordperfect 1.0.1 for Next, which is
scheduled to ship in May. That's the same time Next is expected to
ship the Intel-compatible version of its operating system with the
graphical user interface, NextStep.

Gordon Mella, Unix product marketing manager at Wordperfect,
says NextStep for Intel processors offers software developers
new opportunities to improve on existing software products.
"We want to capitalize on those opportunities and provide
the latest word processing technology for our Next users."

The company says the interim release will not affect the current
version number, which will remain 1.0.1, but will include two key
new features that take advantage of Nextstep 3.0 technology. Those
features are a drag and drop feature that allows users to move
blocks of text and graphics with a mouse, and an integrated help
system for what the company describes as quicker, easier on-line
help.

Wordperfect also announced this week that it will port Wordperfect
5.1 for Unix to Solaris 2.X on the SPARC platform. The Solaris
version will include a graphical version based on Motif, and a
character-based version that supports character-based terminals.
There's already a version of Wordperfect 5.1 that supports Solaris
1.X on SPARC.

The company says it is also working on a future product that
supports Open Look for Solaris 2.X. A release date will be announced
when that product enters beta testing. The Solaris 2.x version is
expected to have a price similar to the company's other Unix
versions of Wordperfect.

(Jim Mallory/19930317/Press contact: Paul Eddington, Wordperfect
Corporation, 801-228-5006; Reader contact: 800-451-5151)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(DEN)(00023)

PC Losses Top $1 Billion In '92 03/17/93
COLUMBUS, OHIO, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- If you have a
personal computer, you better consider how to make it more
secure from thieves and power surges, or you may become a
national statistic.

According to one of the top providers of computer insurance,
personal computer losses as a result of incidents like theft or a
power surge exceeded $1.3 billion in 1992. Safeware, The Insurance
Agency Inc., recently published a study that shows losses to computer
owners are skyrocketing due to thefts and power surges.

Some sources say computer theft rates have increased 400 percent
over the 1991 rate, but Safeware's report is not as extreme. They
reported about 50 percent of the '91 claims were for theft, with the
figure jumping to 61 percent of the total paid out in 92. The total
value of the computers stolen in '92 is estimated at $882 million.

Surprisingly, losses due to power surges continue to climb,
according to Safeware, even though the use of surge protection
devices is also increasing. The company attributes that to the fact
that more users leave their equipment on longer, increasing
exposure. The number of modems in use also is on the upswing,
providing another path for an electrical surge into the PC. Safeware
says the best protection is to use an Underwriter
Laboratory-approved surge protection device.

A breakdown of loss data provided to Newsbytes by Safeware shows
there were more nearly 731,000 thefts of computers in 1992, about
1.1 million occurrences of power surges that damaged PCs, and almost
283,000 systems were damaged by natural disasters such as
earthquakes, water damage, and wind. Fire wiped out about 95,000
systems, while lightning got another quarter of a million.

Those figures are staggering, especially when you consider that many
computers are not insured, and therefore damage is not reported.
Safeware estimates that it insures one in every 1,000 personal
computers nationally, and only about one-third of all PCs are
insured. Safeware CEO David Johnston told Newsbytes that while
losses from Hurricane Andrew were a significant portion of the
statistics, they didn't cause an abnormal jump. "The fact is the
previous year there were storms in Texas, and an earthquake in San
Francisco, it leveled out."

Johnston told Newsbytes the company can insure a US citizen's
personal computer equipment located anywhere in the world. The
company also provides insurance coverage for citizens of other
companies, but are governed by the underwriting laws of the specific
country.

Speaking about cost, Johnston told Newsbytes PC insurance is
inexpensive. "The insurance rates are pretty low. We can insure a
$5,000 item for $69. Compare that to your auto insurance," he said.

(Jim Mallory/19930317/Press and reader contact: David Johnston,
Safeware, 614-262-0559, 800-848-3469)


(CORRECTION)(IBM)(DEN)(00024)

Correction - New For Windows: Word For Word 03/17/93
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Newsbytes carried
a story with this headline on December 22, 1992 reporting the
release of a Microsoft Windows edition of Mastersoft's document
conversion program Word for Word.

The story reported that the program has a suggested retail price of
$149, and said Mastersoft is offering an upgrade to registered
owners of Word for Windows for $39.95. The story should have stated
that the upgrade price is offered to registered owners of earlier
versions of Word for Word who wish to upgrade to the Windows version
of Word For Word, and is not an upgrade offer to a later version of
Microsoft Word for Windows.

(Jim Mallory/19930317/Press contact: Robert Caplan, Mastersoft,
602-277-0900, fax [phone])


(NEWS)(GOVT)(LON)(00025)

 ****UK - Court Acquits Teenage Hacker 03/17/93
LONDON, ENGLAND, 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- In a result that the press are
calling a "Hacker's Charter," the four-week trial of Paul Bedworth, a
19-year-old student, accused of unauthorized access to several
computer systems, ended today with his acquittal.

To Scotland Yard's computer crime squad, the case was cut and dried,
despite the fact it was the first major case under the Computer Misuse
Act, 1990, which introduced stiff penalties for unauthorized access to
computer systems, among several other other hacking-related
activities.

Bedworth was arrested at his mother's house in Ilkley, North
Yorkshire, two years ago, following an investigation into unauthorized
access to networks that spanned the world.

Bedworth used a dial-up link into a local university to gain access to
the Internet, a loosely controlled international network that links
academic and commercial systems around the world. By repeatedly trying
various test passwords and exploiting known weaknesses in DEC VAX
computer systems, he was able to log onto several dozen computers
with very high privilege levels.

When the case came to Southwark Crown court earlier this month,
Bedworth admitted that he was scared when the police raided his
mother's house and pinioned him to the bed late one evening in 1991.
The result of the scare, he said, was that he realized that hacking
was illegal and, by his own admission, stupid.

As well as being the first major case of its type to be brought under
the Computer Misuse Act, the trial was significant since junior
counsel to Bedworth, a barrister named Alistair Kelman, along with Ian
MacDonald, QC, introduced an unusual defense for their client, that of
computer addiction.

In support of this, Kelman and MacDonald introduced an expert witness
called Professor Griffith-Edwards of the Maudsley Hospital, an expert
in compulsive behavior, who, after testing Bedworth, came to the
conclusion that he was an obsessive person, totally besotted by
computers.

"That side of the case wasn't made up. Even today, while he is
studying artificial intelligence at Edinburgh University, Paul spends
all his nights up to midnight in the computing labs and his
weekends too. He's hooked on computing," Kelman told Newsbytes.

Once in court, Bedworth pleaded not guilty to the charges of
unauthorized modification and access of computers and material and
denies conspiring to obtain telecommunication services dishonestly.

As reported previously by Newsbytes, he was charged with logging into
an EC computer system in Luxemburg and causing havoc. Other charges
accruing against him involved illegally accessing a Lloyds Bank
computer and BT's network generally.

During the trial, it transpired that Bedworth had dialled around the
world on the Internet, instructing computers in the EC to dial other
networks repeatedly, at a cost of several tens of thousands of pounds.
His own mother's phone bill, meanwhile, came to several hundred pounds
as she struggled to come to terms with her son's computer problem.

Speaking with Newsbytes, Peter Sommer, a computer security consultant
and the author of the Hacker's Handbook, written under his pen name of
Hugo Cornwall, said he was surprised at the not-guilty verdict, given
the nature of the defense. "I think it was successful because the jury
is looking to let the guy off, due to their heavy-handed behavior
when they arrested him," he said.

According to Sommer, although the defence of computer addiction was an
unusual one, it was able to beat the charges involved.

"In law, to make a prosecution of this type work, you have to ensure
that there is the "mens rea," the reason of intent. To convince the jury
otherwise, you have to demonstrate that the compulsion is sufficiently
strong to overcome the intent, as has clearly happened in this case,"
Sommer said.

Sommer dismissed suggestions that the result of the case is a "hacker's
charter," allowing anyone to hack away at online systems legally. He
said, however, that he does not view the "threat" of "hackers" such as
Bedworth as a major one in his line of work as a security consultant.

"There are very few (hackers). These cases are always very interesting
but a distraction from the more mundane," he told Newsbytes, adding
that the bottom line for many companies was a massive build-up of
defenses against the perceived threat of computer hackers.

At a press conference held immediately after the trial's conclusion,
Kelman said that its significance was nothing to do with the wrongful
acts its sought to punish, "but the realization that maybe what is
required is a little more understanding and a little less
condemnation."

Kelman pointed out that his client was a second generation "anorak" (a
popular name for computer enthusiasts in the UK) but there are now
large numbers of third generation anoraks at large, all of whom are
well versed in computers.

"The child, whose best friend is a computer rather than a person, is
not going to function normally in society. We need to be able to
predict how he will behave and what treatments will restore him to
normal health. Parents must demand that proper research is done into
this important problem." he said.

Press sources are now suggesting that the disastrous outcome of the
case for the Scotland Yard computer crime division may be the final
straw for the authorities, many of whom see the seven-strong division
as unnecessary. Some sources have suggested that the division may now
be dismantled.

And as for Paul Bedworth? In the words of barrister Kelman: "There
will be some champagne corks popping in Edinburgh this evening."

(Steve Gold/19930317/Press Contact: Alistair Kelman - Tel: 071-797-
8987; Debbie Tripley of Hodge, Jones & Allen - Tel: [phone])


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

UK -  British Telecom Urged To Cut Charges 03/17/93
LONDON, ENGLAND, 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Oftel, the British Government-
appointed telecom watchdog, has advised British Telecom to cuts its
interconnect charges. The aim of this is to open up the UK market to
"free competition."

Unlike in the US, where all long distance network operators have
"equal access" to the local telecom subscribers, the UK requires that
the main telecoms service provider, BT, is paid an interconnect fee
for access to its network. The fees are set by BT, which claims they
are fair, but the other telecom companies do not.

Oftel, after auditing the situation, has come to the same conclusion
as the third-party companies. In its published report on the matter,
it states: "Public confidence in the fairness and transparency of
BT's interconnection charges is essential if new competitors are to be
encouraged to enter the telecommunications market."

The audit report, which was prepared by the National Audit Office for
Oftel and the British Government, also recommends that Oftel should
establish a fair rate for interconnects with BT, and open the market
to free market competition.

The report notes that, because the interconnect charges are so
high, BT retains an effective monopoly on all but trunk and
international calls. Even then, consumers have to pay the third-party
company a proportion of the interconnect costs that BT charges in
its call rates.

Oftel, meanwhile, is continuing work on options for accounting
separation within BT to ensure that BT recharges itself for network
access on the same basis as it charges the competition, and that those
costs are reflected in its call tariffs.

The likely outcome of the "request" from Oftel and the National Audit
Office, Newsbytes notes, is that BT will lower its interconnect rates.
This will open the gates for smaller telecom companies to begin
offering their services to subscribers, without the worry of high
interconnect rates.

(Steve Gold/19930317)


(NEWS)(TRENDS)(BOS)(00027)

 ****$5.75 Billion In Software Sold In '92 03/17/93
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- North American sales
of PC application software rose 14.1% in 1992 to a total of $5.75
billion, says a new report from the Software Publisher's
Association (SPA).

DOS continued to garner the greatest amount of revenues among
operating system platforms, but Windows and the Macintosh each
gained a lot of ground on the long-time industry leader, according
to the study.

Word processors and spreadsheets are still the number one and two
application categories, yet these old standbys were surpassed in
growth by home education, entertainment, and financial
applications.

In addition to a yearly climb from the $5.04 billion posted in
1991, the SPA's figures show a 9.6% gain for the fourth quarter.
North American revenues amounted to $1.71 billion for the final
quarter of 1992, in contrast to $1.56 billion for the comparable
period in 1991.

Unit sales shot up even more steeply, increasing 36% for the year
and 40% for the quarter, the report maintained.  SPA researchers
attributed the gap between revenues and unit sales to declines in
unit pricing, together with faster growth in the lower-priced
segments and higher sales of software upgrades.

The numbers used in the study are taken from SPA's Worldwide
Reporting Program.  In that program, SPA member companies report
their sales of PC application software.  Through an analysis, the
sales figures from the Worldwide Reporting Program are converted to
full North American market sales at street-level retail.

An SPA spokesperson told Newsbytes that European sales of SPA
member companies grew at an even higher rate than North American
sales in 1992.  The SPA will be issuing a study on European sales
within the next few weeks, she added.

In North America, revenues from Windows-based applications soared
95.6% in 1992, to a total of $1.93 billion for the year.  Revenues
from Mac-based software stepped up a substantial 20.2%, to a yearly
total of $990 million.

North American sales of DOS-based applications dropped 12.8%, from
$2.96 billion in 1991 to $2.58 billion in 1992.  Despite the
decline, however, DOS remained the largest category, accounting for
45% of all North American revenues.

Although word processors and spreadsheets stayed in the first and
second slots among application categories in North America, word
processor revenues grew only 2% in 1992, and spreadsheet revenues
only 8%.

Several categories oriented to large businesses experienced modest
growth in 1992, but consumer-oriented categories did extremely
well.  Sales of home education software increased by 47% for year,
and sales of entertainment software by 29%.  Revenues from
financial software rose 34%, with personal finance and tax products
responsible for much of the surge.

(Jacqueline Emigh/19930317/Press contact:  Terri Childs, SPA,
tel [phone], ext 320)


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

Borland's dBASE IV 2.0 - Faster, New Commands 03/17/93
SCOTTS VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- It isn't
dBASE for Windows, but Borland has announced dBASE IV version
2.0 is available and the greatest asset of the new release is
speed. Borland says dBASE has forty-seven percent of the
database market.

Borland obtained dBASE when it purchased troubled software giant
Ashton-Tate in 1991 for $439 million. Like Ashton-Tate,
Borland has been facing red ink and falling stock prices since
the purchase, but has cut prices and reorganized to compete.
Borland company President Philippe Kahn loudly blames Microsoft
for the company's woes and says Microsoft's entry into the
database market with low-priced Access and its millions to
spent to promote its database products have driven Borland to
cut prices on its Paradox product as well.

Microsoft last year also purchased dBASE's biggest competitor
Foxpro, when it purchased Fox Software last year. Foxpro was
popular in the database world, but since Fox Software was
privately held, many corporations were reluctant to invest in
it. Now, however, Microsoft owns Foxpro and former Fox Software
President Dave Fulton is heading all the database software
development at Microsoft. However, the price wars between
Microsoft and Borland appear to only extend to Access and
Paradox and have left the power-user database products Foxpro
and dBASE untouched.

The new version, dBASE IV 2.0, is ten times faster than its
predecessor, dBASE IV 1.5, released last year, Borland asserts.
The speed announcement is a definite attempt to compete with
Foxpro, whose trademark has always been speed. Better memory
management and high performance filters are built into the new
version, which are contributors to the increased speed of the
product, according to Borland. The new version also includes
thirty new commands which include improve control of the mouse
by the dBASE developer.

Borland is moving strongly into the international markets with
its products as well. The dBASE IV 2.0 product is being
released in English, German, French, and Spanish translations
with a Japanese version expected later this month.

The new version is $795 and upgrades for current dBASE users
are $95. A separate compiler for making stand-alone,
royalty-free executable files out of code written in dBASE III,
dBASE III Plus, and any version of dBASE IV will be available
soon for an additional $495, although previous dBASE Runtime
users can upgrade for $200. However, in keeping with a
widely published promise Ashton-Tate made several years back,
owners of the dBASE Developer's Edition can receive the dBASE
Compiler for free unless they have already made arrangements
for other Borland products.

Borland has been struggling to produce a version of dBASE for
Windows and that version is well over a year late. However,
Borland representatives say the market for DOS-based database
development is still strong and the company anticipates the
DOS-developer market will move very slowly into Windows.
Borland says it will demonstrate the dBASE IV 2.0 version at
the Federal Office Systems Expo 1993 (FOSE) show April 14th at
the Grand Hyatt in Washington D.C.

Borland also announced an agreement with network provider
Novell to develop a version of Borland's client/server database
product Interbase compatible with Novell networks as a Netware
Loadable Module (NLM). Netware version 4.0 is expected to be
available the first quarter of this year and is designed to
integrate a variety of computer platforms on a single network.
Interbase NLM is being designed to be a structured query
language (SQL) relational database server specifically for the
new version of Netware.

(Linda Rohrbough/19930317/Press Contact: Allison Niday,
Borland, tel [phone], fax [phone])


(NEWS)(GENERAL)(SFO)(00029)

Next President Resigns 03/17/93
REDWOOD CITY, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- Just
a month after announcing that it would divest its hardware
business to Canon, Next's President and Chief Operating Officer
Peter van Cuylenburg is resigning. He has been in the position
since March of 1992. A company spokesperson confirmed to
Newsbytes that "he will be resigning at the end of April."

According to the company, now that Next is becoming a 200-
person software company, both "Next and van Cuylenburg
mutually agreed that the restructured company no longer
requires both a CEO and a president/COO."

In February Newsbytes reported that Next was dropping out of
the hardware industry and would concentrate only on marketing
Nextstep, its graphical, object-oriented software environment.

Next is planning to release an Intel processor version of the
Nextstep operating system in the next few months. The new
product will run on Intel 486- and Pentium-based personal
computers (PCs). Intel has not yet released its next-generation
Pentium chip, but is expected to do so this year.

Said van Cuylenburg, "I have valued my time at Next, and am
pleased to have been able to help Steve (Jobs) make what I
believe are positive changes in Next's strategy. Next is headed
in the right direction, and I will continue to support its
efforts as a consultant. My departure is certainly an amicable
one."

In dropping the workstation hardware line introduced in 1988,
Next reorganized and laid off about 280 employees, leaving a
work force of 200. Canon, which owned 17.9 percent of Next,
reportedly invested $165 million and took over manufacture
of the Nextstep hardware.

No further comment was available from the company by
Newsbytes deadline.

(Ian Stokell/19930317)


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

Virtual Reality Games Pact 03/17/93
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 MAR 17 (NB) -- In a
sign that virtual reality is moving out of the experimental
stage into the commercial stage, Visions of Reality has
allied with two companies to create virtual reality-based
entertainment.

The company has established a strategic alliance with Kaiser
Electro-Optic, and an exclusive software licensing agreement with
Sense8. Under terms of the agreements Visions gains exclusive
rights in the public entertainment market for Kaiser Electro-Optic's
head-mounted display technology. Visions also gains exclusive
rights to Sense8's WorldToolKit software development technology.

In announcing the new agreements, Visions of Reality President
Dan Rice said, "Kaiser Electro-Optic's and Sense8's technologies
are considered to be at the forefront of the emerging virtual
reality industry." Rice says that the company's first product, to
be released later this year, will be a virtual reality-based game
system.

Rice told Newsbytes that, "We have been in business for a year
and a half and we've been talking to Kaiser for a year, and been
working with Sense8 for a year and three months. We feel that
Sense8's software....will definitely keep them in the forefront
of the VR market. We figured it was in our best interest to make
sure we had access to that product, that no-one else had, and to
the entertainment market."

In speaking about Kaiser, Rice told Newsbytes that the company,
"has had 30 years experience in making head-mounted displays
for the military, for the Comanche helicopters, and jet fighters.
I approached Jerry Carrollo and asked him if he would be
interested in making VR head-mounted displays because they
had a product that was very unique that was not out there in the
public domain. So we acquired the entertainment rights to that
product."

Kaiser Electro-Optic is a manufacturer of optical systems used
in cockpit display systems and head-mounted displays for
simulation systems and military aircraft. The company's
technologies are used in the US military's F-18 and Stealth
aircraft, as well as in flight simulation.

According to Kaiser's President Jerry Carollo, the company's
agreement with Visions of Reality is one of the company's first
forays into the commercial sector and the first in the
entertainment market.

Sense8 is a privately held company that markets a three-
dimensional virtual reality software development program.
The company has licensed its technology to NASA to create a
virtual reality-based robotics application for use in
planetary exploration.

Rice told Newsbytes that, "We have the best two companies that
could possibly do anything for virtual reality. We wanted to make
sure that we were the only ones that had that."

Speaking of the VR market and its future, Rice told Newsbytes
that, "I see the entertainment market as taking a tremendous
change in the next two to three years. People will not remember
what arcades are like today. There will be big entertainment
centers, where 20 or 30 people will be networked in, playing in
the same game. Spaceships, airplanes, jets, role-playing
games - it's going to be a big change."

(Ian Stokell/19930317/Press Contact: Michael Fineman or
Barbara Feder, 415-391-4744, Fineman Associates)