Newsbytes Daily Summary
Newsbytes - March 10, 1998 15:02
%GENERAL %MSP EGGS NCDI VOCLF RMBS AMD GE DSLGF MSFT XRX DOCSF FULCF CY COMS USRX MCIC BKS CSCO V%NEWSBYTES P%NBYT
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, U.S.A., 1998 MAR 10 (NB) -- These are capsules of all today's news stories:
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------------| N E W S B Y T E S D A I L Y S U M M A R Y |----------
------------| Tuesday, March 10, 1998 |----------
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(c) Newsbytes News Network (Tm) Editor in Chief: Wendy Woods
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NOTE: This synopsis of the day's reports on the Newsbytes wire service are first paragraphs only. To read full text of any report subscribe to our Website at newsbytes.com. Questions? Email wendy@newsbytes.com
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CATEGORY HEADLINES (*** indicates today's top stories) STORY #
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APPLE XLR8's MACh Speed G3 Now Available For Mac Users........... 39
BROADCAST Asiasat Orders Satellite Replacement....................... 08
BROADCAST Merger Will Make MGI A Division Of Discreet Logic.......... 20
BROADCAST Cable & Wireless Looking To Leapfrog Ahead On Digital TV... 42
BUSINESS NCD Says Modest 1st Half Loss Expected..................... 02
BUSINESS Fujitsu To Distribute VocalTec Products Worldwide.......... 03
BUSINESS EIAJ Announces 1997 Japan Consumer Electronics Shipment Dat 10
BUSINESS PC Docs Completes Fulcrum Buyout........................... 29
BUSINESS Netherlands - Reed/Wolters Merger Is Off................... 41
BUSINESS Cisco Buys NetSpeed for $236 Million....................... 44
CHIPS Matsushita To License Rambus Technology.................... 06
CHIPS Second Joint Fujitsu, AMD Memory Chip Plant Begins Operatio 12
CHIPS NEC To Offer Fast Ethernet ASIC Core....................... 13
CHIPS ****Cypress Semiconductor Cuts Jobs, Scales Back.......... 30
GENERAL Nintendo To Launch Color Game Boy This Year................ 11
GENERAL NewsPix Bulletin For Newsbytes Publishers.................. 17
GOVT Asia Pacific Government E-Commerce Meeting Begins Tomorrow. 14
GOVT British Budget May Give Year 2000 Tax Breaks To Firms...... 35
IBM Lotus To Unveil Document.Doc 2.0, Codenamed Rainier........ 21
LEGAL 20 HK Firms Served With Writs For Piracy................... 15
LEGAL ****Microsoft Sues German PC World........................ 25
LEGAL ****MCI Sees Merger Approval Despite Continuing Probe..... 32
LEGAL Toll-Free Number Dispute Sets UK Legal Precedent........... 37
LEGAL Feds, Telcos Work Toward Wiretap Compromise................ 43
ONLINE Egghead Inks Deal With USA.NET............................. 01
ONLINE XOOM Buys Parachat Online Chat Service..................... 04
ONLINE Cyberian Outpost Signs Retailer Deal With InfoSpace........ 05
ONLINE CitySearch To Adds Three New City Guides................... 07
ONLINE ****Internet Update....................................... 09
ONLINE Information Builders, Inc. Launches WebFocus Suite......... 18
ONLINE New Teen Chat Site Started By NBC/Talk City................ 19
ONLINE Missing Children Cyber Tipline Gets Official Launch........ 23
ONLINE Integralis Publishes Web Content Security Guide............ 26
ONLINE Barnes & Noble Now Hawking Magazine Subs Online............ 38
ONLINE Cities Get Senator's Support For Online Taxes.............. 40
PDA Hong Kong Hosts PDA Symposium.............................. 16
PDA Psion Series 3 PDA Scores With Major Belgian Insurer....... 27
PDA 3Com To Ship New PalmPilot And Memory Upgrade.............. 31
TELECOM German Phone Users Nixing DT In Droves - Magazine.......... 24
TELECOM Utilities Can Sneak Meter Peek With Shared Line Modem Tech. 36
TRENDS Yahoo Says Pittsburgh Tops San Jose As Most Wired.......... 22
TRENDS ****Nearly Half US Homes Have Computers - Study........... 33
TRENDS UK - Netcom Announces Year 2000 Competition................ 34
WINDOWS Xerox Enters Personal Laser Market......................... 28
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These are the headlines and first paragraphs of each story, in order:
1 -> Egghead Inks Deal With USA.NET -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. Egghead.com [NASDAQ:EGGS], which recently announced it was shutting down all of its retail outlets in favor of a three online stores, has announced a deal that will make it the "preferred vendor" in the computer and consumer products category for users of USA.NET's free Web e-mail service. The company recently announced similar deals with Yahoo!, CNET, Geocities and Amazon.com.
2 -> NCD Says Modest 1st Half Loss Expected -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. Network Computing Devices Inc. [NASDAQ:NCDI] said today it expects lower revenues and modest losses in the first half of 1998. It also predicted sales of its thin client systems will ramp-up by the beginning of the third quarter.
3 -> Fujitsu To Distribute VocalTec Products Worldwide -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. Fujitsu, Ltd. [TOKYO:6702] and VocalTec Communications, Ltd. [NASDAQ:VOCLF] have reached an agreement under which Fujitsu will distribute VocalTec's IP telephony network systems worldwide. Initially, the company will offer the products to its customers in Japan.
4 -> XOOM Buys Parachat Online Chat Service -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. XOOM, Inc., a provider of free Web home pages, says it has acquired the ParaChat Network, a free online chat service, from Paralogic Corporation. The two companies also announced a licensing deal for future upgrades to the system.
5 -> Cyberian Outpost Signs Retailer Deal With InfoSpace -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. Cyberian Outpost, an online retailer of computer hardware, says it has signed a deal with InfoSpace to become the exclusive computing hardware product retailer on InfoSpace Web sites. The deal gives InfoSpace a commission for every sale made as a result of the agreement and a cut in revenue from advertising sales that Cyberian Outpost will place on the InfoSpace site.
6 -> Matsushita To License Rambus Technology -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (MEI) [TOKYO:6752] says it has signed a licensing agreement with Rambus Inc. [NASDAQ:RMBS] for its high-bandwidth semiconductor-interface technology.
7 -> CitySearch To Adds Three New City Guides -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. CitySearch has signed deals with three more major newspapers that will result in new city guides featuring content from each partner. The deals were signed with The Baltimore Sun, The Dallas Morning News and The San Diego Union-Tribune.
8 -> Asiasat Orders Satellite Replacement -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (Asiasat) has placed an order with Hughes Space and Communications International Inc. for the Asiasat-3S satellite. The craft, scheduled for launch in early 1999, is a replacement for Asiasat-3, which failed to reach orbit after a rocket malfunction.
9 -> ****Internet Update -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. This is a roundup of new and updated resources and services on the global Internet including: hacking the Pentagon; Web tools; celebrating women's history; nutrition on the Web; consumer legal information resource; collectors online expands; funds directory at CBS MarketWatch; Excite gets NCAA fever.
10 -> EIAJ Announces 1997 Japan Consumer Electronics Shipment Data -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. The Electronic Industries Association of Japan (EIAJ) has announced its December and full year 1997 shipment statistics for the Japanese consumer electronics industry. Among hot products in the year, MiniDisc player growth outpaced other products but large screen TVs and tape decks were also hot items.
11 -> Nintendo To Launch Color Game Boy This Year -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. Nintendo Co. Ltd. [TOKYO:7974] says it will begin sales of its first Game Boy hand-held video system with a color LCD screen later this year. The unit will be launched in Japan, Europe and North America.
12 -> Second Joint Fujitsu, AMD Memory Chip Plant Begins Operations -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. Fujitsu Ltd. [TOKYO:6702] and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) [NYSE:AMD] say shipments of flash memory have begun at their second wafer fabrication factory. The plant is operated by Fujitsu AMD Semiconductor Ltd. (FASL), a joint venture established by the two companies in April 1993.
13 -> NEC To Offer Fast Ethernet ASIC Core -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. NEC Corporation [TOKYO:6701] says it will release a new Fast Ethernet ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) core with a Media Access Control (MAC) function in April. The core represents NEC's first move into the Ethernet device market, where it expects sales to reach $120 million a year in five years.
14 -> Asia Pacific Government E-Commerce Meeting Begins Tomorrow -- By Martyn Williams, Newsbytes. Officials from APEC member governments across the Asia Pacific region will begin four days of meetings tomorrow in Brunei. The 17th Telecommunications Working Group meeting will focus on the promotion of electronic commerce in the region.
15 -> 20 HK Firms Served With Writs For Piracy -- By IT Daily Acting on tip-offs to its hotline, Hong Kong's Business Software Alliance (BSA) has issued High Court writs against 20 small and medium-sized businesses suspected of using illegal software.
16 -> Hong Kong Hosts PDA Symposium -- By IT Daily. The PDA '98 Symposium opens this morning at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The Symposium will look at how personal digital assistants (PDAs) have grown in popularity over the past few years, evolving from low power personal digital organizers to powerful palmtop computers.
17 -> NewsPix Bulletin For Newsbytes Publishers -- By Nick Gorski. Newspix Updates will be posted each Wednesday and Friday to reflect any picture additions for republishers. The updates will in turn become part of the main NewsPix Bulletin issued on Monday.
18 -> Information Builders, Inc. Launches WebFocus Suite -- By Jacqueline Emigh, Newsbytes. At a press conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Information Builders, Inc. (IBI) rolled out WebFocus Suite, a new set of Java applets aimed at extending the ability to create "drill down" business intelligence (BI) reports beyond the relatively small market of business analysts to virtually any user on the World Wide Web.
19 -> New Teen Chat Site Started By NBC/Talk City -- By Bob Woods, Newsbytes. General Electric's [NYSE:GE] NBC said it is targeting teens and those people visiting its "interactive neighborhood," in a new World Wide Web-based chat and bulletin board deal it signed with Internet community provider Talk City.
20 -> Merger Will Make MGI A Division Of Discreet Logic -- By Grant Buckler, Newsbytes. Discreet Logic Inc. [NASDAQ:DSLGF] and Richmond Hill, Ont.-based MGI Software Inc. [TSE:MGI] have announced a merger that will turn MGI into a division of Discreet Logic. The deal will give Discreet Logic, which built its business on upmarket software for high-powered workstations, a presence in the consumer market.
21 -> Lotus To Unveil Document.Doc 2.0, Codenamed Rainier -- By Jacqueline Emigh, Newsbytes. Lotus will next week unveil Release 2.0 of Document.Doc, codenamed Rainier, a major update that will extend management "throughout the document lifecycle," along with adding a new distributed checkout capability and new APIs (application programming interfaces) for corporate and vertical market customization, Newsbytes has learned.
22 -> Yahoo Says Pittsburgh Tops San Jose As Most Wired -- By Bill Pietrucha. Pittsburgh has come a long way from steel to silicon. The city, long synonymous with coal, steel and railroads, is now better known for modems than molten iron, ranking higher than both Los Angeles and the Silicon Valley's capital, San Jose, according to a recent survey by "Yahoo! Internet Life" magazine.
23 -> Missing Children Cyber Tipline Gets Official Launch -- By Bill Pietrucha, Newsbytes. Parents and educators now have a place to go online to report tips and leads about the sexual exploitation of children in cyberspace.
24 -> German Phone Users Nixing DT In Droves - Magazine -- By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes. According to a report in Focus, a German consumer magazine, subscribers to the former state telco, Deutsche Telekom (DT), are departing the service by the hundreds of thousands, now that European Commission (EC) rules have liberalized the market.
25 -> ****Microsoft Sues German PC World -- By Steve Gold, Newsbytes. Microsoft Deutschland [NASDAQ:MSFT] has announced it has taken legal action against PC Welt, the German edition of IDG's PC World, alleging that the March issue of the computer magazine incites readers to commit piracy.
26 -> Integralis Publishes Web Content Security Guide -- By Steve Gold, Newsbytes. Integralis Technology has published what it claims is a comprehensive guide that offers information technology (IT) managers some explanation and advice on content security issues.
27 -> Psion Series 3 PDA Scores With Major Belgian Insurer -- By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes. While Psion is busy persuading potential personal digital assistant (PDA) users that its Series 5 unit is the best choice, there's still life left in the old Series 3a, as witnessed by a major contract that Psion has secured with Royale Belge, the second largest insurance firm in Belgium.
28 -> Xerox Enters Personal Laser Market -- By Patrick McKenna, Newsbytes, Xerox [NYSE:XRX] entered the personal laser market with a $699, 12-page-per-minute (ppm) laser printer and a guarantee of free telephone support, overnight replacements, on-site support and prepaid mailing for printers needing service. Xerox DocuPrint P12 is a critical product for the Xerox Channels Group which plans to expand revenues from last year's $1 billion to an annual $4 billion by the year 2000.
29 -> PC Docs Completes Fulcrum Buyout -- By Grant Buckler, Newsbytes. PC Docs Group International Inc. [TSE:DXX][NASDAQ:DOCSF] said it has successfully completed its offer for Fulcrum Technologies Inc. [TSE:FUL][NASDAQ:FULCF], which is slated to become a wholly owned subsidiary of PC Docs. With more than 93 percent of Fulcrum shares tendered, PC Docs said the offer conditions have been satisfied and it will take up the remaining shares as soon as possible.
30 -> ****Cypress Semiconductor Cuts Jobs, Scales Back -- By Craig Menefee, Newsbytes. Cypress Semiconductor [NYSE:CY] will tighten its belt in a big way as it scales back operations in Round Rock, Texas and Bloomington, Minnesota, and steps away from a test facility in Thailand run by a Thai subcontractor. Cypress said it will take an $85.5 million charge due to the restructuring.
31 -> 3Com To Ship New PalmPilot And Memory Upgrade -- By Patrick McKenna, Newsbytes. The newest model OF 3Com's [NASDAQ:COMS] personal digital assistant, PalmPilot III, ships next month and a $129 upgrade for older units is planned for a June shipping date. US Robotics [NASDAQ:USRX] debuted the first version of this handheld computing device and now reports it has one million users.
32 -> ****MCI Sees Merger Approval Despite Continuing Probe -- By Bill Pietrucha, Newsbytes. The planned merger between WorldCom [NASDAQ;WCOM] and MCI Communications Corp. [NYSE:MCIC] should reach a successful conclusion by the middle of the year, despite continuing antitrust investigations into the $37 billion deal.
33 -> ****Nearly Half US Homes Have Computers - Study --By Sami Menefee, Newsbytes. Preliminary results from a study published in the Computer Intelligence (CI) 1998 Consumer Technology Index (CTI98) show 45 percent of US homes have computers. CI says "wired" homes tend to have children, higher income levels and some college education.
34 -> UK - Netcom Announces Year 2000 Competition -- By Steve Gold, Newsbytes. Netcom, the UK Internet service provider (ISP) offshoot of the US company of the same name, has announced a national competition open to all UK business students and student groups, inviting them to write an essay about how businesses in the UK will operate in the year 2000, with the advent of the Internet revolution.
35 -> British Budget May Give Year 2000 Tax Breaks To Firms -- By Steve Gold, Newsbytes. Rumors are circulating that Gordon Brown, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, will give firms tackling the Year 2000 computer industry a tax break in his budget next week, on March 17.
36 -> Utilities Can Sneak Meter Peek With Shared Line Modem Tech -- By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes. Dataflex Design, part of the Amstrad group of companies, has developed a shared modem technology that it claims will allow utility companies to dial in and remotely download meter readings, without the need for an extra phone line.
37 -> Toll-Free Number Dispute Sets UK Legal Precedent -- By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes. An interesting case involving a legal tussle over the rights to a toll-free alphabetic number, 0500-FLIGHTS, has set something of a precedent in British legal affairs, Newsbytes has learned. The case centered around the "ownership" of the rights to the number, which was operated by Manchester Flights, which marketed aircraft tickets to people calling in on the number.
38 -> Barnes & Noble Now Hawking Magazine Subs Online -- By Bob Woods, Newsbytes. Barnes & Noble's [NYSE:BKS] BarnesAndNoble.com online subsidiary is going beyond its hardback and paperback offerings to offer periodicals to its Net shoppers. BarnesAndNoble.com will also see additional book sales revenues because of a deal inked with The Electronic Newsstand.
39 -> XLR8's MACh Speed G3 Now Available For Mac Users -- By Sami Menefee, Newsbytes. XLR8, a division of Interex, has announced Macintosh users can push their computers to 250, 266, 275 megahertz (MHz) or higher without replacing the entire system. The firm said it is now shipping MACh Speed G3 processors that will do the trick.
40 -> Cities Get Senator's Support For Online Taxes -- By Bill Pietrucha, Newsbytes. The nation's cities, concerned about federal legislation that would impose a moratorium on Internet taxation, received some support this week from Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Mississippi).
41 -> Netherlands - Reed/Wolters Merger Is Off -- By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes. Reed Elsevier, the UK/Dutch publishing company, has announced it is abandoning its planned UKP 32 (US$ 52) billion merger with Wolters Kluwer, the Dutch scientific media company.
42 -> Cable & Wireless Looking To Leapfrog Ahead On Digital TV -- By Steve Gold, Newsbytes. Cable & Wireless (C&W), one of the main cable TV operators in the UK, has announced plans to use conditional access technology from Oracle in its digital set-top box (STB) decoders.
43 -> Feds, Telcos Work Toward Wiretap Compromise -- By Bill Pietrucha, Newsbytes. Taking a less combative tone than a week ago, US Attorney General Janet Reno hammered out a temporary compromise to continue negotiating with the telecom industry over a contentious Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wiretapping plan.
44 -> Cisco Buys NetSpeed for $236 Million --By Craig Menefee, Newsbytes. Computer-networking giant Cisco Systems, Inc. [NASDAQ:CSCO] is buying NetSpeed Inc. of Austin, Texas, the firms announced Tuesday. The purchase, using 3.7 to 4.0 million shares of Cisco common stock, is valued at about $236 million.
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