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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Vayda who wrote (2605)	1/21/1999 10:49:00 AM
From: mmeggs	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Pricing on the converts. Looks like a good deal to me: NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Globalstar Telecommunications Ltd., a Hamilton, Bermuda-based company, priced $350 million of convertible preferred securities in the Rule 144a market via lead manager Bear Stearns & Co., according to MCM CorporateWatch. Terms are as follows: Amount: 7 million shares totaling $350 million Issue Price: $50 a share at par Yield: 8.00% Convertible: at $23.2536, up 22% Call Date: Noncallable for 3 years Debt Rating(s): Caa (Moody's) Not Rated (Standard & Poor's) The issue has a 12-year mandatory redemption. (END) DOW JONES NEWS 01-21-99 09:49 AM Additional Codes (N/HIY, N/HYL, N/TEC, M/TEC, P/DTE, R/BD, R/NME)

To: Jeff Vayda who wrote (2605)	1/21/1999 10:15:00 PM
From: djane	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Semi-OT but kinda interesting. Zi focuses on Chinese text input for phones idg.net Posted: 10:15am Tuesday, January 19, 1999 By Jacqueline Mailloux Cellular phone vendors are expected to launch products that allow Chinese-language messaging this year, according to officials at Zi Corp. Ericsson Mobile Communications last year licensed Zi Corp.'s Chinese-language input technology to integrate into its mobile phones and will release products including the input system in 1999, said Russell McHugh, Zi's vice president for business development. Zi's system provides eight-key, five-key or pinyin input of Chinese characters. In addition, Zi is having “ongoing discussions” with other cellular phone vendors that have a presence in China, McHugh said. “Our advantage is time to market and it is a very difficult implementation,” he noted. Expanded memory in cellular phones, along with the messaging and data capabilities inherent in GSM networks, opened the door for Zi to move into the embedded software space, according to Wally Ritchie, the company's senior vice president and head of research and development. “There aren't any [network] infrastructure changes for this shift to occur -- the networks have this capability today for full Chinese two-way messaging,” said Ritchie, adding that once the phones are released there will be many new services to include messaging. “The mobile phone's role as a text input device will be improved,” Ritchie said, noting that input features will extend across a range of cellular phones, not just those at the high end. For the past year, Zi has honed in on the embedded software market and is working with OEMs to build hardware products integrating the input technology. “We're finding better opportunities in appliance areas,” said Ritchie, citing mobile phones, PDAs and set-top boxes. Focusing on embedded software has also helped solve the piracy problem. “In terms of standalone consumer software sales, Hong Kong and China are not areas where anybody makes revenue streams with people buying software products,” Ritchie said. “Software piracy is so widespread and prevalent … in Hong Kong and China that it's difficult to make revenue regardless of how good your products are.” Zi's strategy has brought some changes to the company. Early last year, the company sold off its translation and Web design units and made redundant some employees in the firm's Canadian office in Calgary. Now, most of the development is based in Beijing, with about 15 people employed there and plans to double that number this year, Ritchie said. Worldwide marketing is now based in Hong Kong, he added. As a result of the restructuring there have been several personnel changes, with at least one resulting in a legal tangle. According to court documents from the Labor Tribunal, former Zi Senior Vice President and Head of Sales and Marketing for Asia-Pacific Don Smallwood made a claim for just over HK$1 million. Zi then filed a counter claim for HK$262,494 related to improper payments and reimbursements claimed as expenses. Smallwood left the company in August last year, Ritchie said. However, the claims were declined by the Labor Tribunal and will be referred to the High Court, leaving them “in limbo” for now, according to Ritchie. “There's a change of focus, and usually when there's a change of focus there's changes where new people come in and people that have been there before leave for various reasons,” Ritchie explained, noting that he is unaware whether Smallwood will pursue the claim. Copyright 1999 IDG Communications (HK) Ltd. All rights reserved. Computerworld Hong Kong is an IDG publication. If you experience any problems viewing this Web site, please e-mail the Webmaster. All comments concerning the content of this Web site should be sent directly to the Editor.