Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.tech From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: tech Thu, Jul 23 1992 Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 04:33:09 EDT Message-ID: 07-23 0000 DECISIONLINE: Technology USA TODAY Update July 23, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network COMPAQ'S INCOME GOES UP 43%: Compaq Computer's plan to reposition itself as a low-cost personal computer maker seems to be working. Net income jumped 43% the second quarter from a year earlier, the firm reported Wednesday. Last year, Compaq was stuck selling high-cost PCs to bargain-hungry buyers. "It's an encouraging view," says Eric Zimits, analyst at Dallas-based William K. Woodruff. COMPAQ CAN'T MEET DEMAND: Eckhard Pfeiffer, Compaq Computer's president, says demand for its low-cost PCs is so intense, the firm can't keep up. "Demand has eaten up the capacity we had built into the manufacturing plants," says Pfeiffer. He says he hopes to correct the problem this quarter. "We went from a one-shift operation to a three-shift operation in Houston and Singapore," he says. GE PLEADS GUILTY: General Electric pleaded guilty Thursday to criminal charges and agreed to pay $69 million in fines in a bribery and fraud scandal involving the sale of military jet engines to Israel. GE employees allegedly bribed an Israeli Air Force general to influence his choice of a contractor for military jet engines. VOICE RECOGNIZER INTRODUCED: AT&T Microelectronics has introduced a product that allows users of car telephones to dial a phone number by simply speaking the name of the person they wish to call. The AT&T Voice Recognizer is now available to makers of phones and other products. It is shipped with production hardware schematics and a base set of host control source software. PALMER TAKES OVER AT DEC: Digital Equipment Corp.'s board of directors officially named Robert Palmer as head of the computer company Wednesday. Palmer, 51, immediately joins the board and will become president and chief executive officer Oct. 1 when Kenneth Olsen steps down. DEC has lost $432 million the two quarters ended March 31. It's expected to report another loss Thursday. SUIT FILED AGAINST COMPUMART: Lotus Development Corp., Microsoft Corp., WordPerfect Corp. and Aldus Corp. have filed suit against a privately held Texas computer hardware dealer. CompuMart Inc. of McAllen, Texas is accused of pirating their products for computers it was advertising for sale in Mexico. The suit says CompuMart systematically loaded software programs on to the computer equipment at no extra charge to buyers. MICROSOFT'S EARNINGS UP 52%: Microsoft Corp.'s Version 3.1 of its Windows software sold more than 10 million copies in the fourth quarter, making it the biggest success in computer history, Microsoft says. The firm reported Wednesday a 52% increase in earnings for the quarter that ended June 30, compared to the same period last year. Revenue surged 55% to $815 million from $527 million. NOVELL UPDATES KIT: Novell Inc. said Wednesday Version 1.0a of its Software Development Kit (SDK) for the NetWare Management System is now available. It builds on the previous version, which has been available since April. The list price is $4,995. Developers who have already purchased the previous version will be updated at no cost. PAC BELL HOPES TO OFFER SMDS: Pacific Bell Wednesday asked the California Public Utilities Commission for approval to offer Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS). Pacific Bell says SMDS will provide cost-efficient, flexible data transport for interconnecting data networks and performing a variety of other high-bandwidth applications. Pacific Bell plans to offer service in September. CREATIVE LABS SIGNS DEAL: Creative Labs and E-mu Systems announced an agreement Wednesday. Creative Labs has acquired the rights to use E-mu Systems SoundEngine DSP technology in IBM personal computers. SoundEngine is a digital system that provides synthesized music and sound effects. It allows for the playback of digitally recorded samples, or sounds, which are stored on read only memory (ROM). VIDEO PHONE TO BE OFFERED: GEC-Marconi is expected to begin selling its $700 video telephone in the USA this fall, says Mark Kellner, editor of Report on AT&T. The GEC-Marconi phone has roughly the same screen size as the AT&T's Videophone 2000, Kellner said, and displays the video image at the same rate, 10 frames per second. UNISYS TO PROVIDE SCORING: Unisys Corp. said Wednesday it is providing an integrated, computerized scoring network at the 47th annual U.S. Women's Open Golf Championship which begins Thursday at Pittsburgh's Oakmont Country Club. The network combines hand-held radio terminals provided by NORAND Corp. for score recording with Unisys A4 Series mainframes and Unisys CTOS workstations. Technology Editor: Ed Kelleher. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM