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 Mon, Jun 8 1992 Date: Mon, 8 Jun 92 05:19:51 EDT Message-ID: 06-08 0000 DECISIONLINE: Technology USA TODAY Update June 8, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network COMPAQ TO ENTER PRICE WAR: Compaq Computer, its profits eroded by low-cost competitors, will introduce four dirt-cheap personal computers next Monday. Two cost less than $1,000. The machines, named Prolinea, are Compaq's answer to fierce competition that forced it into a price war to keep market share. Last year, Compaq had roughly 6% of the $20 billion-a-year U.S. PC market, right behind IBM and Apple. (For more, see special Compaq package below.) U.S. WELCOMES NEW EFFORTS: U.S. and Japanese government officials ended two days of talks on semiconductor trade Friday, with the U.S. side welcoming new efforts by Japanese firms to quickly boost U.S. chip sales. A U.S.-Japan semiconductor trade accord sets a December deadline for achieving a goal of a 20% market share for foreign chips in Japan. The foreign share has stalled at about 15% for two years. TAIWAN, USA REACH AGREEMENT: Following two weeks of negotiations, U.S. and Taiwan negotiators reached an agreement Friday designed to crack down on the piracy of American copyrights and patents by Taiwanese companies. The Bush administration estimates that American companies lose $60 billion in royalties worldwide every year because of copyright and trademark piracy. SIGNAL PROCESSOR MARKET TO RISE: As their prices fall, technology improves and ratios of size to power consumption drop, world digital signal processor sales will triple from $1.3 billion in 1991 to $3.9 billion in 1998 at a compound annual growth rate of 17%, says a study by Market Intelligence. Programmable single-chip DSPS will grow most rapidly, rising from 28 to 39% of total DSP revenues, it says. VIDEOCONFERENCE SYSTEM DUE OUT: Northern Telecom Ltd. says it will enter the desktop videoconference market next Wednesday using personal computers made by both Apple Computer Inc. and IBM Corp. The voice and video calls will be conducted through Apple Macintosh PC and IBM clones that will be fitted with special electronic video microprocessors, called codecs, that code and decode complex video transmissions. ERBIUM ENHANCES FIBER OPTICS: Scientists at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Kokusai Denshin Denwa, Japan's long-distance telephone carrier, say they have found a way to increase the capacity of fiber optics systems. By injecting erbium, a rare earth element, into the fiber, scientists successfully transmitted 5 billion bits of data over a 5,580-mile optic link, the longest trial to date. SUN, GE SIGN DEAL: Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. and General Electric Information Services said Friday they have signed a joint marketing and sales agreement to promote networked, UNIX-based information and document management systems. The new solutions will combine Suns' SPARCstation and SPARCserver systems with GE's expertise in systems integration and developing customized applications. NEW ACCESS:HUB AVAILABLE: Ungermann-Bass has unveiled Access:Hub, a new hub product family that provides unmanaged or Simple Network Management Protocol managed Ethernet connectivity for departmental or workgroup environments. The managed Access:Hub is priced at $1,995. The unmanaged version is $1,395. UNIX SETS NET REQUIREMENTS: UNIX International Friday said it has finalized its comprehensive set of system and network management requirements. The approach will be compatible and interoperable with the Open Software Foundation's Distributed Management Environment when OSF's technology becomes available, UNIX says. The system allows end users to manage heterogeneous distributed nets as a unified system. SPECIAL PACKAGE ON COMPAQ: COMPAQ TO BATTLE CLONE MAKERS: Compaq, which primarily makes high-priced personal computers for corporations, plans to introduce a line of low-priced computers next week. The new machines will not introduce any new major technological breakthrough, but it does make it clear that Compaq is serious about battling the hundreds of makers of clones - PCs that use the same software as IBM's PCs. SMALL RIVALS COULD GET CRUSHED: Charles Wolf, an analyst at First Boston, predicts the Compaq machines - plus the likelihood of Compaq selling them through CompUSA, a nationwide chain of computer superstores - will doom many smaller rivals. "It could well be the most important day in the personal computer industry since IBM introduced the PS:2 in 1987," Wolf says. CONSOLIDATION COULD BEGIN: Wolf predicts Compaq's introduction will help to fuel a massive consolidation of the industry. "The companies that will be victims of the new Compaq are the ones that have been living on price, and price alone. They're going to get creamed," he says, as buyers go for an established company with a reputation for quality. PC HAS TWO MEGABYTES: According to PC Week, Compaq's Prolinea products will feature two PCs for less than $1,000. They will be based on the 386 microprocessor. They come with two megabytes of memory but no hard disk drive. Hard drives are available at extra cost. Compaq will sell two PCs for less than $1,800. They are based on the 486 chip. They come with four megabytes of memory. A hard disk costs extra. (End of package.) 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