Stories by Mary Lisbeth D'Amico

Report: Nortel Unveiling IP Networking Technology

Nortel Networks Corp. today reportedly plans to take the wraps off its next-generation networking technology designed to make communications over the Internet faster and more reliable, according to a report in today's Wall Street Journal.

Desktop users see murky future for OS/2

Devotees of the desktop version of IBM'S OS/2 are again pronouncing the death of the operating system, after a company said its negotiations with IBM on adding functionality to the software broke down.

German hackers: companies must confess 'backdoors'

A prominent German hacker group has weighed in on the reported security hole in Microsoft's software security system, demanding that legislators require companies to reveal to users any "backdoors" in its software which allows third parties access to data.

IDC: European Sales of Handhelds To Soar By 2003

The market for smart handheld devices in Western Europe should begin to grow steadily next year and more than triple from its current size by 2003, according to a new report by International Data Corp. (IDC).
In a report called " Western European Smart Handheld Devices Review and Forecast, 1998-2003," IDC predicts that some 7.2 million [M] such devices will be shipped in Western Europe in 2003.

Failed Telco Alliances Create New Opportunities

The announcement last week that global telecommunications alliance Unisource NV will sell off all its assets raises the question of whether such loosely knit ventures are headed for the trash heap of history.
The three most visible alliances -- Unisource NV, Global One and World Partners Co. -- are floundering. However, analysts still see a strong need for players offering corporations broad-ranging telecommunications services that span continents.
Looking at the state of the three largest such alliances, the model for partnerships in which a financial commitment is small, but the number of participants large, seems headed for extinction.

Mobile Phones Boost France Telecom Revenue

Bolstered by growth in the mobile-phone market and international activities, France Telecom SA today said its revenue grew 9.2 percent in the first half of 1999, to approximately 13 billion euros (US$13.89 billion).
That compares to revenue of 11.9 billion euros in the same period the previous year, France Telecom said in a statement today.
The company did not release profit figures, nor did it break out its figures by quarter.

L&H, Nat Semi to Develop Voice-Activated Devices

Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products Inc. (L&H) and National Semiconductor Corp. plan to work together to develop information appliances that utilize a variety of voice technologies, the companies said yesterday.
If the two companies are successful in their development efforts, consumers will be able to carry out voice-activated computing on appliances such as automobile PCs, handheld computers and National Semiconductor's Internet access device, WebPad. Such appliances can be made smaller when they do not require a keyboard for data input.

Unisource to Disband by Selling Off Units

Conceding that it is no longer essential to the strategy of its three shareholders, global telecommunications alliance Unisource NV yesterday announced a plan to individually sell off its units.
Unisource has already made the first move in that direction with the sale on Monday of its Unisource Carrier Services (UCS) unit to U.K. carrier Energis PLC for 200 million [M] Dutch guilders (US$96.7 million[M]), the company said in a statement. UCS provides services to European Internet service providers (ISPs) and carriers of fixed-line and mobile networks.
Unisource's shareholders - Koninklijke KPN NV of the Netherlands, Telia AB of Sweden and Swisscom AG -- last year announced their intention to find a new investor for the floundering telecommunications alliance.

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