Groovy computer noise: Singapore computer equipment maker Creative Technology has announced that it will acquire audio component manufacturer and retailer Cambridge SoundWorks, bringing together the huge worldwide supplier of soundcards and other multimedia peripherals with one of the top-five manufacturers of multimedia speakers. The first line of computer-audio products co-developed by the two companies - dubbed DeskTop Theater and meant to take advantage of DVD's digital sound-quality - will be introduced next month at Comdex.
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Trickle-down death: In the continuing fallout from Apple Computer's decision to discontinue its Macintosh clone-licensing program, Power Computing is the target of a suit by the Taiwan-based manufacturer of its computer casings and internal power supplies.
TCI Manufacturing Ltd., a 40-person Canadian-owned company based in Taiwan, filed the US$42.75 million breach-of-contract suit on Tuesday, alleging that Power simply canceled huge orders with no notice. "Power Computing was put out of business by Apple, and they got $100 million," said TCI president Patrick Jabal. "Then they put us out of business, and they don't want to give us anything."
Power's response was not overly empathetic.
"While we can certainly empathize with TCI's difficult decision to lay off 35 employees, the lawsuit is without merit," said Power founder Steve Kahng. "It appears to be a public attempt to renege on the $1.1 million debt that TCI currently owes Power Computing." (31.Oct.97)
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Fax with your voicemail? Xpedite Systems, a leading supplier of "blast fax" services, is in the final stages of negotiations to be acquired by Premiere Technologies Inc., a telecom systems integrator and provider of voice messaging services. The likely merger, the terms of which have not been disclosed, is the latest evidence of a shakeout among fax technology suppliers - a venerable analog phone line technology now in the process of being devoured by the Internet and the radically cheaper economics of "store-and-forward" technology that circumvents transmission over costly voice circuits. (31.Oct.97)
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Closer to Microsoft: Microsoft and Unisys beefed up an existing partnership Thursday to provide Windows NT service and support to financial services and government markets, a Unisys stronghold. Unisys will train 2,000 service technicians to provide NT support and integrate its own enterprise server technologies into Microsoft's corporate OS. In exchange, Unisys will adopt Microsoft enterprise and Internet software for up to 30,000 employees over the next three years. (30.Oct.97)
Eric Auchard, Mike Tanner, and Kaitlin Quistgaard of the Wired News staff contributed to this report.
