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Down but not out — Sperry stake in Trilogy
Down but not out Sperry stake in Trilogy US-based Sperry has decided to write down, but not write off, its investment in Californian firm Trilogy. As a result Sperry's first-quarter after-tax income is cut by $21.8M, or $0.40 per share. About half of the initial $40M investment remains in Trilogy. Negotiations are under way to decide what the future form of the investment will be. As part of the original deal made in June 1983, Sperry has had access to Trilogy's wafer-scale integration technology. The firm still believes that Trilogy's contribution to its development of computer systems will be important in the longer term. Despite the write-down, which makes first-quarter earnings lower than those for the same period in 1983, Sperry expects fiscal 1985 earnings to be 'significantly better' than earnings in fiscal 1984.
ATE sales up by 20% ATE system builder Data I/O has reported sales of $10.45M in the three months ending 30 June. The US firm's net earnings for the period were $1.558M or $0.19 per share. 'Sales of Data I/O products remained firm in Europe despite the continued strength of the dollar,' said the firm's president Lawrence Mayhew. Compared with results for the same period in 1983, sales have gone up 20% while net earnings went up 37.5%. Over the six months from January to June, sales (compared with January-June 1983) increased by 23% and net earnings by 81%. Data I/O designs, makes and markets its own systems for programming and testing semiconductor devices, mainly ROMs and logic ICs. 'Two new products--Abel, a high-level software design tool, and the In-circuit Programming System - are receiving excellent response from our customers,' added Mayhew.
vol 8 no 7 september 1984
Disc finn figures are 200% better Xebec of the US has announced a 229% rise in sales for the first nine months of fiscal 1984, compared with results for the same three quarters in fiscal 1983. While sales grew from $35M to $115M, net income increased by 216% to $10.1M. Most of the increases occurred in the first two quarters. In the third quarter sales went up 181% and net income by 157%. The income tax rate for the quarter was 32% compared with 48% last year. 'Higher levels of spending on research and development, $3.2M versus $1.2M a year ago, reflect our efforts to accelerate development of new products which we expect to broaden our source of revenue in
fiscal 1985,' said company chairman James Toreson commenting on the latest quarter's results. Xebec makes SASI controllers, disc subsystems and disc drive testing equipment at its plant in Nevada, USA. The firm's increased export sales have helped it to higher tax benefits due to new US legislation on domestic international sales corporations (DISCs). The recently enacted deficit reduction act has eliminated taxes for DISCs. Another US company to benefit from the act is Perkin-Elmer, whose results for the quarter ending 31 July (to be announced) will therefore include a gain Of about $0.26 per share. Perkin-Elmer has also taken a charge of about $0.07 per share to fund a voluntary retirement programme. This is to give employees a once-only chance to retire early if they want to.
Pick wooes health authorities away from Unix Operating system Pick has been chosen in preference to Unix as the basis of a UK regional health authority's (RHA) computer system. South East Thames RHA wanted to install distributed computer systems in 14 district authorities to process local creditor payments. Invoice and payment data had to be sent to the central accounting system, housed in an ICL mainframe. At first a Unix-based solution seemed appropriate. It would have allowed users to access the region's COBOL program library. However, the final choice of hardware was the Zebra system from UK firm General Automation. Zebra was designed to run on Pick. A 256 kbyte Zebra-Pick system has outperformed a 1 Mbyte Unix system in a multiuser setup, according to General Automation. South East Thames ordered 16 Zebra machines for about £700 000. The regional computer staff expect to complete the local creditors payment system before the end of 1984. Word processing and other applications are already under way. Wessex RHA has also invested in
a Zebra system. In this case the Zebra runs the authority's oil purchasing system. The resultant savings to the UK National Health Service are estimated to be £7M annually. Other authorities are using Pick too. District health authority Medway has developed its own system to handle travelling expenses. A nationally funded supplies information system has been designed under Pick in the Birmingham area health authority and is installed in eight RHAs.
UK hea)th authorfties are ~turning to Pick
397
ATE sales up by 20% ATE system builder Data I/O has reported sales of $10.45M in the three months ending 30 June. The US firm's net earnings for the period were $1.558M or $0.19 per share. 'Sales of Data I/O products remained firm in Europe despite the continued strength of the dollar,' said the firm's president Lawrence Mayhew. Compared with results for the same period in 1983, sales have gone up 20% while net earnings went up 37.5%. Over the six months from January to June, sales (compared with January-June 1983) increased by 23% and net earnings by 81%. Data I/O designs, makes and markets its own systems for programming and testing semiconductor devices, mainly ROMs and logic ICs. 'Two new products--Abel, a high-level software design tool, and the In-circuit Programming System - are receiving excellent response from our customers,' added Mayhew.
vol 8 no 7 september 1984
Disc finn figures are 200% better Xebec of the US has announced a 229% rise in sales for the first nine months of fiscal 1984, compared with results for the same three quarters in fiscal 1983. While sales grew from $35M to $115M, net income increased by 216% to $10.1M. Most of the increases occurred in the first two quarters. In the third quarter sales went up 181% and net income by 157%. The income tax rate for the quarter was 32% compared with 48% last year. 'Higher levels of spending on research and development, $3.2M versus $1.2M a year ago, reflect our efforts to accelerate development of new products which we expect to broaden our source of revenue in
fiscal 1985,' said company chairman James Toreson commenting on the latest quarter's results. Xebec makes SASI controllers, disc subsystems and disc drive testing equipment at its plant in Nevada, USA. The firm's increased export sales have helped it to higher tax benefits due to new US legislation on domestic international sales corporations (DISCs). The recently enacted deficit reduction act has eliminated taxes for DISCs. Another US company to benefit from the act is Perkin-Elmer, whose results for the quarter ending 31 July (to be announced) will therefore include a gain Of about $0.26 per share. Perkin-Elmer has also taken a charge of about $0.07 per share to fund a voluntary retirement programme. This is to give employees a once-only chance to retire early if they want to.
Pick wooes health authorities away from Unix Operating system Pick has been chosen in preference to Unix as the basis of a UK regional health authority's (RHA) computer system. South East Thames RHA wanted to install distributed computer systems in 14 district authorities to process local creditor payments. Invoice and payment data had to be sent to the central accounting system, housed in an ICL mainframe. At first a Unix-based solution seemed appropriate. It would have allowed users to access the region's COBOL program library. However, the final choice of hardware was the Zebra system from UK firm General Automation. Zebra was designed to run on Pick. A 256 kbyte Zebra-Pick system has outperformed a 1 Mbyte Unix system in a multiuser setup, according to General Automation. South East Thames ordered 16 Zebra machines for about £700 000. The regional computer staff expect to complete the local creditors payment system before the end of 1984. Word processing and other applications are already under way. Wessex RHA has also invested in
a Zebra system. In this case the Zebra runs the authority's oil purchasing system. The resultant savings to the UK National Health Service are estimated to be £7M annually. Other authorities are using Pick too. District health authority Medway has developed its own system to handle travelling expenses. A nationally funded supplies information system has been designed under Pick in the Birmingham area health authority and is installed in eight RHAs.
UK hea)th authorfties are ~turning to Pick
397