News briefs

Hitachi announces 16x CD-ROM

Hitachi has announced a high speed CD-ROM drive for multimedia users. The Hitachi CDR-8130 incorporates a drive mechanism offering users up to 2738KB/s data transfer rate, or a maximum of 16 times that of the original CD-ROM speed of 171KB/s.

Hitachi says that an inner portion of the disk the data transfer rate is 1200 KB/s, while at the outer third of the disk, the data rate is 2400KB/s, with a 90ms access time.

Hitachi's CDR-8130 is available from February, priced at approximately $250.

Mobile Satellite Services to have 8 million subs by 2002

The number of subscribers to mobile satellite services (MSS) will grow from 130,000 in 1998 to eight million in 2002, according to the latest report from Ovum, LEOs, MEOs and GEOs: the Market Opportunity for Mobile Satellite Services.

The report predicts that revenues for the global MSS market by the year 2002 will be US$8.5 billion. Of this figure, MSS operators will account for US$3.7 billion, handset revenues for US$3.3 billion, and service providers for US$1.5 billion.

Development of MSS has been driven by the satellite industry's need to find a continuing role in telecommunications as terrestrial bandwidth becomes cheaper. As a result of advancements in satellite technology, several consortia, such as Iridium, Globalstar, Odyssey and ICO are planning to offer MSS to handheld terminals between 1998 and 2000.

Lotus receives ISO 9001 certification

Lotus has become the first software vendor to receive International Standards Organisation (ISO) 9001 Certification for worldwide customer support.

"Lotus Customer Support (LCS) provides enterprises with the security of knowing that their Lotus IT investments will be consistently supported and maintained regardless of where they do business," said Mike Shanahan, managing director of Lotus Australia and New Zealand.

Contributing to its new standard is Lotus' LotusLink, a suite of new applications enabling their worldwide support processes. It provides customer access to all support information via the Internet and the Web. LotusLink is based on integrated applications including LotusNotes, InterNotes, Domino and Vantive Corporation's Support module.

Australian PC shows outdo Comdex

Current statistics indicate that 35 per cent of Australian homes have a computer and that while one in three homes have just one, some homes have two, three or even four computers under the one roof. This acceptance of computers is mirrored in increasing record attendance for the Australian PC Shows.

PC 96 Sydney attracted some 50,000 visitors over four days, whereas some 250,000 people walked through the doors at Comdex, which was staged in Las Vegas last year.

According to exhibition organiser Chris Murray, in a country that has a population of 250 million people and home to the biggest names in the industry, it's amazing that only 0.1% of the population visited the show. "When you look at the fact that PC 96 Sydney attracted, per head of population, three times the number of visitors that Comdex attracted, not only do you realise how informed Australians want to be, you also realise that Australia represents a significant part of the worldwide computer market."