Word: pcs
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...enthusiasts to replace the beep with a boing, a clink-clank or a monkey's chirp. Finally, last spring Microsoft put sound- control software in the latest version of its Windows program, extending the power to customize a computer's noises to the 90 million owners of IBM PCs and compatible machines...
...corner of the customization market is booming quite like the one for booms, zooms and wisecracks. There are already more than a dozen programs offering a wide variety of sounds for Macintosh computers and Windows-equipped PCs, and more are on the way. Most follow the same basic format: they display a menu of dozens of prerecorded sounds and, next to that, a corresponding menu of "system events" the sounds can be linked to, from start-up to shutdown and everything in between...
...profiting from some Japanese misfortunes. Japanese semiconductor companies have been able to dominate world markets by feeding chips to Japan's own consumer-electronics industry. About 42% of all chips made in Japan are consumed by such companies as Sony and Panasonic. But as global sales of TVs, VCRs, PCs and telephones have fallen because of the worldwide economic slump, so have the fortunes of Japanese chip companies. At NEC, profits are down 71%; at Toshiba, earnings are off 39%. As a result, the Japanese have retreated from some markets. Fujitsu, for example, is closing its U.S. chipmaking plant...
...crazier. Compaq, which set off a fierce price-cutting war this summer when it slashed its PC prices one-third, has trimmed the tags on some models an additional 32%, bringing the cost of its cheapest desktop machine to below $800 -- a fraction of what customers were paying for PCs with a lot less memory and power just a few years...
Bloomberg may need all three to prevail. Customers are starting to move away from specialized terminals, like the Bloomberg, that cannot be linked to standard PCs or run off-the-shelf software. Some large vendors have already made the investment to switch to "open" systems. Knight-Ridder has developed a PC-based service using Microsoft's popular Windows program. Reuters is teaming up with PC-maker Intel. And EJV Partners, the joint venture of six Wall Street firms, is building a system designed to run on personal computers. But Bloomberg stubbornly rejects this approach. He fears that he would lose...