
News briefs
Lunn Poly has awarded a deal to Amadeus Marketing UK to provide its primary Computerised Reservation System (CRS) used by the travel agent's 800 outlets nationwide. Amadeus will provide Lunn Poly with a customised PC-based solution related to the AmadeusPro Tempo product. Thanks to interface software specifically designed by UK travel technology provider FSS, the 800 Lunn Poly shops will process all their scheduled airline bookings transparently from their terminals. Amadeus Marketing has dedicated a special project team to provide Lunn Poly with training, full-time consultancy services and extensive customer support.
National Semiconductor has reported second quarter net income of $29.5 million (#17.3 million) compared with $79.8 million last year. Sales for the quarter were $661.5 million, compared to $711.6 million a year ago.
NatSemi's CEO, Brian Halla, said: "The strength of sales and new order rates in October and November is encouraging, but we'll wait until after the holidays to take the cork out of the bottle."
Anti-virus developer Dr Solomon's has poached Guye Nowell from rival Cheyenne. Nowell, who has been appointed as major account manager for Dr Solomon's in the UK, will be responsible for looking after Times 1000 corporate accounts. Nowell has 13 years experience in pre-sales and sales roles, including stints at Novell, Banyan and 3Com.
Logica, the publicly quoted computer services group, has entered the French market through the acquisition of Axime Ingenierie. UK-based Logica paid FF161 million (u18.4 million) cash for the company, based in Paris but with operations throughout France, Belgium and Luxembourg.
AMD plans to lay off a further 250 US employees in a move officials said would "reduce costs and align skill sets with anticipated future needs". The cuts are in addition to 200 staff AMD laid off in September.
The latest cuts will affect workers at the company's headquarters and at a manufacturing facility in Austin Texas. AMD, which reported losses for the past two quarters, also said it does not expect to make it back into the black this quarter either.
Texas Instruments plans to outsource the manufacturing of its TravelMate notebooks and could lay off as many as 500 employees. TI has already outsourced manufacturing of its Extensa notebook line. Steve Lair, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing, said the move will allow the company to be more flexible: "Rather than play in the mud and fight the megahertz race, we're shifting from being a box mover to more of a solutions provider."
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