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London Time
Bandwidth trading company Arbinet-thexchange expanded its spot market for telephone minutes last week when it turned up a switch in London, letting members trade phone time on either side of the Atlantic. Increased European demand pushed the company to activate the switch, said CEO Curt Hockemeier.
Navy Smarts
The U.S. Navys plans to equip 360,000 computers with document management software moved ahead last week when Tower Software won a contract expected to reach $100 million — the biggest ever in electronic document management — from Electronic Data Systems, which is building a $6.9 billion intranet for the Navy and Marine Corps.
Painful Plateau
In the first half of 2001, more than nine times as many Internet companies closed as did in the first half of 2000 — 330 this year, compared with 36 last year, Webmergers reported. But shutdowns may have hit a plateau: 53 Net firms died in June, 54 in May. Shutdowns are moving from pure consumer-oriented e-commerce players toward Internet infrastructure, consulting and access outfits.
Security Slide
Baltimore Technologies, a data security vendor in Dublin, Ireland, last week announced plans for a major restructuring, under which it will lay off a “significant” number of employees. Baltimore Technologies, a leader in public key infrastructure systems, has seen steadily declining sales in recent months. The company cut 250 positions, or about 20 percent of its work force, in May.
Downed Messenger
About a third of Microsofts MSN Messenger users had problems with the service last week, ranging from being unable to log on to being unable to use their buddy lists. A Microsoft official said part of the instant messaging database services failed, and so did the backup. The service has more than 18 million users and is a key part of Microsofts plan to compete with AOL Time Warner.
Red Flags
Telecom and tech firms were gushing warnings about second-quarter numbers last week. Britains Marconi said earnings will be cut in half this year, and it will trim 4,000 more jobs. WorldCom cut earnings projections for the year, and Advanced Micro Devices, EMC and SeeBeyond Technology issued warnings of declines.