REVISITED

B>Be All You Can Be
Multimedia training can be used for more than teaching people skills to enhance their on-the-job performance (WT, July 27). The Army has signed a contract for up to 41 Cheetah Workgroup Video File Servers to be used in job assistance centers nationwide. The servers will be used to provide career training for people leaving the army. Basic skills, such as how to write a resume or conduct yourself in an interview, will be covered as well as more advanced skills, said Gary German of The Network Connection, Alpharetta, Ga. TNCi manufactures the Cheetah server. Full deployment of the servers should happen within 16 months, German said. The server was chosen because of its ability to deliver up to 200 simultaneous video streams, German said. The Army will use 60 streams initially and may upgrade.

BTG Opens McLean Facility
Partly because of its initial public offering in December, BTG Inc. was able to move its manufacturing and reseller divisions into a new 50,000-square-foot facility in McLean, Va., in June. BTG offered 1.6 million shares of common stock on Dec. 16 at $8 per share and raised approximately $8.7 million from the sale (WT, Dec. 8, 1994). BTG's systems integration operation continues in Vienna. Meanwhile, through business process engineering, BTG has consolidated the accounting, manufacturing and sales operations of ACTech and Delta Research, two firms that it has acquired during the past year. BTG hopes to maintain its 50 percent growth rate by diversifying and serving commercial markets.

Digital Stumbles in PC Market
Digital Equipment Corp. has returned to profitability in part due to its strategy of initiating and maintaining channel partnerships (WT, Aug. 10). Unfortunately for the Maynard, Mass., manufacturer, its $1.8 billion PC unit has continued to perform poorly. According to market research firm Dataquest Inc., Digital has dropped from 11th last year to 12th in the PC market, with just 2.3 percent market share.
Ironically, Digital's Achilles' heel has returned to haunt it, as it experiences difficulty in establishing channel partnerships. While it has done well in enlisting distributors, Digital has successfully recruited few retail chains to carry its PC products. Manufacturing delays in the Hi Note PC, Digital's premiere notebook line, left the company unable to fulfill orders for a well-received product. Following a shakeup in which the PC unit's president and chief financial officer departed the company, Digital hopes to expand its PC market during the crucial fall and Christmas seasons.

That Sinking Feeling
Instead of ending up in its intended orbit 360 nautical miles above the Earth, the satellite that Rockville, Md.-based CTA planned to use to sell commercial paging services (WT, Jan. 12) landed in the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 15. Arlington, Va.-based Volunteers in Technical Assistance, or VITA, also planned to use the satellite to provide positioning services to developing countries.
The Lockheed launch vehicle that was to deliver the CTA satellite was about three minutes into its maiden voyage when officials decided they needed to destroy the rocket because it was not performing correctly. Lockheed Martin Missiles &amp Space is investigating the "in-flight anomaly" that led to the destruction of the launcher and the satellite it was carrying.
CTA is now "defining its road map for the immediate future," including discussions to replace the satellite, according to the company. The satellite, which was developed by CTA Space Systems in McLean, Va., was insured against total loss.
There isn't another satellite under construction yet, but CTA's original plan calls for launching a second satellite by the end of 1996.