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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Monday, June 26, 2000

Teamsters sign up Oahu lab workers

In a move it says sets a unionization precedent in the medical technology industry, the Hawaii Teamsters and Allied Workers Union Local 996 has signed up employees of Diagnostic Laboratories Services Inc.

The union said 91 laboratory assistants, medical technologists and medical laboratory technicians at 25 Oahu locations are now part of Local 996, following a successful union election. The union also was authorized to represent two warehouse employees, after a separate election. Mel Kahele, Local 996 president, said Diagnostic Laboratories, which does about 80 percent of the medical testing procedures on Oahu, has told the union it is willing to negotiate a contract.

Maui firms merge home businesses

Two Maui firms, Nishikawa Architects and Crown Construction, have formed a joint venture called Architectural Design & Construction Inc., as an architect-led design-build business. The new firm will be a single source for homeowners to work with in all phases of creating and completing luxury residences.

Inktomi shares fall after Yahoo! snub

FOSTER CITY, Calif. -- Shares of Inktomi Corp. tumbled as much as 20 percent today after Yahoo! Inc., the world's most popular Internet search service, said it would phase out Inktomi's technology in favor of rival Google Inc.

Foster City, Calif.-based Inktomi sank $25.31 to $115.06 in Nasdaq trading after reaching as low as $113. Yahoo said Inktomi's technology will be replaced for general search queries, though it will use Inktomi's search features for its new corporate service.

Google's search service uses a technique called link analysis, which evaluates the relevance of Web pages based on the number and type of other Web pages with connections to the Internet site. That approach means that search results are often more accurate than those provided by most other search services, which scour the Web hunting for keywords. Inktomi has reduced the emphasis on searching as a prime source of revenue in the past two years. Most sales now come from caching software and equipment, which helps to store information from the Internet closer to users, letting consumers retrieve popular files more quickly.

Microsoft weaves Web domination

SAN DIEGO -- Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser is now used by an all-time-high 86 percent of Web surfers worldwide, up 32 percent from 16 months ago, an online study found.

Microsoft's gain came at the expense of Netscape Communications Corp., whose rival Navigator browser controls almost all of the rest of the market, said the study by WebSideStory Inc., which sells Internet audience analysis to business subscribers.

The extent to which Microsoft integrated its browser into the Windows operating system triggered the U.S. antitrust case that resulted in a judge ordering a breakup of the No. 1 software maker. The case is under appeal. Microsoft agreed to separate Explorer from Windows, though the judge concluded the firm had used illegal means to damage competitors, particularly Netscape, which America Online Inc. bought last year. Explorer held 65 percent of the browser market in February 1999, according to San Diego-based WebSideStory. The study showed that, among all Internet visitors, 94 percent are using Microsoft's Windows operating system on their PCs.

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Of Mutual Concern

News for mutual fund investors

Fidelity moves point to possible successor

BOSTON -- Fidelity Investments named Robert L. Reynolds chief operating officer, boosting his profile as a possible successor to Fidelity's chairman, and underscoring the No. 1 mutual fund company's bid to broaden beyond funds. Reynolds succeeds James C. Curvey, who will return to overseeing the firm's capital and venture businesses as he did for 10 years before being named president and COO in May 1997. Reynolds, 48, and Robert C. Pozen, 53, will join Curvey as vice chairmen of the firm. Pozen will continue as president of Fidelity's investment arm. The changes take effect July 3. "I turned 65 a couple of weeks ago, and it's time to move some younger people into management spots," said Curvey, who had planned to stay as COO for only two years, but extended it at the request of Edward C. "Ned' Johnson, Fidelity's chairman and chief executive.

Survey: Money managers become more optimistic

LONDON -- Money managers worldwide are investing more cash in stocks, reversing last month's withdrawal, with U.S. flows at the highest rate since late 1998, according to a Merrill Lynch & Co. survey. The turnaround is accompanying forecasts that economic growth in the United States is peaking. A lower number of fund managers are expecting the Federal Reserve to take further steps to raise interest rates, the Merrill survey reported.

"The gloom that we saw in May has reversed in a very dramatic way," said Trevor Greetham, an investment strategist at Merrill.

Vanguard founder bets on index funds, nets $25

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. -- Vanguard Group founder John C. "Jack" Bogle Sr., champion of the index mutual fund, recently won the biggest bet of his life -- and collected $25. Bogle bet Robert Markman, president of Edina, Minn.-based Markman Capital Management Inc., in 1995, that Vanguard 500 Index Fund, a fund that seeks to replicate the Standard & Poor's 500 index's performance, would beat the Markman Moderate Allocation Fund, an actively managed fund over the next five years. "I'm usually a $5 bettor, so I look at it as being 400 percent larger than usual," said Bogle, who stepped down last year as senior chairman of the second-biggest U.S. mutual fund company, which he founded in 1974.

When the bet ended, Vanguard 500 Index had a 226 percent cumulative pretax return, while Markman Moderate had returned 156 percent. "Enclosed is a check for $25," Markman wrote to Bogle April 19. "I trust you (will) invest it wisely."