IN HAWAII

Matson hires ACS to manage data

Affiliated Computer Services Inc., a Dallas-based information technology services business, has signed an $11 million, five-year contract to provide Matson Navigation Co. with expanded network management services and data center management to monitor Matson's freight business throughout the Pacific.

ACS, with more than 35,000 employees in 46 countries, provides outsourced business-process and information technology. It also ran Honolulu's short-lived traffic camera program.

Matson's main business is mainland-Hawaii ocean freight. It is the largest subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin Inc.

ON THE MAINLAND

Intel Corp. posts disappointing earnings

SAN JOSE, Calif. >> Intel Corp., the chip-making giant that had managed to avoid mass layoffs during the technology downturn, said today it is cutting 4,000 jobs. The move came as the company posted lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings.

Demand for chips in personal computers has been weak.

For the three months ended June 29, the company said it earned $446 million, or 7 cents a share, compared with profits of $196 million, or 3 cents a share, in the same period last year. Excluding acquisition-related costs, the company earned $620 million, or 9 cents a share, compared with earnings of $854 million, or 12 cents a share, last year. Sales were $6.32 billion, slightly lower than $6.33 billion a year ago.

Analysts were expecting second-quarter profits of 11 cents per share on sales of $6.35 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Financial/First Call. Intel said analyst estimates do not include a $106 million charge announced last month to close Intel Online Services, its Web hosting service.

UPS, teamsters reach tentative agreement

Washington >> United Parcel Service Inc. and the Teamsters reached a tentative contract to raise wages and benefits for 210,000 truck drivers and other workers and avoid a strike at the world's largest delivery company, the union said.

The accord was reached about two weeks before a July 31 deadline and after negotiators worked through the weekend, according to a Bloomberg News report. Details of the agreement will be released today at a Washington news conference, said Bret Caldwell, Teamsters spokesman. Atlanta-based United Parcel had no immediate comment.

The agreement allows the company to avoid a repeat of a 15- day strike in 1997 that snarled shipments nationwide and cost United Parcel $750 million in revenue. Customers already had begun moving business to rivals such as FedEx Corp., driving down United Parcel's June U.S. deliveries 4 percent. United Parcel has said it can't estimate how many lost shipments it may recoup.

Cell phones put the pinch on hotel profits

LOS ANGELES >> A pocket-sized vermin called the wireless phone is eating a hole in profits of the nation's hotels, taking a bite from one of their most lucrative income streams, according to hotel operators.

Hoteliers say revenues from in-room phone calls -- once an easy profit source because of high mark-ups -- are down by half or more from where they were when wireless phones began to take off in the mid-1990s after a new group of carriers entered the arena with digital service.

The topic was briefly mentioned in a conference call by industry leader Marriott International Inc. in discussion of its second-quarter results.

In-room phone service was once a cash cow for most hotels, as they marked up prices to as much as six times above their actual cost. Now, the mark-up is much smaller, closer to 1.5 times the actual cost.