IAT-CNR - The Institute for Telematic Applications (IAT-CNR) is a new CNR Institute, established in Pisa as a result of a restructuring of the CNUCE Institute. The mandate of IAT is to carry out research in information technologies and telematic services and to maintain the basic scientific information infrastructure of CNR at the leading edge of the technology. The main activities will be concentrated in the following areas: wideband networking; new generation telematic services; management of information centres; planning and management of local, urban and geographical networks. IAT comes under the supervision of the CNR Committee for Information Science and Technologies. The Institute currently has 28 permanent staff members and this number should be increased to 40 in the near future. For further information, see the IAT web site: http://soi.cnr.it/ ~rat/ENG/index.html.

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INRIA - Chorus Systems, a spin-off from INRIA that supplies micro-kernel technology, was bought out by the American company, Sun Microsystems, in September 1997. This buy-out should allow Sun Microsystems to gain entry into the integrated operating systems market and to thus extend its prominence in business, Internet and Intranet software. Chorus Systems will in time become part of a new division of Sun Microsystems which will develop operating systems with emphasis on embedded applications. This acquisition of a French technology company by a large American group was preceded some time before by a French buy-out of an American company in August 1997. Ilog, one of the INRIA start-ups, bought an American technology company, Cplex Optimisation, founded by Professor R. Bixby of Rice University. This company works in the area of optimization software.