The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 64

2.D. THE ATLANTA CONSTITTTION, Fri July 22, 1983 1 1 11 1 s. i i r- Telstar puts a 'butler' in your office By Robert Snowdon Jones JUtf Wrllr When people call my home, a stranger answers. A polite but authoritative masculine voice, tells callers that no one is available now but that they may leave their number by pressing the right buttons on their phones. If it's somebody I know, it will give him another number where he can reach me.

If it's someone I don't know, the stranger dutifully records the number, says "Goodbye" and tells me about it later. I have not hired a butler. Instead, I have on loan from American Bell Inc. the Telstar Call Control System, the latest consumer marvel from American Telephone and Telegraph marketing subsidiary. Telstar was introduced in Atlanta Thursday and will go on sale in the rest of the country in October.

At first blush, Telstar seems to be a fancy answering machine with a cold, synthesized voice. But the ivory-colored, foot-long box is packed with scores of features that have been unavailable to average telephone users at the suggested $299.95 price level. Telstar permits homeowners and small businesses to tailor a telephone answering and calling system simply by hooking the box between the telephone and the wall. More importantly, Telstar is the first American Bell product aimed at the mass consumer market that does the kinds of fascinating things most people expect from Bell Laboratories and Western Electric Co. The Telstar has its drawbacks.

Unless you have pre-programmed a caller's number into the 50-name directory, Telstar can't tell you who called, only the number. It also can't pass on an alphabetic message be- LOUIE FAVORITEStart The ivory, foot-long Telstar box offers many features that had been unavailable at its price Cox's income up 14 over same period last year From Sl Rport Cox Communications Inc. reported Thursday that its second quarter net income increased 14 percent to $21.4 million, or 76 cents per share, from $18.9 million, or 66 cents per share, in the same quarter last year. The Atlanta-based company's revenues increased 20 percent to $157.4 million, from $131.3 million last year. The results included a $2.2 million pretax gain on the sale of a cable system in Marquette, Mich.

William A. Schwartz, president, said all divisions contributed to the second-quarter gains. Cox Cable Communications, a wholly owned subsidiary, had a 27 percent increase in operating income to $11.9 million. The broadcast division's operating income Georgia Earnings Roundup increased 10 percent to $25.1 million. Cox's automobile auctions posted a 30 percent rise in operating income to $5.3 million.

For the first half, Cox's net income rose 8 percent to $34.9 million, or $1.23 per share, compared to $32.2 million or $1.13 per share for the same period a year ago. Equifax Inc. Equifax Inc. reported that its second quarter net income rose 39 percent to $5 million, or 71 cents per share, compared with $3.6 million, or 54 cents per share, for the same period a year ago. Revenues for the Atlanta-based company, which provides information-based administrative services to businesses and governments, rose 10 percent to $121.2 million, compared with $109.8 million in the same period a year ago.

J.V. White, president and chief executive officer of Equifax, said the growth was due to improving economic conditions that have resulted in a stronger market for homes, automobiles and consumer goods. Cousins Properties Cousins Properties Inc. reported Thursday that net income for its first half fell 64 percent. The Atlanta-based real estate firm earned $2.3 million, or 31 cents per share, in the period, compared to $6.2 million, or 86 cents per share, in the first half of 1982.

Revenues were $7.5 million, compared to $18.8 million a year ago. goes off, Telstar can hold all messages for at least an hour through the use of a "super" capacitor that charges up while the set is on. Telstar can store SO names and phone numbers in a directory. If you don't want to look up a phone number, you spell the first few letters of the person's name, and Telstar will dial for you. It can store 30 messages, queueing them up and recording what time they were received.

It doesn't have true call forwarding, but it will give out a forwarding number to anyone designated through the device's "screening" mode. Many features, including message retrieval, can be accessed from a remote telephone. When screening is used, the Telstar only rings the phone when it receives a number authorized by its owner. Telstar can also be adjusted to let the phone ring up to 15 times before it answers. cause it can't record voices, only codes sent to it from a push-button phone.

Alysa Subtelny, of the Yankee Group, a Boston-based consulting firm, also points out that many areas of the country don't have push-button phones yet, so American Bell is selling Telstar to a rather limited market The Yankee Group also thinks the Telstar could be ahead of its time, hitting the market with complex services just when most people are getting used to simple call-forwarding or call-waiting features. Telstar's voice, while better-sounding than some speech synthesizers and called "friendly" by American Bell, will turn off callers who already hate to deal with answering machines. Telstar's special features, however, could outweigh the drawbacks for some users. Telstar's internal workings are controlled by a microprocessor, which means there are no moving parts to wear out If the power Porex Corp. to acquire vitamin and mail-order drug business By Scott Kilmaa niv! thl National Pharmacies.

The role in medical cost containment," said abilities of the acquired businesses. under the name National Pharmacies. The Martin J. Wygod, Porex chairman and Porex expects to complete tne acquisition in late August The company said the transaction will increase the number of outstanding Porex shares from about 6 million to 8.3 million. Of the 2.3 million Porex common shares it is receiving, APL said it will sell 1.8 million of the stock in an underwritten public offering.

Sttfl Writ Porex Technologies Corp. said Thursday that it has agreed to acquire the data processing center and mail-order pharmaceuticals and vitamin businesses of APL Corp. for $50.7 million in stock and cash. The mail order business operates vitamin goods are sold under trademarks that include Foods Plus, as well as house-brand labels. "National Pharmacies is one of the leading companies in the funded mailorder prescription Industry, which is an industry we believe will play an important president Porex, a Fairburn-based maker of porous plastic products for medical and industrial uses, is purchasing the units of New Jersey-based APL for 2.3 million shares of Porex common stock, $3 million in cash and the assumption of certain li Packard gains $1.2 billion in rally Business in Brief Limited Offer 9.95-30 Year Fixed Rate Financing CondominiumsTownhouses 90 Loan To Value Duet Financial P.O.

Box 52441 Atlanta, Georgia 30355 (404)2920907. his electronics company 44 years ago on an investment of $538 in partner William Hewlett's one-car garage in Palo Alto, has seen the value of his 18.5 percent stake in the company climb 134 percent to $2.1 billion between Aug. 12, 1982, and July 1. During the same period, the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 57.7 percent from 776.9 to 1225.3. Unittd Prm Intfrnatlontl NEW YORK David Packard, the co-founder and chairman of Hewlett-Packard has become $1.2 billion richer since the Wall Street stock market rally began last August, Fortune magazine reported in its latest issue.

The bull market has also swelled the fortunes of 52 other individuals by at least $100 million each, Fortune said. The 70-year-old Packard, who started IMllil Warner reports $283.4 million loss for quarter Warner Communications Inc. dropped another bombshell Thursday, reporting that it posted a $283.4 million second-quarter loss that stemmed mainly from a $310.5 million operating loss by Atari its ailing video game and home computer unit Wall Street had expected a big loss by Atari in the quarter, but the actual amount was well above expectations. After leading the video-game explosion in 1980 and 1981, Atari, which Warner acquired in 1976, ran into trouble beginning last year when retailers began canceling orders for Atari's video-game cartridges. Analysts said it then became evident that the intense competition had caught up with Atari at the same time the overall market for video-game products began to slow.

Esmark wins in takeover bid Anderson Clayton Co. dropped its bid to acquire Norton Simon Inc. after Esmark Inc. sweetened a competing offer that Norton Simon had already accepted. Later Thursday, Norton Simon Chairman David Mahoney resigned.

It was a June announcement by Mahoney that he was leading a bid to buy his company and take it private that brought on a bidding war. Although Norton Simon accepted Esmark's earlier offer in late June, the outcome of the takeover battle remained in because Anderson Clayton's bid was still in effect Ford to raise prices 2.3 Ford Motor Co. said it is raising the prices of its 1984 models an average of 2.3 percent or a little over $200, with the smallest increases coming on small cars and the largest on luxury models. A Ford spokesman said the automaker decided to announce retail price ranges early because dealers are running out of cars. "Our stocks are low and we welcome all the 1984 orders," the spokesman said.

Dole urges new textile pact 1 Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) said a new textile agreement should be negotiated with China as quickly as possible so that the Chinese, the biggest customer of U.S. wheat producers, will resume their wheat purchases. Dole sent a letter to President Reagan in an effort to counteract the efforts of senators from textile states who reportedly have urged the president to delay the seventh round of U.S.-Chinese tex- the chjneloaded WHEAT SALES A CONCERN Sea. Robert Dole tile talks, scheduled to begin Monday in Geneva.

Sears unveils futuristic store Sears, Roebuck and the nation's largest retailer, unveiled a "store of the future" in King of Prussia, that it said would set the stage for dramatic changes in its stores across the country. Edward Brennan, chairman and chief executive officer of the Sears Merchandise Group, said the new store near Philadelphia is the product of a three-year program in which planners "literally tore apart the store on paper and then reassembled the more than 770 lines into a new, more exciting environment" Superstar TV goes off the air Superstar TV, a pay-television service using Channel 69 in Atlanta, will cease operations at 3 a.m. Saturday, said Herbert Broadfoot II, the trustee appointed for the service by a federal bankruptcy judge. Subscription Television of Greater Atlanta, a partnership that owns Superstar TV, filed for bankruptcy protection on April 28. Superstar TV rented air time on Channel 69 for nighttime showing of recently released movies.

Subscribers paid for decoder boxes to unscramble the Channel 69 signal. Broadfoot said the chance of subscribers getting refunds is "very slim," and he urged the subscribers to retain the decoder boxes until contacted. Morris sells New York paper Savannah-based Morris Newspaper Corp. sold The Mount Kisco Patent Trader, a New York newspaper that has been serving Westchester and Putnam counties since 1946, back to its founding family. The paper has been Eurchased by an investment group eaded by Cecil J.

North Jr. and Carll Tucker, whose father, Carll Tucker was the paper's founder. Fewer Ps, et. TpnUff Your IBM W- MjSWto" probably aw9 Correction Amplification Lanier Business Products Inc. is scaling down its distribution of word processors -made by AES Data but the company is not immediately dropping the line, as reported in Thursday's editions of The Atlanta Constitution.

The company re- tains exclusive distribution rights through September 1983 and non-exclusive rights through September 1984. It is the policy of this newspaper to correct all errors in fact appearing in our news columns..