The Buffalo News from Buffalo, New York • 4

SUBURBAN GfeKH 'H' Tut BUALO! twi rnripr i RIDAY JANUARY 30 2004 Page B6 Key Indicators DOW 11 am today 4925 1046104 NASDAQ 1 1am today 18 206841 CANADIAN DOLLAR Today 01 cent 7510c GOLD NY' "today $145 $40080 BONDS 10 yr treasury 601 417 BusinessToday CORPORATE SCANDAL Pixar ends Disney partnership HOLLYWOOD Pixar Animation Stu dios on Thursday abruptly halted talks to ex tend its 13 year partnership with Walt Dis ney Co apparently ending one of the most lucrative marriages in movie history 10 months of trying to strike a deal with Disney moving on" said Pixar Chief Executive Steve Jobs had a great run together and a Disney won't be participating in Pixar's future move stunned Disney executives and Wall Street analysts who believed a deal eventually would be hammered out The collapse of the talks came as particularly bad news for Disney Chairman Michael Eis ner He has been under intense pressure from investors to shore up fortunes and continue the partnership with the ani mation company behind last year's top grossing movie The breakup also is certain to fuel thefeud between Eisner and former Disney board member Roy Disney who resigned last month and called for the ouster Among other things Disney said Eisner was bungling the Pixar negotiations turning them into a war of egos with Pixar's equally strong willed CEO The Burbank based entertainment com pany said the deal fell through because Dis ney would have been forced to forgo dreds of in potential profits from upcoming movies we would have enjoyed continuing our successful collabora tion under mutually acceptable terms" the statement said understandably has chose to go its own way to grow as an inde pendent company" I os Angeles limes Kwikset to slash 1200 jobs BRISTOW Okla (AP) Black Decker Corp plans to close its Kwikset lockmaking plant in Bristow by the end of 2005 eliminating about 1200 jobs The Kwikset division of Towson Md based Black Decker said the plant makes door locksets deadbolts knobs and other home improvement hardware Black Decker has been moving pro duction from more expensive factories in the United States and Great Britain to cheaper ones in Mexico China and the Czech Republic ord to lay off 1000 workers ST LOUIS (AP) ord Motor Co said Thursday it will lay off about 1000 workers at its St Louis area assembly plant or about 37 percent of the plant's work force in April ord said the cuts effective April 26 would result from the elimination of one of the Hazelwood plant's two 10 hour shifts ord spokesman Ed Lewis said The plant employs 2700 workers Mortgage rates slightly higher WASHINGTON (AP) Mortgage rates around the country rose this week amid speculation on Wall Street about when the ederal Reserve may begin to push up short term interest rates Mortgage rates 15 vear 30 vear fixed rate fixed rate LAST THIS LAST THIS WELK WEEK WEEK WEEK 4 0701 5 68 497 5 64o 495 Mb I The average rate on 30 year mortgages in creased to 568 per cent up from 564 per cent last week reddie Mac the mortgage gi ant said Thursday in its weekly nationwide survey of mortgage rates or 15 year mort gages a popular option for refinancing rates rose to 497 percent this week up from 495 percent last week Rales for one year adjustable mortgages in creased to 359 percent compared to 356 percent last week In other business news Gateway Inc a money losing personal computer maker that has been selling televi sions to revive sales agreed to buy profit able computer seller eMachines Inc for $2345 million in cash and stock Wayne In ouye chief executive officer will become CEO of Gateway which will many of business model the companies said today Ted Waitt chief executive and founder will remain chairman American Express announced its first deal on Thursday to allow a major Ameri can financial institution MBNA Corp to issue its credit cards in the United States American Express said MBNA will issue American Express branded credit cards starling later this year allowing the compa ny to reach a much larger potential custom er base New York based American Express will also continue to issue its own cards 0 I I Jit lllhwgM I Saturday in Business: National uel Gas Co chief executive Philip Ackerman gives his outlook for the Williamsville based energy company Jurors quizzed as Adelphia case gets under way giant forced it into bankruptcy and used it as their piggy hiding more than $2 billion in debts from inves sion industry tors as they lived lavishly even building a golf course with company money The Greenwood Village Colo company once had 57 million cable subscribers in more than 30 states By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK Several hundred pro spective jurors answered written ques tions Thursday about their investments and backgrounds as the first stage of jury selection began in the trial of Adelphia Communications Corp founder John Ri gas and his two sons Potential jurors crowded into US District Court in Manhattan passing by television tents and camera crews set up for the securities fraud trial of Martha Stewart in an adjacent courthouse The 25 page questionnaire had 56 questions Among other queries jurors were asked whether been a victim of fraud and whether they had any con nection to businesses involving the Rigas family The Adelphia trial scheduled to begin eb 23 is expected to last three months Rigas faces fraud charges along with his sons Michael and Timothy both former company executives and Michael Mul cahey the former director of internal reporting All four have pleaded innocent The Rigases are accused of conspira cy securities fraud and bank fraud for al legedly scheming from 1999 to 2002 to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from the sixth largest cable company costing investors more than $60 billion Prosecutors said they looted the cable Potential jurors were asked whether they had heard read or seen anything in the news media or on the Internet about the case If they had the questionnaire sought to learn whether they could ignore that and view the evidence with an open mind The prospective jurors were also asked if they had trained or worked in account ing banking bookkeeping business man agement investment banking securities financial planning and the cable televi The questionnaire also sought to learn if any of them had ever been a victim of fraud embezzlement theft or misappro priation of funds Prospective jurors also were asked what kind of investments they have and whether they relied on others such as a fi nancial planner or primarily themselves for investment advice Each person also was queried on whether he or she had any connection to more than 100 business entities ranging from banks and law firms to the National Hockey League and the Buffalo Sabres which John Rigas owned until the NHL took control of the team I 1 HIGH TECHNOLOGY I 4 'W' TA 'V p'jf 'J 'fx A I i 't IMMeBkW flHh i': A i MBi kb BMP MMBBS 1 'IwW i iBii ia liblfei 1 IK MBS'! Awi lie BBmkm i 'Mt 'AXIS e7A 6 iM i 1 1 whSMI BILL WIPPERTBuffalo News Russ Miller director of the UB Center for Computational Research checks the new Hewlett Packard Storage Area Network UB builds digital warehouse Data storage area will serve life science research By RED WILLIAMS News Business Reporter Supercomputers at the University at Buffalo crunch a lot of numbers but they have a lot of space to keep them in Now a sort of digital warehouse is being built to store the mountains of da ta that are produced in bioinformatics and other life science research universi ty officials said With 75 trillion bytes of capacity about equal to 100000 CDs the age area will allow scientists at UB and at partner research centers in Buffalo's medical campus to tackle more data heavy projects is actually growing faster than processor speed and storage said Russ Miller director of Center for Computational Research and a senior scientist at Hauptman Woodward Medi cal Research Institute One protein mapping experiment at Hauptman Woodward generates images that take up 7 trillion bytes of storage a year he said The supplier of the equipment is Hewlett Packard the California based computer maker that is a corporate part ner of Center of Excellence in Bio informatics The system equipment and related products would normally cost $18 mil lion an HP spokesman said but UB is paying a discounted price Neither HP or university officials would discuss the uni versity's cost The equipment being installed at supercomputer center at the North Campus in Amherst has arrays of disks and a tape backup in locker like cabi nets Of its 75 trillion bytes or bytes" of storage 40 are available for re searchers the rest devoted to backup tasks Miller said HP is also providing an expert to help run the system initially and funding a post doctoral researcher to work on sharing storage capacity between differ ent locations The customized system is distin guished not only by its size but also its high number of simultaneous users and a high speed for reading data measured in gigabytes per second IIP spokesman Bill Carver said Such high end storage net works are rare except in large data in tensive companies like credit card issu i See Storage Page B9 LIGHTING SYSTEMS profits slide 34 percent By MATT GLYNN News Business Reporter Astronics Corp sees robust times coming just not right away The East Aurora maker of aircraft lighting systems expects its revenues to grow modestly in 2004 But it has espe cially high hopes for 2005 when some of its programs will move into production fully anticipate 2005 will be a banner year with double digit said Peter Gundermann president and chief executive officer lot of things would have to go wrong for us not to achieve that in or now Astronics has to deal with more immediate numbers Its fourth quarter net income fell 34 percent from a year ago to $561000 That was still better than the third quar ter of 2003 when Astronics reported a quarterly loss for the first time in more than 10 years fourth quarter net sales dropped 6 percent from a year ago to $83 million or all of 2003 net income Weaker sales hurt profits Earnings per share $08 $07 aBK 21 MMi MH mb mm M4 1 Quarter 4tb 1st 2nd 4th '02 '03 '03 HlT '03 Thursday close: $575 $600 400 Oct fl Novs Dec Jan A '03 SOURCE: Bloomberg News Buffalo News fell more than 75 percent from 2002 and its net sales dropped 23 percent Those declines reflected the completion of a program involving the 16 fighter which was the biggest contract in As history That program which Astronics fin ished in early 2003 had bolstered its re sults over the previous three or four years Gundermann said "That letup coincided with a severe reduction in the general aerospace mar he said rates on both commercial airlines and business jets dropped significantly over previous bookings and backlog both increased in 2003 Gundermann said But the company expects to incur higher development costs this year as it moves projects along he said of the big programs that we have won and expect to win in the future here will contribute in 2005 and be he said In the short term the company is dependent on aircraft pro duction rates which have stayed Hat Astronics hopes to tap into a new class of lower priced entry level busi ness jets he said Militaries around the world are also showing interest in wotk similar to what Astronics performed for the Air orce Astronics employs about 370 people including 160 ast Aurora mail: niglynnbuffiicwscom ENTERTAINMENT ApplcTree 6 Theatres shut down to relocate get new name By KEVIN PURDY News Business Reporter Il you missed the psychological thril ler during its brief run in the aters fear not You need only wait until eb 6 when one of the biggest second run cinemas reopens as Movie land 8 Theatres in the Thruway Plaza in Cheektowaga JGM Entertainment has closed its AppleTree 6 Theatres in Cheektowaga and begun its move into the Walden Av enue space once occupied by the Thru way Cinema 8 a discount theater for merly run by Dipson Theatres Gary Haak president said the move is good thing for us and for our giving moviegoers a more modern cinema with more screens more seats and an improved sound system like the area and I'm glad we had the option to move into this space It looks like it's going to work out well for us" said Haak Haak said the decision to move his theater was prompt ed by the end of his The move let tse agreement with brings a sght the Apple! rec Busi ness Park when he increase III decided to move into ticket prices the Thruway Plaza cinema space owned by Benderson De velopment and vacant since the Thruway Cinema 8 closed in April of 2002 Along with a new location and newer facilities the move brings a slight in crease in ticket prices Regular showings are now $250 screenings on Wednesday are $150 and a discount package in cluding a small drink and small popcorn is $450 all 50 cents more than the Ap pleTree 6 prices Haak believes the 21? mile move down Walden Avenue will bring more customers to the discount cinema as the Thruway Plaza location brings it closer to both bus stops and large retailers such as the nearby Wal Mart Home De pot and Tops Markets stores requent customers of the AppleTree 6 Theatres are also extremely loyal Haak said out of 10 of our customers we talked to said follow us to our new said Haak basically the same market but a better location" Although some sections of the former Thruway Cinema location date back to its opening in 1977 by General Cinema much of the space consists of additions built less than 15 years ago Haak said The new cinema will seat more than 2300 at capacity nearly 800 more than the AppleTree's 1550 and offer Dolby and THX ccrtified sound When the theaters reopen movie goers can expect to see offerings such as the Civil War drama Missing" Dis "Brother and the live action adaptation of "Dr The Cat in the Hat" to be showing soon With more screens Haak said the theater be come a bit more offering more independent and art films The second run market has been a tough but rewarding one for Haak and JGM which opened in the AppleTree location nearly four years ago The first two years were a struggle to break even Haak said but the last two years have seen some growth in the market due in part to the closing of nearby Thruway Cinemas mail: kptirclyla buffiiewscom Suburban IMIMMMi.