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World Business Quick Take

■ SEC Chairman
Choice won't be rushed
President George W. Bush isn't in a rush to name a successor to departing Chairman Harvey Pitt at the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card. The administration will move "as quickly as we can, but we want to do it right rather than fast," Card said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Pitt resigned Tuesday after disclosure that he failed to tell fellow SEC commissioners that his choice to head an accounting oversight board, William Webster, had been chairman of the audit committee of US Technologies Inc, a company accused in civil suits of accounting fraud. The resignation was the first departure from Bush's economic team, disrupting the SEC and the administration as they try to restore investor confidence by tightening conflict of interest rules for Wall Street firms.

■ UNIX Server
Fastest version to be sold
International Business Machines Corp said next month it will begin selling a new server using the Unix operating system that will be the fastest machine of its type on the market Prices at US$29,000 to US$60,000, the new server is one-third cheaper than a comparable model made by Sun Microsystems Inc and is 25 percent to 40 percent faster than the IBM server it replaces, said Jim McGaughan, director of E-Server strategy. IBM, the world's largest seller of computers and related services, is seeking additional market share in servers, the fast computers that run computer networks. The company currently ranks third behind Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Computer Corp, according to Gartner Inc's Dataquest unit. The new server will be marketed to small and mid-sized businesses, which IBM defines as companies with fewer than 1,000 employees.

■ Video games
Sega lowers profit outlook
Sega Corp's shares declined for a third straight trading day after the maker of the "Sonic the Hedgehog" series of video games cut its profit forecast and sales outlook for video-game software for the year ending March. The company's shares fell Japanese yen 62, or 6.1 percent, to 950, their lowest since December 2000. Almost 10.7 million shares traded, more than 10 times the six-month daily average, making them the fourth-most active by volume on Japanese exchanges. Last week, Tokyo-based Sega cut its full-year profit estimate and video-game sales, citing competition from foreign rivals in the US. The cuts triggered concerns among investors over the sales outlook for Japanese game software makers. Investors also sold the shares of Nintendo Co and Capcom Co.

■ Circuit printers
Nikon posts loss for half
Nikon Corp, the world's biggest maker of machines used to print circuitry onto silicon wafers, said it had a fiscal first-half net loss and cut its annual sales forecast because chipmakers are spending less on new factories and equipment. Nikon's group net loss was Japanese yen 3.48 billion (US$29 million), or Japanese yen 9.40 a share in the six months ended Sept. 30, compared with net income of Japanese yen 3.04 billion, or Japanese yen 8.22, in the year-ago period, the company said in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. First-half sales fell 8.5 percent to Japanese yen 215.1 billion. Nikon pared its full-year sales forecast 5.9 percent to Japanese yen 480 billion. The company expects to break even for the 12 months ending March 2003.

Agencies
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