MARKETPLACE ROUND-UP

     An Atlanta-based alliance of minority leaders launched a
boycott campaign against Burger King, "alleging discrimination
against African Americans and Hispanics" (MIAMI HERALD,
1/19)....The first KFC "Colonel's Kitchen" opens today in Dallas,
TX.  It is the company's attempt to challenge Boston Chicken's
market share in the "comfort food" wars (USA TODAY, 1/20)....RJR
Nabisco raised $1.2B from the sale of 19% of its Nabisco food
operations in a move aimed at bolstering its stock price and
reducing debt (N.Y. POST, 1/20)....Next week, MCI is expected to
report "flat-to-down" earnings, "a sorry fourth quarter in an
unusually troublesome year" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 1/20).
....Northwest Airlines posted record fourth quarter profit that
was more than double what Wall Street had expected (WALL STREET
JOURNAL, 1/20)....Apple reported the highest quarterly sales in
the company's history for its first fiscal quarter, with earnings
up 78% over last year's first quarter (FINANCIAL TIMES,
1/20)....A digital tape-editing machine developed by Avid
Technology in Tewksbury, MA, that "whittles down the hours it
takes to search through footage and cobble various tape segments
together" was used by three NFL teams this past season to speed
the "time-consuming" chore of watching game films.  The company
hopes that the machine becomes popular enough so that some day
"all game footage is digitally stored in a central NFL library"
(Carl Desens, BUSINESS WEEK, 1/23 issue).