Borders will open 23,000-sq.-ft. store in Flowood, Miss., in spring. Chain said location would offer more than 200,000 books, CDs and DVDs.

Paul Rice, ex-Apogee Acoustics, joins professional audio supplier Mackie Designs as exec. vp-sales… Jonathan Brooks to resign as Arm Holding CFO effective March 1, to be replaced by Timothy Score, ex-Rebus Group.

E-commerce sales will account for 9.8% of total sales by end of 2004, increasing to 16.5% by 2006, said telecom industry experts surveyed by U. of Southern Cal.’s Marshall School of Business in collaboration with International Engineering Consortium. Resulting Telecom Outlook Report said Internet was most important driver of telecom industry, followed by opening of local access markets, market liberalization and increasing competition. More than 70% of experts said they believed that “clicks-to-mortar,” physical presence combined with online channel, was most profitable strategy for e-commerce. Survey, which concentrated more on telecom issues, also found only 50% of experts saw videoconferencing becoming substitute for face-to- face conferences until 2003. Experts said significant growth required bandwidth, increases in processing power and new combinations of services through video-over-IP -- 312-559-4609 or www.iec.org.

Dolby Labs said it acquired “strategic stake” in Australian DSP supplier Lake Technology, company with which it developed and started licensing Dolby Headphone specification in 1998. Dolby will purchase $1 million equity in Lake at start and has options on $2 million loan that can be converted to Lake shares later. Dolby spokesman said investment represented just under 5% stake in Lake at start, growing to 15-16% depending how and when Dolby exercised its options. Investment marks first time Dolby has taken “a direct equity stake as part of a strategic relationship,” said Ed Schummer, senior vp-gen. mgr. of Dolby’s Consumer Div. As part of equity agreement, Dolby Pres. Bill Jasper will take seat on Lake board and Schummer will be alternate.

Fathammer, San Jose, Cal.,said it optimized X-Forge mobile videogame engine for Intel’s StrongARM SA-1110 processor and XScale microarchitecture. Fathammer said engine provided game developers with ability to deliver high frame rate, console- quality 3D games with low memory footprint on wide variety of handheld game devices, PDAs, smartphones.

Infogrames said it started shipping 2 new videogames featuring its pint-sized superhero Pajama Sam -- Games to Play on Any Day for Windows and Macintosh and You Are What You Eat From Your Head to Your Feet. Game maker said latter title represented character’s PlayStation debut. E- (Everyone) rated games are priced at $19.99 each.

Total broadband users at home in U.S. are growing far more rapidly than overall Internet audience, Nielsen/NetRatings said. Internet audience measurement service reported record 21.3 million broadband users in U.S. in Nov., up 90% from 11.2 million year ago, compared with 11% growth of total Internet audience to 105.5 million from 95.4 million. Increase in broadband connections benefits streaming media providers, report said. Streaming audience grew 94% to 12.7 million in Nov. from 6.6 million year ago, it said. Overall streaming population -- broadband and narrowband -- increased 18% to 40.7 million from 34.4 million. “Broadband is a main driver behind streaming media, with 3 out of every 5 broadband users now accessing some form of online audio or video,” NetRatings spokesman said. Usage historically has spiked around major news events as Web surfers logged on to Internet for breaking news on Election 2000 and events of Sept. 11, he said.

Ritek obtained $274.6 million loan from consortium of 12 Taiwanese banks to fund purchase of equipment for manufacturing organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) and polymer (OLEDs). Consortium was led by Land Bank of Taiwan, and Ritek received loan through Taiwan’s Council for Economic Planning & Development. Money will used to buy equipment to outfit to 2 passive matrix (PM) color OLED production lines and single polymer OLED line. Production of PM OLED is scheduled to start in 2nd quarter, polymer in 3rd quarter. Among Ritek’s customers is Three-Five Systems-Dupont Displays joint venture that’s expected to begin production of OLEDs for handheld PC and cellular phone applications in 2nd quarter 2002.

SonicBlue escalated battle with rival TiVo Wed., saying it would file suit for patent infringement in U.S. Dist. Court, San Francisco. CEO Kenneth Potashner said it was “no longer acceptable” for TiVo “not to enter some kind of relationship with us.” He said companies had been discussing possible licensing agreement for 3 months and SonicBlue, which purchased ReplayTV earlier this year, gave rival “one last chance in good faith to negotiate with us.”

Dell Computer is being sued for unlicensed use of MPEG-2 video compression technology in its PCs. Plaintiffs are members of MPEG Licensing Authority and include France Telecom, JVC, Mitsubishi, Philips, Scientific-Atlanta and Sony. Suit, filed Dec. 7 in U.S. Dist. Court, Wilmington, Del., said plaintiffs controlled 44 of 380 patents related to MPEG-2 digital compression. It cited Dell’s inclusion of DVD drives in its PCs, as well as options for digital video editing that entail MPEG-2. Suit seeks injunction against further infringement and unspecified damages. Dell, which had no comment, is supporter of DVD+RW recording format co-developed by Mitsubishi, Philips, Sony and others.