Armonk-based IBM Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., of Tokyo, have embarked on a two-year agreement to speed the innovation of chips, marking the first time the companies have collobarated in developing semiconductors.

The companies will focus on research into the next generation of smaller chips at IBM’s Watson Research Center Yorktown Heights and at the University at Albany’s NanoTech Complex, the companies said today.

The work will focus on developing 32- and 22-nanometer semiconductors, which, the companies noted, is “at near atomic scale.”

Collaboration will help the companies develop the technology at less cost than if undertaken individually, said IBM vice president Bernie Meyerson.

“By combining individual research strength and intellectual property, we reduce the significant costs associated with research needed to advance the next generation of chip technology,” Meyerson said.

The Business Council of Westchester has hired theONswitch of Thornwood to serve as its media representatives and to develop a full-year strategic communications plan.

Terms of the contract weren’t announced.

Select Telecom, a telecommunications company based in Valhalla, recently announced contracts with HH Brown Shoe Company and Paradigm talent agency to upgrade old phone systems. HH Brown Shoe hired Select Telecom to install two Internet-based telephone systems at offices in Andover, Mass., and Greenwich, Conn. Paradigm, a national talent agency, contracted with Select Telecom to install more than 100 Internet-based phone systems in its New York office. Values of the contracts were not disclosed.

IBM Corp. announced an agreement to provide technology services to Aloha Airlines, a major carrier based in Hawaii. Under the agreement, Armonk-based IBM said it will offer the airline’s customers more options for using the Internet. IBM also will provide kiosks for customers to check in at the airport, check baggage and choose amenities such as lounge access and in-flight meals. In addition, the system will allow for the retrieval of passenger records by bar code scan from itinerary or passenger loyalty card. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Government employees who get their health insurance through New York state’s Empire Plan will have a new pharmacy-benefits manager starting Jan. 1, UnitedHealthcare announced this week.

The Minnetonka, Minn.-based insurer, a unit of UnitedHealth Group, was the successful bidder for the $1.5 billion, four-year contract that covers more than 1 million state and local workers and their beneficiaries.

The program will be adminstered by Medco Health Solutions Inc. a pharmacy-benefits manager based in Franklin Lakes, N.J.

PepsiCo Inc. disclosed today it has hired Morgan Stanley & Co. to handle the sale of up to 4.33 millon shares of PepsiAmericas Inc. from time to time on the open market, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Purchase-based PepsiCo would retain a 40.7 percent stake in PepsiAmericas, the second-largest bottler of Pepsi products, if all shares sold under the plan, according to the filing.

News this week that Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp. is the recipient of the a 10-year, $1 billion contract from Delta Air Lines Inc. will result in little new business for the company’s Orangeburg plant and the 440 workers employed there.

The nation’s third-largest air carrier announced Wednesday that Chromalloy won the deal to provide engine parts for its fleet of jets as well as other customers.

“Unfortunately, the engine types that this contract is about are mostly for other Chromalloy divisions,� said President Peter Howard from his Orangeburg office.

“There will be some of technology-coding support that we do here will apply to some of the parts, but they will come from other Chromalloy divisions to us,� Howard said.

Chromalloy, based San Antonio, operates 34 plants, warehouses and offices in 11 states and six countries. It is the largest division of Manhattan-based Sequa Corp.

Commercial real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield has been hired to advise The North Street Community in White Plains, a proposed assisted living and residential project for senior citizens.

Michael Berne of Cushman & Wakefield’s Senior Housing and Healthcare Group will work with the partnership.

The Common Council this year approved new zoning and a site plan to allow the project, to be built on a 23-acre site of the former St. Agnes Hospital.

North Street Community calls for 335 independent condominiums in four residential buildings and a club facility for those 60 and older.

The former main hospital building will be redesigned to house 92 assisted living units, along with 20 units for people with Alzheimer’s disease.

An 82,000-square-foot medical office building will be kept, but other buildings will be torn down.

In a statement, North Street partner Alfred Caiola said the owners expected to bring in a skilled company to run the assisted living and Alzheimer’s facilities.

Many companies have expressed interest in participating in other segments of the project, he said.

Four Strong Builders Inc. of Clifton, N.J. was the apparent low bidder for an asbestos abatement contract at Building No. 47 at the Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg, the New York State Office of General Services said. The Clifton company outbid nine other businesses with a bid of $157,800.

Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc. announced today it has been awarded a five-year contract to train pilots and engineers that fly Air Force One, the aircraft that transports U.S. presidents, including President George W. Bush.

The value of the contract wasn’t disclosed.

All training will take place at the Atlas Air Training Center in Miami, Atlas said, where crew members will participate in ground school and simulator training necessary for them to fly Air Force One, a Boeing 747-200 aircraft.

Atlas said it will provide annual refresher training and additional simulator time as requested by the Air Force.

AT&T Inc. said it expects to reap up to $1 billion in revenue over the five-year term of an outsourcing deal with IBM Corp. of Armonk, but it’s not expected to have a material effect on the telecommunication company’s financial results. AT&T said it will incur charges of $80 million over the next 12 months. IBM will use AT&T’s global communications and network management services both internally and with IBM’s customers as part of the deal.

Video surveillance technology developed at IBM Research labs here in Westchester County is being deployed in the city of Chicago. The Armonk-based computer giant said that Chicago’s Operation Virtual Shield is now using IBM’s artificial intelligence technology for analyzing video to further improve what Big Blue is calling “the most advanced and sophisticated digital video surveillance system ever deployed in a U.S. city.�

IBM’s Smart Surveillance Solution will help Chicago city officials detect suspicious activity and public safety concerns. Sam Docknevich, who leads IBM’s digital video surveillance practice, said Chicago is way ahead of other U.S. cities when it comes to using their camera network in a way to actually makes citizens safer by analyzing the video in real time. For example, if a car is involved in a criminal incident, IBM’s technology can help identify where the car was in the hour before the event by searching the video database for its license plate.

IBM and its business partners have been working with engineers from Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications for several years to design and deploy the infrastructure to capture, monitor, record and analyse video from thousands of cameras.

IBM Corp. and Belk Inc. the nation’s largest privately held department store, have signed a seven-year, $98 million deal, renewing an existing outsourcing contract that dates back some 60 years, the companies said today.

The contract calls for Armonk-based Big Blue to continue implementing systems to provide data-center services, storage management, back up and recovery, and system software support, among other things.

Belk, based in Charlotte, N.C., operates more than 300 stores in 16 Southern states.

Separately, IBM said it has installed self-checkout systems in five Key Food stores in New York City.

The technology allows Man-Dell Food Stores, an independent Queens-based grocer, to better compete in the low-margin grocery business, IBM said.

Armonk-based IBM Corp. has won a $119 million contracted from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration. IBM will provide services for the government’s Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupon Program, which will ensure consumers can continue to receive free television when TV stations stop analog broadcasts in 2009 in favor of digital broadcasts. IBM will provide consumer education, coupon distribution at retail stores and financial processing to reimburse retailers, maintain records and prevent waste, fraud and abuse. The coupons will be for boxes that convert the digital signal to an analog format.

When the Summer Olympics get under way next year in Beijing, a supercomputer built at Armonk-based IBM Corp.’s factory in Poughkeepsie will help organizers and athletes figure out whether rain gear is in order.

The Beijing Meteorological Bureau will be using a System p575 supercomputer, which can perform 9.8 trillion calculations per second. It will be among the 10 fastest supercomputers in China.
The machine, which is 10 times more powerful than the computer it’s replacing, can provide hourly weather forecasts for a 44,000-square-kilometer area (16,988 square miles). The supercomputer will also predict air quality in Beijing during the Games.

Residents at two north Rockland senior housing projects can soon expect improvements thanks in part to two separate sales of $6.7 million each in state bonds, according to the issuing agency, the New York State Housing Finance Agency.

The bond sales will help finance $22.2 million in upgrades at the 100-unit West Haverstraw Senior Citizens Apartments and the 97-unit Warren Knolls Apartments in Haverstraw.

Both units are owned by Related Cos., based in Manhattan, which has agreed to keep rents affordable for 40 years after completion of the repairs, HFA said.

The housing complexes are reserved for seniors aged 62 years or older and disabled persons at or below 60 percent of the area median income for Rockland County, or $96,100, HFA said.

The projects are expected to begin in about a week and take about nine months to complete, said a spokeswoman for Related.
Residents won’t be displaced during the renovations, the agency said.

The financing will pay for improvements such as kitchen and bathroom upgrades, replacing boiler controls, new windows and intercoms and improved laundry rooms.

In addition to $6.7 million in bond financing, West Haverstraw will receive an annual allocation of $376,000 in federal low-income housing tax credits for the rehabbing of the West Haverstraw Senior Citizens Apartments, HFA said.

The Warren Knolls complex will also receive $372,000 in annual aid in federal low-income-housing tax credits. Additionally, Warren Knolls is also expected to benefit from a payment-in-lie-of-taxes, or Pilot, agreement with the village and town of Haverstraw, providing a reduction in property taxes and a Section 8 Project subsidy from the federal government.

Rockland Electric Co. of Nanuet has been awarded a state contract to replace truck trap gates at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, state General Services Commissioner John C. Egan announced today. Rockland Electric, one of four companies competing for the contract, was the apparent low bidder with a project bid of $32,500, Egan said.

Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc., an Eastview-based biotechnology research company, and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals said today that Wyeth applied to regulators in Europe for permission to market a drug for constipation caused by certain types of pain medicines.

The companies said Wyeth applied to the European Medicines Agency for marketing rights for methylnaltrexone. Progenics submitted the same application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March.

Submission to the European regulators means Progenics receives a $4 million payment from Wyeth.

Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc. of Harrison, the air cargo services company, and DHL have gotten a key regulatory approval for DHL Express to acquire a 49 percent interest in Atlas subsidiary Polar Air Cargo Worldwide Inc.

Atlas said this morning that the U.S. Department of Transportation has issued final orders approving the deal. The company said it is still working on getting approval from the Federal Aviation Administration and foreign regulators.

Atlas Air and DHL announced last November they had agreed to a 20-year commercial arrangement that will give DHL access to Polar’s six Boeing 747-400 Freighter planes and other benefits. Atlas Air estimated the deal would bring in up to $3.5 billion in revenues.

DHL, a shipping company that is a subsidiary of German-based Deutsche Post AG, will also get a 25 percent voting interest in Polar in exchange for $150 million.

Atlas Air shares were trading at $59.13, up 23 cents, at 10:07 this morning.

ITT Corp., a White Plains-based provider of advanced technology products and services, announced today that it has been awarded a U.S. Air Force contract to provide drug surveillance services for the Headquarters Air Combat Command Acquisition Management and Integration Center at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. The contract involves supporting aerial counter-drug surveillance with air traffic control, airfield operations, communications services, food service, billeting, civil engineering, emergency fire response and other support, ITT said.

“This vital mission is a key component of protecting our hemisphere from the threat of illegal drugs,� Pete McKinney, president of the ITT Systems Division, said in a written statement. “ITT is proud to continue its 40-year legacy of partnership with Air Combat Command and its predecessor, Tactical Air Command — both in this theater and worldwide.�

The project started on April 1. The award for the phase-in and base period is $7.9 million, and the contract has a potential value of $194 million with all options exercised.