P.M. BRIEFING : Data General Drops Japan Pact

WESTBORO, Mass. — Troubled Data General Corp. has dropped a product development agreement with Japan’s Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., company officials said today.

The agreement with NTT to build high-speed hubs for private data communications networks was announced in 1987. The communications systems were to link voice, data and computers in large, private communications networks such as those used by corporations and universities.

NTT executives said then that the company planned to buy about $130-million worth of equipment to be developed by Data General. The purchases were to be made in a five-year period beginning in 1989.

But the project was scrapped after research showed there was not a strong market in Japan for such systems, said Jim Dunlap, a spokesman for Data General.