The marketing effort is the first time there has been an umbrella advertising campaign for I.B.M.'s software business.

Sharp Electronics, the Japanese company whose unit sales of many office products top the industry, is prepared to mount a $12 million umbrella advertising campaign that for the first time will unite its business systems divisions.

Nearby were a set of landmark-quality, immaculately groomed carriage houses, which sit next to a lot delineated by razor wire, next to the Anyway Cafe, with its once-bright outdoor umbrella advertising various liqueurs and looking rather worn in winter.