Business Notes

To the ever expanding lexicon of corporate jargon you may now add "risk- sharing partnership." That's how Boeing chairman Frank Shrontz describes arrangements like the one between his company and Germany's Deutsche Airbus/ Deutsche Aerospace, which announced plans for a joint research effort last week. The risk the two giant jetmakers may share: development of a supersonic high-speed civil transport, an updated and larger Concorde-type airliner that could whisk 300 passengers at twice the speed of sound.

Boeing has also signed a memorandum of understanding with France's Thomson CSF stating that the two companies will work together on aerospace products. Such alliances with potential competitors are a reaction to the giant cost of the next generation of airliners and the giant marketplace of post-1992 Europe. Other companies seem likely to heed the new lesson: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em -- and share the risk.