14th October 1998 Archive

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Roundup: Markets on 13th October 1998

Much twitching in virtual standstill markets

The Dow and Nikkei were down marginally, and Nasdaq down 2 per cent. In the US, yesterday was a day of irrational movements in the markets, with fierce reactions to downgrading by financial analysts. On the acquisitions front, Alcatel is acquiring Packet engines Inc, a specialist in wire-speed routing and Ethernet, for $315 …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 08:17
NDS for Linux to boost OS in corporate networks

Caldera's forthcoming port of Novell's directory system will give Linux a helping hand

Novell is to announce a port of NDS (formerly Novell Directory Services, now a free-floating acronym) to Linux this month, according to sources at Caldera, the company that's doing the port. NDS is one of the key 'secret weapons' for Novell in its campaign to position NetWare 5 as an integrating platform for heterogeneous …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 09:16
Intel beats the Street after record shipments

Margins up too, so the upstarts ain't biting yet...

Intel beat the Street for Q3 with $0.89 earnings per share, rather than the anticipated $0.09. The income was $1.6 billion and revenue was up 9 per cent to $6.7 billion. The anticipation is that Q4 will be slightly ahead of Q3. Capital expenditure for the FY is now expected to be down around $400 million on earlier estimates, to …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 09:28
HP announces next generation PA chips

So exactly when is it going to migrate to IA-64, anyway?

Last year Hewlett-Packard was giving every impression of betting the farm on Wintel, but its semiconductor plans, announced yesterday at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, and also earlier this week, make it clear that HP hasn't any intention of actually putting its money on the table until sometime in the dim and distant …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 10:02
PB claims Taiwan outfit infringed patents

Stricken retail outfit's gimlet-eyed attorneys hit back

Packard Bell NEC has filed suit against CTX International, claiming the company's machines infringe five patents. PB wants the Central California District Court to issue an injunction restraining CTX from manufacturing, selling or importing its notebooks and desktops. PB also wants "substantial monetary damages." The patents the …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 10:48
Intel unveils three-pronged strategy for appliance and embedded

Pentium, StrongARM and i960 all have roles to play

Intel yesterday announced a three-pronged approach to the embedded and mobile device markets, pushing the StrongARM SA-1100, which is to be used in HP's next generation of hand-held machines, but also revving its i960 (which until StrongARM was the foundation of Intel's embedded operations), and taking embedded Pentium chips up …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 10:50
Ellison resumes attack on Microsoft ‘servers everywhere’

You don't want to do that - centralise your apps and data and then we'll look after it for you...

Larry Ellison was singing his new anti-NT song again yesterday at Gartner Group's Symposium/Itexpo in Florida. Fresh from attacking networks with "servers everywhere" in his Internet World keynote (Ellison takes aim at Microsoft crown jewels), Ellison is calling for a return to the centralised computing model, and the …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 11:17
Microsoft spin-doctors ‘refute’ DoJ case

But there seems to be a lot more spinning than red meat in this here document...

Microsoft released late yesterday a paper entitled "Setting the record straight: Microsoft's statement on government lawsuit". Even those with neutral feelings about the case will find it hard to accept the disingenuousness of Microsoft's arguments. There's not much new in the document, despite claims by quite a few cub …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 11:31
Update: Cirrus sells software team to ISD

Coup for ISD, Jon Peddie says.

Cirrus Logic has hived off its graphics software business to ISD Corporation. Financial terms were undisclosed, but we assume that money flowed into Cirrus' coffers from ISD. Broad outlines of the outsourcing deal are in the public domain. ISD is to take on all the workers of the Cirrus Logic PC graphics software group, …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 12:55
Compaq profits down, but company exceeds forecasts

Seems to be succeeding in moving Digital's furniture around profitably

Compaq's third quarter profits have beaten expectations, despite falling 78 per cent to $115 million. Sales were up 36 per cent on the previous year's Q3, to $8.8 billion, and CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer says that integration of Compaq and Digital operations was on track during the quarter. Compaq also managed to improve gross margins …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 13:10
Seagate wouldhavebeens mar Q1 results

Wouldhavebeen a profit, honest guv

Seagate has taken a $63 million bath on currency holdings in the Thai baht and the Malaysian ringitt. The so-called "market to market adjustment" is one of an awful lot of would have beens in Seagate's Q1. Other wouldhavebeens include: $77 million to cover an amendment to the October 1997 purchase agreement for Quinta; and $7 …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 13:51
Microsoft will be trial of century – but which one?

Even if Microsoft doesn't get another two week delay, the action promises to grind on into the future

It may well prove inappropriate to dub USA versus Microsoft Corporation the trial of the century, because it could easily carry on to the next century. The longer the trial continues, the better it will be for Microsoft since the issues will have less relevance if the case drags on, and Microsoft would have the opportunity to …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 15:35
MIPS preens after shipping 100 millionth CPU

And there's more to the company than Nintendo, apparently...

Eat your heart out, Intel. MIPS says it has now shipped more than 100 million processors, and while that might not match Intel's total, MIPS' 48 million in 1997, capturing a claimed 49 per cent of the embedded Risc processor market, isn't half bad. Kind of spoiling the arithmetic, MIPS boasts that the real significance of the …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 16:11
Nat Semi CEO proposes giveaway PCs

Safeway et al. to bundle budget Net terminals to encourage Web-based grocery ordering, says Halla

Brian Halla, president and CEO of National Semiconductor, has become the latest industry big-wig to leap on the idea of giving away PCs for free. But don't call the guy up to demand a Pentium in the post -- he reckons Web-based e-commerce practitioners will do the donating. Speaking at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, …

Business 14 Oct 1998, 16:59