5th November 1998 Archive

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Who killed Apple's Rhapsody?

Strange but true -- Steve did, not Bill

The curious death of Apple's next-generation Rhapsody OS is likely to be one of the less-noticed sideshows of the Microsoft trial. The software is the reason Steve Jobs is running Apple today, and while Apple hasn't actually said flat-out that it's no more, its demise seems to have been one of the things Avie Tevanian and …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 07:00
Linux-Corba spat gets readers' goats

React in fury to senior source's statement

Readers have responded in fury and outrage to an article prompted by a senior source at the Object Management Group (OMG) claiming that Corba and Linux do not make happy bed partners. Yesterday, an informed source at the OMG told The Register that because there isn’t much money in Linux, the group is not particularly interested …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 09:36
Cisco Q1 results: profits, revenue up…

...again

Cisco posted profits of $559 million on revenues of $2.59 billion for its fiscal 1999 first quarter, yesterday. The figures show an increase in turnover of 38 per cent and a growth of 34 per cent in profitability on the company's results for the same period last year. Cisco warned that the first quarter profit was actually …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 11:48
Cadence to axe 560 jobs

Redundancies to tackle rampant growth in operating costs

Chip design software developer Cadence Design Systems is to axe 560 jobs and take a $36 million hit to its Q4 results, due next January, to pay for the losses, the company admitted. The cuts, which amount to 12 per cent of the Cadence's workforce throughout the world, are designed to reduce the company's cost structure by $8 …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 12:13
Tavanian ‘Microsoft attempted to nuke QuickTime’ line continues

But hard evidence seems thin on the ground

When cornered, many animals counterattack, and so it was with Microsoft yesterday. Apple was the aggressor, and Microsoft squealed because the Mac maker was threatening to sue Microsoft for $1.2 billion over some patent issues. Avadis Tevanian, senior VP for software engineering at Apple, denied this, claiming that the $1.2 …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 12:30
BeOS 4.0 set for December release

First mainstream release targets Intel-based workstation users.

Having largely failed to convert Mac users to its OS, Be is now targetting the Wintel world with its next major BeOS release, version 4.0. The new version, due to ship early in December, also marks the first iteration of the OS that's ready for widespread usage, the company said. Previous releases were essentially oriented …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 13:11
Schadt faces bankruptcy

Seven hundred jobs at stake

The cutthroat German PC market has claimed another prominent victim, in the form of system builder Schadt ComputerTechnik. The company was presented with a bankruptcy petition on October 28. Based in Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart, Schadt turns over more than £100 million a year, and sells its PCs in more than 70 retail outlets …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 13:13
Leading US indie label backs MP3

Mainstream music industry's grumblings clearly miss the point

The US' largest independent record label, Platinum Entertainment, appeared to distance itself from the music industry majors yesterday, by backing the MPEG-based MP3 digital music format. But though the rest of the music business continues to regard MP3 with dread -- hence the massive legal campaign being waged by the Recording …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 13:53
Survey: Consumers fuel surge in PC sales

$1000-1500 PCs bring home the bacon (but not so much of it)

European PC sales grew by 23.4 per cent in the third quarter, but revenue only increased by 13 per cent, Dataquest reported yesterday as buyers made a beeline for low-cost machines. "It was a record quarter in terms of consumer market growth," said Dataquest analyst Philip Williams. "That's what was driving the market." In terms …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 14:27
LG, Hyundai get pushed by government to move

LG, Hyundai get pushed by government to move

The South Korean government is intensifying its efforts to push Hyundai and LG to a quick solution of their semiconductor stalemate. A bevy of senior officials met with the top five chaebols (conglomerates) yesterday in a bid to push through the reforms that the South Korean government had promised the International Monetary …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 15:06
AMD admits European home networking gaffe

It didn't realise that some countries prohibited such things

AMD has admitted that there are obstacles to its plans to use one of its single chips to allow home networking. The admission is an embarrassing climbdown for the chip company. As reported here earlier this year, plans that AMD, in collaboration with Tut software to introduce home networking technology have foundered on German …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 15:17
Ad watchdog puts the boot in

So why is Mr Magoo so hacked off?

It’s been another busy month for the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) which has had to adjudicate in more than a dozen complaints concerning the computer and telecoms industry. Lancashire-based Granville Technology group – trading as Time Computer Systems Ltd – had its wrists slapped for misleading consumers in the national …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 15:37
Novell nails pirates to the mast

Upgrades sold as full copies, allegedly

Following hard on the heels of recent success in the courts against unscrupulous software pirates Novell is now letting its lawyers loose on a New York company accused of copyright infringement false advertising and dilution of trademarks, among other claims. The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 15:43
Remember, remember the 5th of November DRAM prices

Our daily DRAM update from Dane-Elec

On the day that the English celebrate the hanging, drawing and subsequent quartering of a Catholic who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, French company Dane-Elec reported that prices of DRAM have consistently risen all week. That is encouraging news for the industry, particularly given the fact that German conglomerate …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 15:57
Survey: boomtime for Internet services business

Outsourcing leads tenfold expansion of Net services arena by 2002, claims IDC

Internet-related business is set to expand from last year's value of $4.5 billion to $43.6 billion by 2002, claims market researcher IDC in its Worldwide Internet and E-commerce Services Market and Trends Forecast. The key phrase is 'Internet-related'. IDC is counting the broader range of services and solutions, such as Internet …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 16:25
Datrontech chief says company will turn round

Share price falls to 30p on stock market

The chief executive of UK distributor Datrontech said today that rumours it was going out of business were absolutely baseless. Its share price on the UK stock exchange stands at 30 pence today, compared to a high of £3.60 when it floated three years ago. Mark Mulford, who said his job is to convert Datrontech from an …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 16:31
Seagate debuts 50GB drive

New generation of hard drives expand capacity envelope

Seagate has announced its latest Cheetah and Barracuda hard drives, which offer data capacities of up to 50GB and data transfer rates of up to 28MBps. The Cheetah 18LP and Cheetah 36 provide 18GB or 9GB and 36GB of storage, respectively. Both fit the 3.5in form factor, but the 18LP comes in slimline casing. Spining at 10,000rpm …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 16:41
Intel, IBM beef up e-security

You'd have thought they were both paranoid enough already

Intel and IBM confirmed they were beefing up their joint security initiative and said they were pushing to promote the common data security architecture (CDSA) spec as an industry standard. The two companies have previously teamed on offering security features but this initiative is to do with IBM product KeyWorks, which works …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 17:10
Knife the Mac? Redmond Don in shock infanticide allegation

Microsoft trial descends into tacky film noir mode

Avie Tevanian's determined defence of his assertion that Microsoft tried to strong-arm Apple into abandoning multimedia playback took a spicier turn today, as the subject of infanticide just kind of spilled out. According to Tevanian, in a meeting last year Microsoft's Christopher Phillips was, as usual according to the Apple …

Business 5 Nov 1998, 22:15