12th January 1999 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

Microsoft catches up with counterfeit software

Biggest ever haul of pirate CDs recovered

The continuing popularity of the Great Satan of Software – and its products -- kept British police busy over the Christmas holiday. The latest in a long line of anti-piracy raids brought in the biggest haul of counterfeit Microsoft Office 97 CDs to date. The 55,000 CDs, with a street value of £20 million, were seized by …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 10:59
Acer postpones share issue again

Can't seem to shake off that Asian flu

Acer has yet again had to postpone its long awaited share issue, blaming stock market uncertainty and currency fluctuations for the hold up. Originally planned for last year, the issue of 200 million shares has been subject to delays as the world’s number two PC manufacturer struggles against less than favourable market …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 11:28
The chips are no longer down

Worldwide sales on increase last year

Global semiconductor sales grew to $11.38 billion in November, the highest mark since December 1997. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the jump in sales was brought about, primarily, by increased demand from Japan and the Asia-Pacific markets. The SIA’s Global Sales Report said Japanese sales grew by …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 12:00
HP machines with Celeron inside ship this week

Prices and spec for UK unveiled

Hewlett-Packard will this week start shipping PCs with the latest Intel Celeron chips. The HP Vectra VE, aimed at the corporate market, and HP Brio PCs, for small and medium-sized businesses, will both sport the Intel technology. The PC models include the following configurations and UK estimated prices before VAT. The HP Brio, …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 12:04
Class action hits latest Intel acquisition

iCAT shareholders up in arms

Ecommerce vendor iCAT is being sued by shareholders in the wake of its sale to Intel, claiming their interests were misrepresented. Intel acquired the assets of iCAT for only the price of existing debt, which means that shareholders - who had invested $40 million in all - will get nothing back from the deal. The deal was …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 12:36
Korean outfit unleashes $399 PC on US

Emachines is aiming to shift 300,000 units in Q1

Korean-backed Emachines is turning up the heat in its bid for a slice of the US low-cost PC market, introducing a $399 machine for sale via retail outlets. Emachines, a joint venture by manufacturer Trigem and Korea Data Systems, has added Circuit City to its range of outlets, which now covers five out of the top six US …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 12:50
MS didn't hurt nobody, and anyway it was scared – defence witness

Richard Schmalensee's deposition is heroic in both scale and, surely, chutzpah

Microsoft’s case for the defence began yesterday with a massive 328 page deposition from MIT’s Richard Schmalensee who – as conspicuously telegraphed by Microsoft on many a courthouse step – dismissed the government case as spurious. The core of Schmalensee’s pitch is that we should ignore the vast number of apparently damaging …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 13:33
UFOs claim Web CEO's scalp

There was a rushing noise, a blinding flash, and my job vanished...

The founder of Internet consultancy USWeb resigned from the company on Friday, citing his belief in UFOs. But yesterday Joe Firmage was claiming he’d been misquoted by the San Francisco Chronicle, which had run a piece where he described his very own close encounter. Firmage’s views have been fairly well-known for some time. He …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 14:57
Microsoft to roll out defence today

With another motion for dismissal, Graham reckons...

When Microsoft opens its defence later today, John Warden will almost certainly start with an artillery bombardment by introducing a Motion for dismissal. And unless there is an unexpected eclipse of the Sun, Judge Jackson will deny it. There will then be the usual communique from Microsoft, after which the sniping will resume. …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 15:38
ALi licenses Rambus technology

Aims to produce chipsets for consumer PCs during 1999

Acer Labs Inc (Ali) has licensed 800MHz memory interface technology from Rambus, and will use it to produce chipset products for consumer PCs in 1999. According to ALi president Dr Chin Wu the company sees Rambus technology as a key element in its product strategy, and as "a primary interface to DRAM for PC main memory …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 16:22
Resellers hit by legal action

Compel and Info'Products targeted by laid-off staff

Info’Products UK and Compel are being sued for unfair dismissal by approximately 60 former employees who were made redundant last week. Around one third of the 150 Info’Products staff laid off since Compel agreed to buy the company will today present a joint claim against the two resellers to a solicitor. The redundancies came …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 16:52
Semiconductor firm launches MP3 chip-set for set-tops

Silicon will also add MP3 support to hi-fi systems

US-based ESS Technology has released a chip-set designed to allow set-top boxes and hi-fi separates to play back digital music encoded in the MP3 format. The ES4280 chip-set can play not only downloaded MP3 files but also MP3s recorded on a CD-ROM. It also supports other digital audio formats, including Real Audio and Microsoft' …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 17:01
Speculation mounts over Lucent and Ascend

Acquisition set to rival Cisco

Lucent Technologies, the telecommunications equipment maker, yesterday moved into the communications software arena amid mounting speculation of a $16 billion merger with Ascend Communications. Lucent has already splashed out $1.48 billion to acquire telephone billing software manufacturer Kenan. But rumours were still rife that …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 17:02
Leading UK reseller to promote different approach to ecommerce

Aims to establish global platform

Computacenter is to start providing a new range of electronic commerce products and services as part of a partnership with California-based InterTrust Technologies. The technology in question addresses the need for the secure distribution and control of content on the Internet, allowing users to protect intellectual property …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 17:14
Love is in the air

Barry White would know what to do in this situation

The day that all single people dread is fast approaching, and Interflora will use software to ensure that all those Valentine’s roses arrive safely. So, if you don’t get blooms from the one you love, it’s no good pretending they must have got lost in the post. Interflora’s 2,500 UK florists are taking on QuickAddress Names from …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 17:23
Mistaken missive gets man sacked at Bible society

Case highlights pitfalls of e-mail

A man who was accused of sexual harassment, after a colleague used his email address to send a saucy message to a female executive at a Bible society, has won his case for breach of contract. But an industrial tribunal in Bristol turned down Roy Johnson's claim for sexual harassment after computer technician Richard Kirby …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 17:34
Lotto Co to raise £12.5m for Web game promo

Balls beat computer in lottery draw

A Web-based lottery company hoping to make at least 2,000 dollar millionaires come the millennium has confirmed that it has already secured £1 million in funding and will have a further £1.5 million in place by the end of the month. OFEX-listed Electronic Fundraising Company plc (EFC) is to use the cash to drive a major …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 17:50
Sun sets sights on telecomms

Joint launch in New York and Bagshot, twin centres of the IT universe

Sun Microsystems today targeted the telecommunications market by unveiling a Java-enabled network management framework and server in both the US and UK. The Solstice Enterprise Manager 3.0 and Netra ft1800 server were launched in a cross-Atlantic operation – in New York and Bagshot, UK. The Solstice includes several Java tools, …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 17:59
Sun, IBM lead telecoms Java alliance

JAIN to take Java into telecommunications intelligent networks

Sun, IBM, Bellcore and Trillium Digital Systems have teamed up to develop an implementation of Java for the telecoms business, JAIN, or Java in Advanced Intelligent Networks. JAIN is a telecoms industry framework for combining Web and intelligent network (IN) technologies, and is based on Sun's JavaBeans architecture. Sun …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 19:57
MS starts network counterattack with BackOffice 4.5 beta

Remote management, remote consoles, remote configuration, automation... Win 2K, anyone?

Microsoft has begun the counter-attack against its server rivals with the release of the beta of BackOffice Server 4.5, which addresses a range of weaknesses Novell and the Unix vendors have been exploiting in the absence of Windows 2000. Win 2K may not be with us for a while yet, but BackOffice Server 4.5 is due in the first …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 19:59
Censors strike MS testimony

Some blank has been blanking all the blanking numbers from the boffin's 328 blanking pages...

The written deposition of Microsoft's first witness, Richard Schmalensee of MIT, makes copious use of Microsoft-confidential data. But because it is confidential data, some of it makes weird reading. In various passages any information likely to vaguely useful to the hapless reader attempting to understand what the good (we use …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 21:46
MS cites 960 per cent Linux growth rate in defence

At that velocity, Linux will pass Windows RSN. Wonder if Schmalensee's figured that?

Linux rears its head again as Microsoft's Exhibit A in the argument as to why there's plenty competition in the OS business, really. Richard Schmalensee's testimony cites it on numerous occasions, points to an annual growth rate of 960 per cent since 1991, and says Linux in 1998 had 7.5 million users. But hold hard there, folks …

Business 12 Jan 1999, 21:48