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3rd February 1999 Archive

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  • Channel assembly lifts Northamber profits

    RS/6000 franchise on the cards?

    Northamber is turning its back on the growth at all costs volume distribution model. Speaking to The Register about the company's latest interims, which saw margins rise but sales fall by six per cent, chairman David Phillips said the company was no longer prepared to sacrifice margin for market share. Turnover for the six …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 08:53

  • ‘Slow’ machine in test video was running MS Office

    It seems the PC having trouble accessing Windows Update hadn't had IE uninstalled at all

    Microsoft senior VP Jim Allchin retreated in disorder yesterday as the case of the edited video rattled through the courtroom. Government attorney David Boies had forced an admission by Allchin that Microsoft's video demonstration had been tampered with DoJ skewers exec over falsified video, and then proceeded to use this to …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 10:52

  • S3 unveils Voodoo-zapping Savage4

    Resurgent S3 sets sights on 3Dfx, nVidia and arch-enemy ATI

    S3 has announced the successor to its Savage3D graphics chipset, the unsurprisingly named Savage4. The new accelerator is the first to support Intel's AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) 4X specification, claimed S3. And the company has also announced its first design win for the product: Diamond Multimedia, which will release a …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 11:00

  • Intel tempts Toshiba with cash carrot

    Get into Rambus production -- and win fabulous cash prizes

    Intel has followed up its investments in Samsung and Micron Technologies with a similar deal with Toshiba. The reason: to persuade the Japanese giant to ramp up production of Rambus Direct DRAM. It's not yet known how much cash the Great Stan waved in front of Toshiba's nose, but it's likely be in the same ballpark as the $100 …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 12:00

  • Intel, HP, IBM and Compaq to thrash out IO directions

    A meeting in Monterey means possible PCI/X resolution

    The protagonists in the argument over the future direction of I/O will meet in Monterey, California on the 12th of this month in a bid to thrash out their differences. Intel representatives will sit on one side of the table while ranged against them will be executives from HP, IBM and Compaq. The issue over PCI/X now seems to be …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 12:31

  • Kenwood debuts 52x CD-ROM drive

    TrueX technology makes for faster, quieter drives

    Kenwood Technologies has announced a 52x CD-ROM drive. The drive actually runs at 9x speed, but uses a multiple-beam laser that reads six tracks of data simultaneously to generate an effective speed of 52x. That translates into a data throughput of 6.7MBps to 7.8MBps. The drive spins at a range of speeds to ensure a constant …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 12:36

  • IBM copper will appear in an Intel Netfinity in June

    The next rev of a PowerPC chip will drive RAID

    A senior executive at IBM in Europe gave details today of his company's plans to include copper technology in its Intel-based servers. The move is part of a plan IBM has to bring technology from its S/390, RS and AS/400 series into the Intel space, said Tikiri Wanduragala, IBM's senior consultant for the Netfinity server range. …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 12:47

  • Microsoft junks NT-based consumer OS plan

    Convergence after Win98 has been 'postponed,' apparently...

    Microsoft will produce at least one more rev of Windows 9x before it finally converges its operating systems, it has emerged this week. This new plan flatly contradicts what the company has been saying for over a year - far from rolling its desktop products into one basic OS at Windows 2000 stage, Microsoft may now be on the …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 12:50

  • UK companies face chaos as phone numbers change

    Only four months to go and only one per cent of firms have taken heed

    Half of UK companies are unaware that new telephone numbers and codes are being introduced in less than four months time. Figures obtained by The Register from National Code & Number Change (NCNC), the organisation managing the project, show that only 53 per cent of UK businesses are aware of the sweeping changes due to come …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 13:23

  • Microsoft sued over alleged ActiveX patent violation

    Plaintiff demands Microsoft cease selling Windows 95/98, Internet Explorer

    Microsoft Internet Explorer's use of plug-ins and applets to add functionality was yesterday alleged to have violated the patents of a small, privately owned software developer. The suit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, on behalf of Eolas Technologies, claims Microsoft's …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 13:37

  • Anti-abortion web threats silenced by $100m damages bill

    Court rules anti-abortionists’ threats are nothing to do with freedom of speech

    More than a dozen US anti-abortion activists who used the Internet to publicise their opinions have been ordered to pay $100 million in damages by a US court. The American Coalition of Life Activists and the Advocates for Life Ministries was found guilty of inciting violence by posting details of around 200 doctors and other …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 13:57

  • Ecademy seeks to spread the word about e-commerce

    Businesses invited to take part in information exchange

    Self-styled ecommerce guru Thomas Power has launched a Web-based service, called Ecademy, to help businesses learn more about online trading. The Ecademy site was launched on Monday and has already received interest from 300 people eager to find out how e-commerce can improve their businesses. "The aim of the Ecademy is to …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 14:14

  • Dan pulls in ex-Gateway man to beef up sales team

    Shepheard ready to lead the push into new markets

    John Shepheard has resurfaced at UK vendor Dan Technology to head up its sales team. Shepheard, who left rival vendor Gateway in November last year, joined Dan as sales director on 1 February. London-based Dan said Shepheard's work in the newly created position would concentrate on the company's health, education and local …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 14:26

  • Compaq contemplating 128-bit Alpha

    Cost could be prohibitive, given bean counting characteristics

    The cost of Alpha chip development after the year 2002 is likely to be over $1.5 billion, a source said today. The last iteration of Compaq's 64-bit Alpha platform is the EV8, as previously revealed here, but the cost of the 128-bit chip it is contemplating is prohibitively expensive. That is because it would involve Compaq …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 15:23

  • Willamette set to be phased by copper

    Iterations of the IA-32 technology set to disappear

    A senior IBM executive told The Register today that he disputed whether there would only be two 64-bit chips available in the next century. That followed an entry into the battle by Richard George, UK Alpha Server manager at Compaq, who said two days ago there would only be two chips left in the next century, IA-64 and DEC Alpha …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 15:31

  • Europe-wide Net boycott a qualified success

    Nearly 90 per cent of Spanish users heed the call - but hardly any Brits did

    Organisers of the latest European Internet strike today claimed action taken olast weekend had been a success, with Net traffic in at least one country down almost 90 per cent. Called by the UK's Campaign for Unmetered Calls (CUT), the 24-hour strike took place last Sunday in nine European countries: Britain, France, Portugal, …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 15:36

  • Is Merced a RISCy chip?

    Come on, Intel, this is a yes or a no, isn't it?

    An article in top US magazine Information Week has posed the question whether Intel's 64-bit Merced platform is based on Risc or Cisc. And now a controversy has arisen over whether Merced is attempting to bridge the gap between its possibly doomed Willamette IA-32 architecture and other chips that will come out this year, from …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 15:44

  • Now Sun SPARC supports AMD

    Ze plot thickens....

    No sooner had we written that Compaq is supporting AMD's K7 while Compaq thinks other IA-64 chips will die next year, than a missive appears on our email reminding us of Sun SPARC. Given this level of support from third party vendors, we at The Register have this feeling that the FTC case against Intel could fall over before it …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 16:04

  • N64 emulator vanishes after lawsuit threat

    Nintendo may follow Sony and sue developers for encouraging software piracy

    Nintendo N64 emulator UltraHLE (Ultra High Level Emulator) finally made its appearance last Thursday, only to be removed from the developers' Web site hours, Emulators Unlimited, after its release. The site claimed the software had been pulled because of the huge level of demand, but it's noteworthy that on the same day, Sony …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 16:14

  • Boy's ‘r’ Us – says Intel

    The Groove Connection is here

    We meant to write this before and thought we had but obviously we hadn't. Last Friday we went to the Olympia Trade Fair here in London and discovered the Groove Connection, where people can vary the music just by picking up their little pinkies -- or whatever. A team of 12 varied the music just by falling out with each other. …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 16:20

  • Cisco sees 40 per cent revenue hike in Q2

    Great Stan of Routers continues to rake it in, despite acquisitions

    Cisco yesterday posted profits of $606 million on sales of $2.83 billion for its second quarter of fiscal 1999. That compares to profits of $457 million and revenues of $2.02 billion for the same period last year, increases of 33 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively. The Q2 99 profit quoted by Cisco excludes the write-off of …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 16:36

  • MS exec recants over video ‘inconsistency’

    The Register reckons MS wouldn't have got into this pooh if it documented the Windows registry...

    Microsoft VP Jim Allchin has 'explained' the inconsistency in the videotape he showed on Monday, and which yesterday the DoJ claimed as a fraud. Well, apparently, anyway. In a press release dated yesterday, but posted at 9am Pacific Time today, Microsoft puts forward the answers that Allchin had a little trouble with yesterday …

    Business 3 Feb 1999, 19:30