5th February 1999 Archive

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A year ago: Compaq's Eckhard flees to London

Great Stan of Haircuts talks at gruesome hotel

We have spoken of The Landmark hotel before in these pages. It is distinguished by having an atrium full of very tall palm trees, which does not necessarily fit the profile of Baker Street, a mere five minutes away. Here, last Tuesday morning, was assembled a group of hacks to hear Eckhard Pfeiffer, CEO of Compaq-Digital-Tandem …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 07:55
AMD hurts as Intel fights harder

Celeron price pressure squeezing smaller firm

AMD, Intel's chief competitor in the fight for microprocessor share, said yesterday it would post a loss in its first quarter because of price slashing by the Goliath. The company's shares fell by a further $2 on news from its CEO Jerry Sanders that price competition was beginning to hurt. Intel has reacted to AMD's victories in …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 08:04
Lycos merger to create largest portal site

Deal with NBC said to be imminent

Lycos will become the Web's largest portal if rumours about the imminent sale of a 35 per cent stake to the media group NBC prove to be true. As part of the deal, Lycos, currently the third most popular portal on the Web, would merge with Snap, the minor portal run by NBC. With a combined audience reach of around 55 per cent, …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 11:06
MS screws-up video remake, and admits it wasn't real anyway

Phrases like 'blatant attempt to mislead the court' seem to spring to mind...

Microsoft's fatal video demo seems to have finally vanished beneath the waves yesterday, as the company failed to remake it adequately. To make matters worse, the company also confessed that the Internet connectivity in the earlier video hadn't been real in the first place. In principle that admission needn't necessarily have …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 11:12
PlayStation emulator wins first round against Sony

Connectix allowed to continue selling Virtual GameStation

Sony yesterday failed to prevent Connectix from selling its Mac-based PlayStation emulator, Virtual GameStation (VGS), until questions over the software developer's alleged infringement of Sony intellectual property rights and copyrights have been answered. Last week, Sony Computer Entertainment asked the Federal District Court …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 11:13
Major US indie label backs MP3

The man from Rykodisc -- he say 'yes!'

US independent record label Rykodisc, whose roster includes Frank Zappa, Richard Thompson, Morphine and Lloyd Cole, has become the latest music company to embrace the MP3 digital music format. The company posted 175 tracks on the GoodNoise Web site, each available for download for 99 cents. According to the company, more songs …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 11:32
Micromuse drug charge man facing trial in Guernsey

Date set for later this month after arrest in December

The millionaire founder of London-based reseller Micromuse is still stuck in the Channel Islands awaiting trail on charges of possessing drugs. Christopher Dawes is due to appear at the Royal Court of Guernsey on 23 February and is currently out on open remand, according to Channel Islands police. Dawes spent New Year in a …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 11:34
HP to tell the world it is serious about the Web

So, does that mean it has just been playing until now?

Hewlett-Packard is to blow a cool $100 million on a new advertising campaign in an attempt to convince people that it is serious about the Internet. Despite being responsible for much of the hardware that helps power the Net, HP is still not perceived to be an Internet company, marketing manager Nick Earle admitted at a …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 11:48
MS accused of telling staff to spam ZDNet

Woman says 'verbal' memo ecouraged staff to pose as pro-MS students

A woman claiming to be a former Microsoft employee has accused the company of encouraging its staff to post pro-Microsoft messages on ZDNet. It is of course perfectly possible that Michelle Bradley is an anti-Microsoft zealot seeking to blacken the company's name further, but her case has been supported by a second individual, …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 11:50
Dell commits to Ireland production facilities

Direct vendor not following Apple's example, claims CEO

Dell has confirmed that a $90 million production facility in Limerick, Ireland will become operational by the end of the year, and will create around 1700 jobs. That will come as some consolation to the Irish government, which this week learned its attempts to prevent job losses at Apple's Cork plant had failed. Apple announced …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 11:51
Flying pickets turn to Internet to wage war on factory owners

Company to be spammed in protest against sackings

Trade unionists will march into cyberspace today to create a virtual picket line as part of Britain’s longest running industrial dispute. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is protesting against the dismissal of 31 workers from the Critchley Label Technology, a label-printing factory at Crumlin, south Wales, in February 1997 …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 12:33
Big name ISPs fail to impress

US magazine lambastes poor service and support

The Microsoft Network, America Online and CompuServe have been publicly humiliated by PC World Magazine -- the world's biggest-selling monthly computer publication -- after it released its annual list of the top ISPs in the US. All three failed to make it into the top 10 -- and CompuServe was lucky to make it onto the list at …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 12:53
End of the line for Siemens MBO hopes

German conglomerate rejects Geordie bid

Siemens' crippled microchip plant in Tyneside has received another blow following the death of a management buyout proposal. Talks collapsed with Siemens yesterday, when the German electronics giant rejected the offer. This ends the 250 employees' best chance of keeping the factory open beyond the June deadline set by Siemens. …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 13:11
Data networks too complex for solo vendors, Olicom claims

Cuddles up to Cabletron

"No single vendor can –- or should -– do it all," Olicom CEO Niels Christian Furu says. He would, wouldn't he? Always a niche vendor, Danish-owned Olicom is cosying up to Cabletron with a joint global OEM and marketing agreement. This will see Cabletron flog Olicom's Token Ring products, while Olicom will flog Cabletron's …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 13:26
K6-3 to have new name as software war begins

Sooner or later, we'll find out...

An executive at AMD UK today said that the K6-3 will have a different name -- but he won't say what it is. Paul Ridgway, at AMD UK, was talking at a VIA seminar in London this morning. He also the introduction of the K6-3, whatever it is called, will be "very, very soon" but didn't narrow that down either. However, Ridgway hit …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 13:29
VIA puts chipset weight behind PC 133

Direct Rambus likely to be too expensive

Chipset company VIA has decided to push the PC133 SDRAM standard and said that Direct Rambus was too expensive a solution. Dean Hays, director of marketing at Via, said: "We're working with a number of memory companies to develop the PC133 spec. Intel took the lead on PC100 but VIA is taking a lead on developing PC133. We intend …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 13:41
VIA unveils chipset roadmap, claims Camino late

Says it will give Intel run for its money

A senior executive at chipset company VIA outlined today his company's roadmap for the rest of the year. Dean Hays, director of marketing at Via, said: "One of the things Intel does is to abandon functions [from] its chipsets when it wants to move on. We support functions and so it's a just a simple choice between CPUs." He said …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 13:49
VIA to IPO on 5 March

Claims it will knock Intel off its perch

A senior executive at core logic company VIA said today that the company will float on the Taiwanese stock exchange on 5 March. Sean Davidson, international marketing manager at the company, said: "Over the long term, we aim to be the world's largest core chipset supplier." Currently, said Davidson, VIA is number ten in the …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 14:00
UK mobile phone firms escape call charge cuts

Oftel rules that existing levels of competition will bring down prices

Mobile phone companies will not have to cut call charges to increase competition, Oftel decided yesterday. David Edmonds, director general of the telecomms watchdog, ruled out intervention to see call costs drop and stimulate the market. Edmonds said controls were unnecessary because competition between the major players was …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 14:15
Bug's Life fails to halt Pixar profit plunge

Is Jobs devoting too much energy to Apple?

Steve Jobs is clearly spending too much time on his old stomping ground, spending too long away from the company where he's the real CEO, not some 'until the sign up the new guy' interim model. While Apple (interim CEO: Steve Jobs) recently recorded its fifth consecutive profitable quarter, Pixar (non-interim CEO: Steve Jobs) …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 15:44
Web-based bookstore for UK from Bertelsmann

Media behemoth to rope in existing Net presence to rival Amazon and WH Smith

Bertelsmann is to open an online bookstore in the UK before the end of the month to rival Amazon.co.uk and the WH Smiths-owned Internet Bookshop. Sources close to the world's third largest media company said an announcement would be made within the "next few weeks". As well as offering books, the site, Books Online (BOL), is …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 16:03
Diamond CEO charts company's MP3 future

Schroeder's razor contrasted with Gilette's razor, Occam's razor and Palm's Razor...

Diamond Multimedia CEO Bill Schroeder yesterday told attendees of the NationsBanc Montgomery Securities Technology Week conference in San Francisco that the company has sold over 100,000 Rio PMP300s since the MP3 player's launch last November. The thrust of Schroeder's speech was to stress Diamond's move to expand out of its …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 16:08
Ingram to produce its own non-branded PCs

UK to get white boxes if first stage of plan succeeds

Ingram Micro has revealed plans to brand its white-box PCs within the next two months. UK resellers will get access to the kit if the planned US trial goes well. At the System Builder Summit Conference in Phoenix this week, Ingram said that it intended to start the branding exercise to establish market presence for its resellers …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 16:20
UK cable firms to offer Web over the TV services

Gang of three leads the way, will Murdoch's BSkyB follow suit?

Telewest has announced it is to follow the lead of the UK’s other leading cable companies by providing an interactive, high-speed Internet based television service. The other two main UK cable operators, NTL and Cable & Wireless, are to launch similar services in spring and autumn of this year - Telewest estimates it will have …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 16:52
AMD desktop chip found hiding in Compaq notebook

Manufacturer admits to covering up bogus chip choice

Compaq has admitted that it published misleading information on its Web site about the type of processor used in its Presario home notebook PC. The Compaq Presario 1255 notebook uses AMD 333Mhz K6-2 desktop processor, and not the costlier mobile version of the same chip, according to reports in InfoWorld. The choice of the …

Business 5 Feb 1999, 18:38