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11th March 1999 Archive

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  • How Novell (finally) got it right with NDS

    Analysis Our Graham charts Eric Schmidt's attempt to revive the NetWare company

    For a company with deep Mormon roots, codenaming a future product '6-Pack' is an indication of just how far CEO Eric Schmidt has managed to change the culture at Novell. While Microsoft, the ultimate competitor, has been in vapour for a true directory service for NT, Novell all but squandered the window of opportunity that …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 11:39

  • Gateway takes latest Western Digital drives

    Move signals change of direction for WD -- but is it WD's forte?

    Western Digital has announced a deal with direct vendor Gateway to ship its higher performance hard drives. Gateway yesterday started moving the WD Expert 7200 RPM hard drive with giant magnetoresisitve (GMR) heads and the Ultra ATA-66 interface in the Gateway Performance product line. This deal moves Western Digital into a more …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 12:30

  • 3Com, MS form home networking product alliance

    Network kits to push Universal Plug and Play, and Home Phone Networking Alliance

    3Com and Microsoft today announced they are to jointly develop a series of co-branded home networking products. The companies said the will offer four networking kits. The first two will be based on Ethernet and phone cabling, respectively. Both will go on sale to OEMs in the summer and to consumers in the autumn. The phone …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 12:40

  • Anti-spam campaign gathers momentum

    Send an unsolicited email to everyone you know telling them to sign up now...

    Almost 15,000 people have signed a pan-European petition against the legalisation of unsolicited junk e-mail -- or spam -- by the European Union. The campaign -- lead by top German computer magazine c't and supported by The Register (see earlier story) -- has today received further support from the European Internet Service …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 12:44

  • Intel, MS, Nortel, HP to unify Net technologies

    Alliance to be announced next week

    Intel, Microsoft, Nortel and Hewlett-Packard are set to embark on a major networking technology alliance, due to be officially announced early next week. The alliance will create a joint development effort centred on unifying the companies' chip, browser, networking and PC technologies, according to a report in the US edition of …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 13:10

  • Y2k bug to blight the countryside

    Farmers told to take action or else, ooh aar

    The Millennium bug yesterday singled out its next victim -– our agricultural community. Yes, farmers may have to stay sober this New Year's Eve to cope with the threat of Y2k. The bug could see already hard pressed farmers milking cows and feeding chickens by hand. This unusual sector of the technology industry doesn't often …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 13:34

  • Sun to build XML support into Java

    Move to ensure Java is de facto standard for e-commerce app development

    Sun is to add support for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) to Java in a bid to allow the language to take the lead in the development of next-generation e-commerce applications. Sun's work centres on the development of an XML API for Java which will standardise the way the language can be used to interpret and process XML …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 13:42

  • Microsoft lawyer memo ‘leaked’

    Intended for wider consumption, our Graham reckons

    Dave Heiner, a Microsoft lawyer, prepared a memo entitled "In case any of you care to hear 'our' side". This was distributed internally at Microsoft on 3 March, with an invitation to "forward it within your organization if you wish". It has been used by Microsoft PR for selectively briefings. The nod has no doubt been given for …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 13:53

  • Cont. Microsoft lawyer memo ‘leaked’

    intro

    Previous page In Case Any of you care to hear "our" side... Subject: DOJ Case: What's Happening Last week we finished the first phase of the DOJ trial. We thought it would be useful at this juncture to provide you with a report concerning the claims asserted against Microsoft and how the evidentiary record is shaping up. You may …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 14:01

  • Cont. Microsoft lawyer memo leaked

    intro

    Previous page Notably, the government has been unable to rebut certain key facts, known by all to be true, that undermine all of its claims. We have methodically and somewhat painstakingly developed an extensive evidentiary record, running to thousands of pages, that establishes these key facts, and does so in considerable …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 14:08

  • UK Web users won’t reap benefit of OFTEL decision on call charges

    The Register gives its view of watchdog's ruling

    There has been a mixed reaction to OFTEL's announcement that there should be no immediate change to the way the cost of telephone calls to the Internet are divvied out between telcos and ISPs. Many industry insiders have welcomed the news that OFTEL is proposing to abolish a minimum call charge as a way of increasing competition …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 14:11

  • Laugh along with the MS Spellchecker

    intro

    No 317 of an occasional series.... Why is it that the spellchecker in MS Word 97 always suggests "offal" as a replacement for OFTEL? And when it comes across Dixons it always prompts "dioxins" as a toxic surrogate. Is this a display of artificial intelligence stored somewhere in the humble WP package…or does it just have a sense …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 14:21

  • FreeServe MD catches some powder, man

    intro

    They'll be calling it FreeSWerve next... Mark Danby, the head honcho of free ISP Dixons FreeServe, is one cool cookie. While the rest of the industry was fearing the worst from OFTEL's report on dial up charges to the Internet, Danby was attending snowboarding championships deep in Austrian avalanche country. The only thing …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 14:27

  • AMD takes Fujitsu foundry route

    K6-III/450s delayed until June, if you're lucky

    AMD has decided to second source some of its wafer production. It will use its long time partner Fujitsu to help it produce Flash, thus freeing up more capacity. Robert Stead, European marketing director of AMD, acknowledged this morning that producing enough chips to meet demand was the company's main problem. The fab in …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 15:21

  • Each Merced pin to cost nearly eight bucks

    Close analysis based on $3,000 a chip

    After we had our Merced photographs blown up out of all proportion, we carefully counted the pins on each side of the array and came to the following conclusions. If a Merced cartridge contains two arrays which amount to 418 balls and the chip costs $3,000, that will mean each pin costs $7.71. If it's only $2,000, each pin will …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 15:27

  • MP3, SDMI toast, claims Broadcast.com exec

    We'll all be using Net-based broadcast-on-demand services instead, apparently

    MP3 and its potential nemesis, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), are not the future, Mark Cuban, president and chairman of Broadcast.com told attendees of the MultimediaCom conference, in San Jose, California, yesterday. Instead, Web-based delivery of music and video will be defined by streaming media technologies, …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 16:35

  • Psion Dacom restructures business model

    98 was good but DSPs are detrimental

    Gareth Hughes, MD of Psion Dacom, said today that while 1998 was an "exceptional" year for his company, the incursion of embedded solutions was eroding its business. And now the company will deliver solutions aimed at the corporate market, and move into the MiniPCI and Fast Ethernet arena. Said Hughes: "1998 was a terrific year …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 17:05

  • Intel: S3 had us by the goolies

    But it didn't press hard enough

    Sources close to Intel told The Register today that if S3 had squeezed harder last year, it could have forced Intel to back down on future technologies. S3 has bounced back this year on the technology and sales front with its Savage 4 3D acceleration chipset. But last year was a different story. Our sources close said: "S3 was …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 17:08

  • Ingram Micro slashes workforce

    US to take biggest hit

    Ingram Micro today said it would shed 1,400 jobs and expected first quarter earnings would fall short of analysts’ estimates. Ingram Micro said it expected net sales for the 1999 first quarter to fall between $6.5 and $6.7 billion, up 26 to 30 per cent over the same period last year. The distributor said it would close its …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 17:39

  • Unique ID codes on mobile PIIs no accident

    Updated Register reader takes on Chipzilla

    Intel has continued to come under fire over unique ID codes on the PII chip fiasco it engineered. Yesterday, the chip giant claimed the problem was a bug -– a phenomenon Intel prefers to call an erratum. Now it is claiming the bug was driving the van that delivered the chips. Readers of The Register have since cried foul, …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 17:45

  • Memo – web browser distribution

    intro

    Previous page Web browser distribution As noted above, all of the government's claims are premised on the theory that Microsoft "foreclosed" Netscape from distributing its Web browsing software to consumers. Since competition on the merits can have the effect of depriving competitors of certain distribution outlets, courts …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 18:24

  • Microsoft Memo – - unlawful tying

    Unlawful Tying

    Previous page UNLAWFUL TYING The government claims that one of the primary means by which Microsoft has "foreclosed" Netscape’s ability to distribute its browser is through "tying" Internet Explorer to Windows. Yet the government has flip-flopped 180 degrees on this issue. Less than one year ago, the DOJ insisted that Windows …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 18:33

  • Some Microsoft Memoes are longer than others

    Exclusionary Contracts

    Previous page EXCLUSIONARY CONTRACTS In addition to "tying", the government alleges that Microsoft entered into a series of contracts with online service providers (OLSs) like AOL, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet Content Providers (ICPs) to foreclose Netscape's browser distribution. But the evidence introduced at …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 18:48

  • Memo – - the finale

    Heiner's conclusion

    Conclusion This case is likely to continue to progress through the courts for quite some time. The trial is scheduled to resume no earlier than mid-April, at which time each side will have an opportunity to present up to three more witnesses. Later there will be briefing to the court on the application of the law to the facts, …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 19:09

  • Vendors claim The Register loses sense of humour

    Becoming a bit like SpliffNet, they say

    A whole raft of PC vendors and OEMs has complained that online magazine The Register has lost its sense of humour. The complaints started early January when we ran too many straight stories. According to a senior executive at HP: "We used to read you when you were funny but something has gone terribly wrong." He said: "You are …

    Business 11 Mar 1999, 23:22