29th March 1999 Archive
Browse by publication date, or search the site.
-
Compaq rolls out stealth selling plans
And don't forget, you are part of it
Obviously badly shaken by the flak it has received from distributors and dealers as it emulates the Dell direct model, Compaq has introduced full details of how much it cares for the channel. Tomorrow, according to US reports, distributors will be told that they can get an extra few points of margin if they sell ProSignia boxes …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 06:31
-
UK falls behind in US patent crush
Slips to fifth place
The latest report from the US Patent Office has revealed that the United Kingdom is falling behind in the international league table. While the UK filed 3464 US patents in 1998, compared to 2678 the year before, the annual statistics, revealed on Friday, showed that the UK was in fifth place after Japan, Germany, France and …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 06:55
-
How Compaq views the ‘real’ world
Eckhard Pfeiffer opens kimono for internal consumption only
An internal document passed to The Register by an insider has revealed how CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer wants the world to see Compaq when he opens his kimono. The presentation, called Corporate Strategies, contains the warning: "It should be used as an internal document only. The content should serve as a strategy umbrella for your …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 07:22
-
Blair condemns kids to life of everlasting Cobol
A year ago Eight months work and then what?
Posted 31 March 1998 The PM of the UK, Tony Blair, will spend a fortune educating young people to tackle the millennium bug, he said yesterday, with a task force ready by April next year. But that will give the estimated 20,000 bug busters only eight months to fix systems in the UK, meaning that after the British Government has …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 07:29
-
Microsoft forces IE5 downloads for W2000 beta users
Now if only it worked...
A beta tester of Microsoft's Windows 2000 software applications has reported that users need Internet Explorer 5.0 to download patches and updates. But, as we reported on Saturday, using IE 5.0 opens users to security risks (see IE5 security hole lets snoopers scoop your clipboard). The tester, who does not wish to be named, …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 07:48
-
Win64 order of boot expected RSN
It's either WinHEC or Compaq Innovate
Veteran Digital and Compaq watcher Terry Shannon is reporting in his newsletter, Shannon knows Compaq, that a demo of Win64 is imminent. Shannon says that Win64 may be demoed at the WinHEC conference in early April but Compaq would love to show it off at Innovate 99. Compaq successfully booted Win64 on its Alpha platform at the …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 08:15
-
Apple dealer bombed
Beware geeks, Greeks or Serbians bearing bombs
An Athens-based Apple reseller was the victim on Friday of a terrorist bomb attack. The bombers are believed to be outraged at Nato's airstrikes against Serbia. The Greek police received a warning, relayed via a local TV station, that a shop selling American computers was to be bombed. The shop was damaged in the blast, but …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 09:54
-
Amazon.com to launch auction service
Takes the fight to eBay, offers protection against fraud for customers
Internet bookstore giant Amazon.com has set its sights on becoming an online auction house. In a move that will see it go head to head with the likes of eBay and Onsale, Amazon.com is developing its own auction facility. CEO Jeff Bezos is reported in the Wall Street Journal to have said the company had already signed up 117 …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 10:12
-
Security lapse hits Nintendo site
Would-be shoppers names, addresses available
An apparently major security fault on a Nintendo UK site has resulted in the names, addresses and email addresses of individuals freely available to surfers on the Web. The site, Nintendo UK, offers an online shopping service but postings on the news.admin.net-abuse newsgroup have revealed that details of would-be shoppers are …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 10:32
-
Melissa virus threatens to bring email to a halt
Updated Distributes porn chain letter and infects Word documents
Email users today face being tricked into passing on a new kind of chain-letter virus which could crash their PC systems and clog-up their servers. The threat, going by the name Melissa, affects Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000 and Outlook. Hundreds of thousands of PCs have already been affected, according to today's Financial Times …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 10:34
-
Universal, BMG team up on Net music
Major labels' deal mirrors Sony/EMI agreement
'Big five' music companies Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and Universal have agreed to combine their upcoming digital music distribution programmes into a single operation run by Universal. News of the deal, leaked anonymously to music company MP3.com, comes on the heels of a similar arrangement struck between Sony and EMI, two …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 11:38
-
Cyber-sex surfers suffer from porn addiction
You could get eye-strain, but you’re more likely to get hooked or even RSI
Looking at too much sex on the Web won't just make you go blind, it's addictive and can damage your mental health, according to Californian academics. And it's not particularly arousing either, they claim. Surfers who regularly dip into the Internet in search of porno material risk psychological damage through addiction. They …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 11:44
-
Accounting rules force Intel chip disclosures
No wonder Compaq and Dell are important to Chipzilla
Changes in the way US corporations have to disclose their financial information have led Intel to release segment information about its business. Similar changes forced IBM last week to show that it had lost $1 billion on PCs last year. According to Intel form 10-K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 12:03
-
Red Hat to bundle Metrowerks' CodeWarrior for Linux
IDE to ship with Red Hat Linux and in standalone GNU, Pro editions
Integrated development environment specialist Metrowerks today announced it has ported its CodeWarrior IDE to Red Hat Linux. The software will ship in May in the first of two forms: CodeWarrior for Red Hat Linux GNU Edition, which simply links the CodeWarrior IDE to Linux's standard GNU compiler and debugger. The second, …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 12:21
-
Cygnus unveils official Linux PSX2 development tools
Sony to bundle GNUPro for PlayStation 2 with its hardware target system
Sony's selection of Linux as the development platform of choice for the PlayStation 2 was reinforced today with Cygnus Solutions' announcement of its Sony-sanctioned GNU Pro software development environment for the next-generation games console. Cygnus said GNUPro had been ported to and optimised for the PlayStation 2's 128-bit …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 12:45
-
Compaq outlines low end Linux strategy
It's a big brother, little brother relationship, leaving Merced where?
The Compaq strategy to link Linux, Alpha and its own Tru64 Unix took further shape today as a senior exec at the company outlined its plans. But the one-to-one telephone call offered little hope that Merced was an all-time Compaq favourite. Jesse Lipcon, high performance server platform manager, with overall control of both …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 13:45
-
Iridium gets 60 day reprieve
Hello, who's speaking please?
Hard pressed satellite phone company Iridium has been given a 60 day waiver on its $800 million debt. That comes about because by now Iridium was supposed to have had revenues amounting to at least $4 million, and at least 27,000 total Iridium World Satellite service customers by now. As far as we know, Iridium has not yet sold …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 14:02
-
3Com to can SAN plan
Product development brought to a halt to save R&D spend
3Com has abandoned its attempt to break into the Storage Area Network (SAN) market, less than six months after embarking on the strategy. The company's president and COO, Bruce Claflin, described the move, which is being made to allow the company to focus on its networking and Palm products, as a "difficult but good business …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 14:47
-
New Joisey company steals IBM's pearls
Or could it be IBM took it?
We tried to register WWW.SOMETHING.COM as mentioned in Loot Gerstner's speech last week as we thought we'd auction the name for charity. Readers last week will have noticed that Lou "Boots" Gerstner, CEO of Big Blue with a salary to match, was worried that WWW.SOMETHING.COM would come from no-where and destroy his business. This …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 15:22
-
Embedded systems set to beat Y2K bug after all
A case of much ado about nothing?
According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, it looks like the flesh-eating millennium bug might turn out to be little more than a minor irritation, after all. According to BSC Consulting, less than seven per cent of embedded systems will fall over as a result of the year 2000 date change. Embedded systems had been held up by …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 15:26
-
Crash death Micromuse founder drugged and raped model – allegedly
Former model tells of ordeal at hands of Chris Dawes
Chris Dawes, the computer millionaire who was killed last week in a sports car smash, drugged and raped a woman days before being arrested on drugs charges. Since his death last weekend, Dawes has hardly been out of the headlines in Britain. In yesterday’s Mail on Sunday he was accused of drugging and repeatedly raping a woman …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 15:45
-
AMD-Compaq Alpha plans draw closer
Slot B takes care of all concerns
As revealed here some months ago, no-one should show surprise at the connectors on K7 processors. The AMD K7 processor shares the Alpha 21264 bus with its young cousin. The chipset handles SMP stuff, and two way copper connectors just denote a two way system -- a typical PC configuration these days -- unless you have a Celeron …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 15:54
-
City says buy Morse, sell Computacenter
It’s a tale of two dealers, but is the giant of the channel about to be over-shadowed by the stock market newcomer
Investors were yesterday advised to switch shares between two UK resellers - offload old-timer Computacenter to invest in stockmarket newcomer Morse. Broker Dresdner Kleinwort Benson (DKB) said its clients should buy into the newly floated Morse, according to The Sunday Times. Its reasons were that Computacenter shares were …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 16:30
-
Microsoft divides into five business groups
Anticipated reorganisation prepares company for post-DoJ world
Microsoft has split itself into five separate parts, as predicted here. The company's business groups target specific categories of user: home and retail products; business productivity; developer; consumer Windows and commerce; and business enterprise. Microsoft president Steve Ballmer described the new organisation as the " …
Business 29 Mar 1999, 21:56
-
Intel's Barrett a director of thin clients
Would anyone care to tell us why?
A source close to a whisper told us this evening that Intel's CEO Craig Barrett is a director of thin client company NCD. Would anyone care to tell us why he is? As far as we can tell, he's a microprocessor sort of a geezer... ®
Business 29 Mar 1999, 23:21
