16th April 1999 Archive
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Transistors threaten to invade lebensraum
A year ago The influential SIA reckons we'll have a billion each
From The Register No. 73, April 1998 The SIA said Friday that by 2008, for each person on the planet, there will be an an estimated billion transistors. Hopefully, they won't be all piled into your one bedroomed flat or occupy living space in your shanty town. Even if they're produced on a wickedly good sub micron process by …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 07:54
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ARM shows huge revenue boost
British firm's profits jump by 91 per cent
ARM Holdings has just released its financial results for Q1, ending 31st of March last. And it’s good news. Revenues rose 51 per cent compared to the same period last year to stand at £13.1 million. Pre-tax profits, however, shot up by 91 per cent to stand at £3.2 million. With British understatement, Robin Saxby, chairman of …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 08:01
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Intel bang to rights on questionable business ethics
Wall Street Journal plonks one on Chipzilla's nose
Sometimes, we think that local New York paper The Wall Street Journal is too worthy by half. But, on occasions they write really good stuff. Credit where credit's due. The newspaper has just published a fab story showing that Intel set up a shell Cayman Island company in order to get hold of some patents it wanted. In the course …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 08:11
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MS plans to lock users into Win2k as beta slips again
With the preview machine finally cranking into action, it looks like Microsoft thinks it can see daylight
The ship date for beta 3 of Windows 2000 has slipped again, but things are looking up - it's only another week, and Microsoft seems to be confident enough about its viability to be kicking in its cunning plan to hook corporate customers in advance of shipping the actual product. The new beta ship date is April 26 to OEMs and …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 09:05
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AltaVista to sell search result positioning
But paying for keywords will increase the results' relevance, honest...
AltaVista is to become the first major Web search outfit to allow companies to pay to have their site displayed prominently in search results. Smaller outfits do this sort of thing already, and cynics might be suspicious of certain larger outfits, but AltaVista is the first to grasp the nettle firmly. And, depending on reactions …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 09:42
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Raw Coppermine, K7 benchmarks found in school
Updated What can this mean?
We promised yesterday that we'd post the URLs we discovered on the World Wide Web that seem to give benchmarks for Intel's Coppermine and AMD's K7 chips. The data is at Stanford University but quite frankly we find it quite bewildering. However, a kindly reader has pointed us to this Ars Technica article which is helpful. The …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 10:20
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UK Web sites offered a little Colombian go-faster extension
Sounds like a silly idea, but it’s not to be snorted at carelessly
UK companies in search of a new Web address are being given the opportunity to own a Colombian domain extension at half the price of a conventional .uk registration. Buckinghamshire-based Net Registrar UK.CO is offering the .uk.co extension -- instead of the more conventional .co.uk -- after signing a licensing agreement with …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 10:21
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Intel readies more Rambus stop-gaps
Can't get Direct DRAM? Er... try this... or that... or the other, says Chipzilla
Intel is to introduce what it's calling a "memory hub" to allow PC vendors using its upcoming Camino chipset to use PC100 SDRAM in place of next-generation Rambus Direct DRAM while RDRAM parts remain thin on the ground. According to News.com, the memory hub technology will allow a Pentium III to operate a system bus clock speed …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 10:35
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DRAM manufacturers get it wrong again
Opinion Stop, before it's too late
What exactly is wrong with the memory market today? Why is there a disproportionate difference between the highest and lowest prices for products in the market? We are talking about OEM product, not third party. Original memory modules direct from the DRAM manufacturer. For the last month or so, we have seen market prices in …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 10:46
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Vodafone takes on One-2-One in cut price mobile war
Orange and Cellnet expected to enter fray next week
The war over dirt cheap mobile phone calls has just got messier, with Vodafone slashing charges to match rival One-2-One. The UK's largest mobile phone operator yesterday announced plans to offer 250 minutes of free calls to subscribers to its £24.99-a-month service, instead of 180 minutes. Vodafone laughed off accusations that …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 11:00
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3Com restructure claims 150 jobs
Organises client network product divisions into single unit after poor Q4 results
3Com has reorganised its client networks access products divisions in an attempt to revitalise the company's sales of network interface cards (NICs) and modems following their poor contribution to its latest quarterly results. The Networks Satan will create a Personal Connectivity Business Unit (PCBU), said CEO Eric Benhamou, …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 11:06
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FTC commissioner thinks Intel settlement hard to police
Intel not a monopoly -- official
FTC commissioners involved in the accusation that Intel holds a monopoly in the chip market have given some of their reasons for settling with the chip giant. In a statement on the FTC Web site, Robert Pitofsky, Sheila Anthony and Mozelle Thompson review the decision while commissioner Orson Swindle, who dissented against …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 11:19
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Sun profits, revenues up 25 per cent
Surprise, surprise
Great Satan of Instant Coffee, Sun Microsystems yesterday beat Wall Street predictions by a single cent when it posted its Q3 1999 results. Analysts surveyed by First Call reckoned Sun would make a profit of 35 cents a share -- the company actually made 36 cents a share. And lo, there was much rejoicing. For the quarter ended 28 …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 11:29
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Web currency not as half-baked as it seems
Founder knows how many Beenz make five
Beenz -- the fledgling Internet currency -- appears to be holding its own despite early scepticism that this was just another gimmick trying to cash in on the popularity of the Net. With three-quarters of a million Beenz already in circulation the financial mandarins behind Beenz believe that they have tapped into something that …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 11:50
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Cellnet chooses Bury for home of new call centre
Can't get enough of that accent -- we teach you how to speak it
The cultural homeland of hotpot and tripe is to be blessed with 2000 jobs by mobile phone giant Cellnet. T’little-known Lancashire mill town of Bury, wi' a population of 182,000, has been chosen as the setting for a Cellnet call centre. Big wigs at the company seem to have adopted the philosophy that the local twang will be a …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 12:12
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Sony, IBM partner on digital music delivery system
Look out, Microsoft
IBM and Sony have agreed to integrate their respective digital music delivery technologies. The deal will see the two companies build Sony's MagicGate copyright protection system into Big Blue's Electronic Music Management System (EMMS). Can the announcement's timing, mere days after Microsoft's massive Windows Media …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 12:21
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Silly email signatures come under fire
Well, we don’t like them anyway
Companies are being urged to crack down on the use of puerile and meaningless signatures at the end of emails. Not only does the practice use up valuable bandwidth it can also damage the reputation of companies as their employees attempt to create some kind of alter ego in the personality-free world of email. This signature from …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 12:34
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IT recruitment agency will make founders millionaires
Overall industry set to cool down though
Two UK tycoons will share £100 million when they float their IT recruitment company in the next few weeks, according to a story in The Times today. Andy Baker and Les Clark started Glotel ten years ago after leaving Hestair, the recruitment arm of conglomerate BET. The London-based company has 245 staff in the UK, US and …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 13:01
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Amazon sues Amazon 3
Update Microsoft-style tactics threaten 28-year-old business, says litigant, why shouldn't we fight?
The legal action launched by independent Minneapolis-based based Amazon Bookstore against the rather larger Amazon.com continues to provoke debate among Netizens and Register readers. In particular, we were pleased to receive a note from Diana Lynn, one of the store's founders, putting the Amazon Bookstore side of the story, as …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 13:01
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MS starts Win2k push by offering server version for $125
And we think we can hear another of those biggest ever public betas getting ready off-stage...
A Windows 2000 special offer posted on the Microsoft site seems to confirm that Microsoft is going for widespread circulation of the Win2k beta 3, which is now due on April 28, as reported here earlier. The offer, posted here, in the Direct Access training section, gives you a clutch of software, NT Server 4.0, beta 3 when it's …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 14:18
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Iomega makes money again (ish)
But revenue is down, and job cuts are coming, warns CEO
Iomega struggled hard to post a profit for its first quarter results, reported yesterday, but it managed it -- just. CEO Jodie Glore also warned that staff cuts at the company were on the cards to take place during the next three months. The storage specialist made $569,000 on revenues of just $386 million. For the same period …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 15:47
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PairGain bogus news man arrested
Fake bulletin could put him inside for ten years
The Feds have arrested a man they believe masterminded a plot to drive up the stock price of California-based PairGain Technology. Twenty five-year-old Gary Dale Hoke was arrested at his home in Raleigh, North Carolina charged with creating a bogus Bloomberg news item alleging that PairGain had agreed to be acquired by Israeli …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 16:08
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US coders half as productive as everyone else
International programmers write 16,700 lines per year -- Americans do 7700 lines
Software developers should seriously consider relocating out of the US and employing European and Asian programmers, if the results of a Meta Group survey are anything to go by. According to the survey, which measured the productivity of 16,000 IT professionals, US programmers were half as productive as code-writers in the rest …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 16:13
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Ex-Info’Products employee wins his day in court
Compel hands over £1,000 for deducted commission
Compel has been ordered to pay £1,000 to a former employee of Info'Products for unpaid wages. Ryan Diblee, a former account co-ordinator at reseller Info'Products, won his case on 13 April at Chelmsford County Court. He was awarded £955 for commission deducted from his salary between April and December 1998. Diblee, who …
Business 16 Apr 1999, 16:21
