22nd April 1999 Archive

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Intel close to completing overclocking plans

Updated But can it be done?

Plans by Intel to prevent overclocking of its processors are nearly complete, according to sources close to the company. At the end of last year, we reported that Intel would introduce locks on microprocessor speeds which would prevent end users from increasing the clock rate on chips. But now, its manufacturing methods mean …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 07:28
Sub-$1000 Alpha Linux system close to launch

And NT only ProLiant Alphas fall off Compaq roadmap

The first fruits of Eckhard Pfeiffer's removal as CEO of Compaq have started to fall off the tree. Compaq has now decided that its idea to make NT only ProLiant Alpha servers was not a good idea. Alpha is now being touted by the company as a so-called "universal platform". Next month, Compaq will introduce its DS10 WebBrick at …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 07:36
PairGain ‘mastermind’ faces huge PairLoss

Hoke's troubles mounts as SEC files damages suit

Oh boy, is he in trouble. Gary Daile Hoke, the 26-year-old alleged mastermind behind the PairGain share ramp hoax has been slapped by a law suit by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This comes on top of the criminal case against the PairGain engineer, and a threat from Bloomberg to sue for unspecified damages. The SEC is …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 07:51
Merced the Celeron of IA-64 platforms

Look it's not dead, it's undead

Reports that Merced is dead are highly premature, sources close to Intel's plans said today. Instead, the Merced is to future IA-64 architecture as the Celeron is to the Pentium II, the source added. Of course, the Celeron was a cut-down Pentium II. The source said that there are similarities between Merced and McKinley. Intel …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 07:54
Why Coppermine is Aluminium-mine

Because Intel's not copper-bottomed

Cunning marketing plans are behind Intel's decision to label its upcoming technology Coppermine, sources close to the company can reveal. Although Intel has committed itself to producing copper technology in future iterations of its IA-64 technology, it was determined that IBM, Motorola and others should not steal its thunder, …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 08:02
Dell at loggerheads with Intel

A year ago Adopts Intergraph technology

From The Register No. 73, April 1998 Dell licensing technology from Intergraph is definitely one for the department of weird coincidences. According to Intergraph, Dell is kicking-off a new line of Intel-based workstations tomorrow, and will be using Intergraph's AGP-based Intense 3D Pro graphics subsystems in them. The …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 08:21
Big Blue Q1 beats Street

IBM turns 1998's $1 billion PC sales loss into 50 per cent increase

IBM revenue in its first quarter rose 15 per cent to $20.32 billion, and net income of $1.47 billion, was up 42 per cent on the year-ago quarter. Financial analysts were taken by surprise again, as their First Call consensus was $1.41/share, while the result was $1.55/share. IBM turned in hardware sales of $8.58 billion, showing …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 10:05
Microsoft CFO to dash to RoadRunner

But will Bill let him?

Greg Maffei, Microsoft's CFO, is believed to be trying to jump ship to join RoadRunner, the cable modem Internet service owned by Time Warner (the biggest US cable operator) and MediaOne. However, Bill Gates is apparently objecting to Maffei's departure on the grounds that as a ten per cent shareholder, the CFO has the right to …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 10:20
MS readies witness list for DoJ Wars: Episode 2

Sun VP, AOL CEO already lined up for depositions

Microsoft will depose Michael Popov of Sun on 30 April, and following a court of appeals decision to uphold the Publicity in Taking Evidence Act, it will be open to the public at the San Francisco federal courthouse. Popov, Sun's VP and COO of staff operations, was one of the architects of the complex three-way deal with AOL and …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 10:29
S3 loss narrows

But revenue remains static

Graphics chip vendor S3 released its Q1 1999 results yesterday, and while the company failed to show a profit, it's loss shrank considerably despite only a small rise in revenue. S3's loss for the quarter totalled $13.6 million, a big improvement on the $70.3 million loss it posted for the previous quarter. Revenue remained …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 10:58
Register hacked but not cracked

Take out our competition instead, we request

Apologies to all our readers who tried to visit The Register last night but found us absent -- our server was brought down briefly by a mass attempt to hack the site. Fortunately, the hackers, who made over 1000 attempts to break in, caused no real damage. Apparently, hackers were rallied to action against The Register through a …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 11:16
Silly email signature prizes awarded

We were under-whelmed with entries – please stop sending them

The Register has awarded two prizes for top explanations of the surreal signature "The tire (sic) is only flat on the bottom." The judges said they were particularly impressed with the number and quality of the entries. Or something like that. "Having to make a decision was incredibly difficult," said one judge. "So the pin came …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 11:34
Sony wins second victory against PlayStation emulator

Connectix must cease Virtual GameStation shipments, rules court

Sony yesterday successfully halted the shipment of Connectix's Mac-based PlayStation emulator, Virtual GameStation (VGS). US District Court Judge Charles Legge ruled that Connectix should suspend shipments of VGS, according to a report in MacWeek.com. It's not clear whether Legge's 28-page ruling, delivered to the San Francisco …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 11:41
Cyrix, IBM rumour mill cranks up

Insider says there's no truth to takeover...but

A Cyrix engineer, who wishes to remain anonymous, has sent his thoughts on the story we carried yesterday about IBM buying the business. He said: "As of now the rumor that has causied the stock to inflate three points is.... well... in my humble opinion a complete and utter mis-truth." He claimed that Cyrix would only be sold to …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 11:57
NEC delays PowerVR 250 – again

Part now due in June -- a year after it was supposed to ship

NEC's PowerVR 250 PC 3D graphics accelerator, designed by UK firm VideoLogic, will now not make it to market before the summer, according to the Japanese chip maker. The delay marks the second time NEC has had to put back shipment of the long-awaited VideoLogic part. Last year, it was forced to abandon a summer 1998 release …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 12:05
AMD buys breathing space with Vantis sale

Flogs PLD unit to Lattice (not Lettice) for $500 million

Trouble chip company AMD has sold its programmable logic device unit Vantis to Lattice for half a billion dollars in cash. AMD spun off its PLD division some time ago and it was always on the cards that it would sell the unit after that happened. Last week, AMD turned in very poor financial results and it is saddled with debts …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 12:11
Psion Computers MD quits

Goddjin goes, Levin leaps in

Psion, the British maker of palmtop computers and modems, and the provider of much of Symbian's operating system technology, today announced the resignation of Harold Goddijn, MD of its Psion Computers business unit. Godson was made MD less than a year ago, but appears to have tarred his brush earlier this year when the company …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 12:26
Who will follow Eckhard out of the door?

Rumours of layoffs and re-structure grow but denied

At a conference call held in the US yesterday, Compaq was at pains to insist that it was not planning a re-structuring. But our information is that a re-structure is definitely on the cards and some more redundancies are inevitable. According to a source close to Compaq in the US, there will be layoffs which will hit both DEC …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 12:41
Data Fellows to bolster channel with UK HQ

They’ve started and they’re Finnish

The Fins are underestimated as a nation and are hatching a plan to move into the UK channel. So went this morning’s message from Helsinki anti-virus company Data Fellows, due to open its first UK office in Cambridge next month. The Melissa-busting Fins were keen to point out to that there was more to their home country than …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 14:31
AMD promises 550MHz K7 at launch

So says the president of AMD Japan

At launch, the K7 will be released at a clock speed of 550MHz and Intel will face pressure at the high end. That information is available at JC's pages and is a translation of an interview with Kazuo Sakai, president of AMD Japan. The introduction of the 550MHz K7 will precipitate a gladiatoral battle between AMD and Chipzilla, …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 14:42
UK telecomms industry is Y2K safe

Industry watchdog defies millennium ebola

Oftel today proclaimed 90 per cent of UK public phone networks to be Y2K safe. The industry watchdog said it expected all stragglers to reach compliance by September, following an independent assessment of the country’s telecomms industry. A government statement revealed Oftel had adopted what it called "Action 2000’s ‘traffic …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 14:55
AMI intros 64-bit PCI, quad PIII/Xeon mobos

A better board than Intel inside, company claims

American Megatrends (AMI) said it has shipped its MegaPlex II motherboard which gives 64-bit PCI support using the 450NX chip set. According to the company, the board will appeal to system builders because it outperforms Intel's own board and implements the full 450NX PCI set. That means the board will support four peer-to-peer …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 14:59
High school gunmen Web name registered

Updated ISP claims rights to URL bearing gang’s name

Redhorn Inc -- a small Internet service provider based in New Hampshire -- has registered the domain trenchcoatmafia.com. It was registered on the same day as the horrific shooting in Denver, Colorado, when two masked pupils -- who belonged to an extremist gang calling themselves the Trenchcoat Mafia –- shot and killed 15 high …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 15:06
Hyundai-LG Semi deal on

And Hyundai to restructure tomorrow

Friday's edition of English language newspaper The Korea Herald said that Hyundai and LG are close to agreeing their long awaited merger. The newspaper quotes the government regulator of the deal as saying Hyundai will pay $2.15 billion for LG Semicon. for a 60 per cent stake in the company. And, as a precursor to the deal, …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 15:12
Intel to face assault, libel and slander suit

Updated Techsearch LLC files against Chipzilla

An aggrieved US company has filed an assault, libel and slander suit against chip giant Intel. Techsearch LLC filed suit against Intel earlier this week. The case is connected to allegations that Intel, under the guise of a shell company set up in the Cayman Islands, blocked the acquisition of a patent Techsearch was attempting …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 15:45
Forget spam mail, how about chain mail?

Knitzilla one, purlzilla another

Leave work early enough from Szechuan Publishing and you find yourself in a welter of suits all leaving the City of London looking stressed and wanting to return to their respective bastions big time. Except, tonight, we couldn't help notice a chap travelling on the Metro Line with two pairs of pliers and a heap of iron bits. He …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 19:49
End users to be burnt by drops in Pentium III pricing

Unless, of course, they have money to burn

End users contemplating buying Pentium III processors should watch out for relentless price drops over the next five months before they spend their hard earned cash. That became apparent when we exclusively published Intel's desktop roadmap last weekend. The Pentium III 450 and 500MHz, which dropped in price last April 11th, as …

Business 22 Apr 1999, 20:00