30th April 1999 Archive

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Lotus lashes Microsoft, Netscape for email strategies

Microsoft is arrogant and holds customers captive. It's rip and replace, says Reeves

A senior VP at Lotus has torn into Microsoft for its strategy on email clients. Cliff Reeves, VP of Lotus' communications products, was speaking at the launch of version 5.0 of Notes on a boat called The Silver Barracuda moored on the river Thames. He said Lotus had now re-named Notes SUPER.HUMAN.SOFTWARE as part of a $100 …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 07:35
Digital's Palmer elected to AMD board

And Sanders announces K7 speeds as he cedes control to Raza

AMD has decided to elect Robert Palmer, ex CEO of Digital before Compaq took it over, to its board of directors. The company held its annual general meeting yesterday. As predicted here, Jerry Sanders III will now take a back seat to Atiq Raza, who becomes president and chief operating officer of the company. Sanders claimed AMD …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 07:56
Tech stocks take a beating as Nasdaq falls

Remember, the value of your investment can rise as well as fall, honest

Woken up with a hangover this morning? You’re not alone - anyone with shares in IT companies is likely to be suffering from a pounding head, a queasy stomach and a strange hollow feeling in their bank account. Yesterday was a bad day for IT stocks in the US, according to Computer Reseller News (CRN), the US channel mag that has …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 08:30
Processor Serial Number back from the dead

Intel on the back foot again

Reuters in the US reports that the Intel Pentium III serial number fiasco refuses to lie down and die. A hitherto-unknown Canadian software house, Montreal-based Zero-Knowledge Systems, has placed a program on the web that it claims can switch on the serial number and read it without the user knowing. Intel has persuaded long- …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 09:29
Lotus chief's ‘combat’ record savaged by WSJ

If Jeff Papows ever tells you he's shipping a product, remember he might just be 'motivating' you

We noted last year that Lotus boss Jeff Papows had a murky background as a Microsoft secret agent, plotting the overthrow of anti-Redmond strategies at the IBM PC Company (see How Lotus boss helped MS), but we have to take our hats off to yesterday's revelations in the Wall Street Journal's of Jeff's advanced fictional …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 09:41
Win2k beta 3 out – biggest ever MS beta rolls

It's 670k copies and counting so far -- any advance?

Microsoft has announced the Windows 2000 beta 3, as expected, and confirmed $59.95 as the general price. But the company has also come up with some numbers. The beta will go to 430,000 customers, 140,000 developers and 100,000 channel partners, which gives us 670,000 recipients before you include versions that go out with PCs …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 09:44
HP considered shipping non-MS OS with its Win95 PCs

MS on Trial Testimony confirms earlier suggestions from MS OEM boss

Hewlett-Packard considered shipping another operating system with its Windows 95 machines, in order to get round Microsoft restrictions placed on the initial boot sequence, according to trial testimony released this week. The plan was apparently rejected because of the strain it would have placed on HP's resources, but it is a …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 09:46
Gates smoking email asks how to break rival's software

MS on Trial After a quiet period, the other trial is perking up again...

Oops - just when they thought it was safe to go back into the mail system, Caldera has unleashed a stack of nasties relating to the period when, the company claims, Microsoft was deliberately making sure DR-DOS wouldn't run Windows. And quote of the week comes from Jim "Videotape" Allchin, now running Microsoft's multiple OS …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 09:55
Could 3D chips threaten Intel

There's more to games than having a laugh

Recently the memory market has started to go a little soft and most in the industry point the finger of blame at a flat PC market and a jump in output from Micron. Bad news. But in another corner of the computer world business is booming. The world of 3D graphics is going gangbusters as every four months another generation of 3D …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 09:58
How Cyrix sees bus architecture

Outlines the problems and opportunities

Chip manufacturer Cyrix has posted an interesting presentation it made at the WinHEC conference at the beginning of the month. Thanks to JC for pointing us to the PDF file here. The presentation contains clear diagrams which show the layout of typical frontside and traditional "backside" (ahem) architecture. It also points to …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 10:12
Cyrix pays Register a visit

Shows Webpad off in Mayfair

Graham Jackson, European marketing director of Cyrix, paid a visit to The Register the other evening toting a working model of the Webpad. The handheld device, with a 10-inch LCD screen, can use either RF (radio frequency) or DECT technology, the former giving a range of about 500 feet and the latter about 900 feet, said Jackson …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 10:33
Intel puts money into Proxim

Wireless LAN, thank you man

Proxim said today that chip giant Intel has signed an agreement over wireless LAN technology Proxim and at the same time took an equity stake in the company. Intel and Proxim will work together to develop home networking products based on the HomeRF shared wireless access protocol (SWAP) spec. The chip giant bought 320,000 …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 10:40
Quikwriting to speed Palm users

New text entry system Beats Graffiti hands down

Boffins at New York University's Media Research Lab (MRL) have developed what they claim is are revolutionary new method for pen computing text entry. Designed for the Palm handheld, the Quikwriting system is, the researchers claim, much faster than the Palm's current text entry technology, Graffiti. Developed by MRL Associate …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 10:50
Coppermine could finish AMD off for good

…should Intel choose so to do

It's the same old story: Chipzilla shows a new fastest-ever CPU to a bunch of analysts or developers and a few weeks later, AMD cobbles together something using 20 gallons of liquid nitrogen and 5Kw of fans (and sacrifices a couple of virgins to be on the safe side) in a bid to match Intel’s performance. This fixation with raw …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 10:55
Atlantic PCs resurface with new owner

Sight & Sound pledges to turn the tide for off-the-page brand

The Atlantic PC brand is to be resurrected by Midlands-based Sight & Sound Computers. Atlantic PC Systems, the line once sold by recently liquidated distributor Memsolve, was bought by the UK company earlier this month. Sight & Sound, owners of the SSC computer brand, said this week it expected the move to push the SSC group …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 11:58
Sonix-founder Jones resurfaces on Web

Serial entrepreneur? Isn’t that what business people have for breakfast?

Bob Jones, the man who gave Sonix Communications to the world, has set up a company which plans to make the Internet as easy to use as the humble telephone. Equiinet has been backed with a £5 million venture capital injection from Schroder Ventures, which has backed Jones when he set up Sonix in 1992 with £2.1 million. He sold …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 12:06
Future Xeon roadmap revealed

Coppermine PIII Xeons to debut at 667MHz - maybe

The Pentium Xeon platform is to overtake PIII in the performance stakes for the first time. The high-end, high-priced Pentium III Xeon will overtake its little brother in MHz terms in September. The two ranges have always matched each other evenly since the launch of the original Pentium II Xeon last year, but now the Slot 2 …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 12:15
MS sued over Win CE patent clash

Updated US inventor alleges Microsoft nicked his pen-based data input technology

Microsoft has been sued by a US inventor who claims the company infringed patents he owns which cover the entry of handwritten data into a computer using an "electronic pen". The suit also targets Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Casio and Sharp, which inventor Mitchell Forcier belives Microsoft sold its allegedly patent-infringing to. …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 12:33
CHS and CA to form cosy little bundles

UK leads pack with new joint initiative

The UK will pilot a software and hardware bundle from CHS Electronics and Computer Associates in an agreement announced today. Computer Associates’ IT management software solutions will be parcelled with server, desktop and storage products distributed by CHS in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. It will start in …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 12:48
Siemens to repay UK grant

German giant sent invoice for £18 million

Siemens has been ordered to repay £18 million of UK taxpayers' money used to build its now defunct Tyneside chip plant. The German manufacturer yesterday received an invoice for the return of the central government grant, which it has enjoyed interest free since 1996. Stephen Byers, the Trade and Industry Secretary, said Siemens …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 14:39
Microsoft, AOL enter MediaOne bidding war

Everyone wants of piece of the cable action

AOL and Microsoft have separately chucked their corporate hats into the MediaOne takeover ring, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Confidentiality agreements have been signed with MediaOne and approved by Comcast, the first company to bid for the US cable TV service. That bid was subsequently topped by AT&T. Curiously, the …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 14:48
MSN vanishes off face of Cyberspace

Email service gets sulky face on

MSN, Microsoft's erstwhile flagship Internet service, goes from worse to damn near unusable, reports Pete Sherriff. Regular contributors to The Register, tempted no doubt by MSN's free accounts for journalists offer, are finding it increasingly impossible to file anything other than their nails as they wait in vain for MSN to …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 15:02
AMD spams Mike Magee

Journalists up in arms at PR outrage

A simple mistake by the PR company which represents AMD in Europe has led to enraged journalists wondering why a press release was issued by Mike Magee. The press release, which was something to do with home networking, was sent to several hundred journalists in the UK and Europe but with the email address of The Register's Mike …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 15:04
Intel on target for Merced – unofficial

Except it's just got to be ready by May 27

Sources extremely close to Intel's plans at Compaq said that engineers have until May 27th to tape out the piece. Said the insider: "Many a false deadline has come and gone but a May 27 Merced tapeout has been chiselled in stone or etched in silicon at Intel." The Compaq insider, who does not wish to be named, said: "If this …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 15:15
Mirror Group launches free Net service

ic24 to bring Web to honest Yeomen of Britain. Or something like that

UK tabloid publisher Mirror Group today launched its promised free Internet access service. Dubbed ic24, the scheme was announced earlier this month to spoil the launch of a similar service by the Group's arch-rival, News Corp.'s tabloid, The Sun (see UK tabloid papers launch Web access for the masses). ic24 centres on a news- …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 15:22
Victims wanted – have you been violated?

Mr CIH set to go free unless someone complains soon

The author of the CIH virus has confessed to his heinous crime, but cannot be prosecuted until victims come forward. Chen Ing-hau admitted he was guilty of masterminding the virus after Taiwanese police caught him red-handed with the same initials as the bug. Doh! CIH disabled PC systems worldwide earlier this week. The culprit …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 16:06
The Register offers PC cleaning tips

Our aim is to be entertaining, informative and useful with no screen scrapers

There's an awful lot of rubbish spouted about keeping one's peripherals clean. At The Register, we take a rather more relaxed view of hardware care. If it breaks, we simply ask the supplier to send a replacement PDQ (pretty damn quick), or else. However, our "who cares attitude" has revealed some surprising results. Dirty …

Business 30 Apr 1999, 16:27