12th May 1999 Archive

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Bay in Nortel takeover talks?

A Year Ago Could be that consolidation thang

From The Register 6 May 1998 We thought you might be interested in the following item published by a UK reseller in an email newsletter at the weekend. "In the race to acquire data networking expertise, telecommunications equipment makers Northern Telecom and Lucent Technologies appear to be in hot pursuit of Bay Networks. …

Business 12 May 1999, 07:57
Telecom sales boost Cisco Q3

All those lovely, lovely network upgrades...

Cisco benefited from equipment sales to telecom service providers upgrading for the Internet, and has just reported a good third quarter. Sales were up 44 per cent to $3.15 billion, with earnings up 33 per cent to $646 million, compared with the year-earlier quarter. Around a third of Cisco's sales are to service providers, and …

Business 12 May 1999, 08:03
MS trusty Allaire scores DNA integration deal

Microsoft -- the company that looks after its witnesses

Is Microsoft looking after those who have supported it in its defence against the US government well? Well, possibly. During the contempt case brought by the Department of Justice against Microsoft, the company felt it needed some external support. Microsoft's legal department is hardly any better run than its Windows …

Business 12 May 1999, 08:05
Cheap airline pioneer plans huge cybercafe chain

Far bigger and cheaper than the existing ones, and mightn't AOL be implicated?

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the owner of the no-frills, Luton-based budget airline Easyjet, is investing £10 million in cybercafes. The first will be in Victoria, London and should open on 21 June, with 420 workstations. SH-I says that with large establishments, access charges can be as low as £1 an hour because of economies of scale …

Business 12 May 1999, 08:07
US military vetoes NT, Exchange for battle system

Lotus gets to tender, but MS software ain't secure enough, says the brass

The US Army, currently not deployed in Kosovo but who knows what may happen next (it's in Earls Court -- CIA maps again -- Ed), does not trust Windows NT or Exchange security. Microsoft hasn't been allowed to tender for the US Army Battle Command System (ABCS), which requires secure messaging. The winner is Lotus Notes, running …

Business 12 May 1999, 08:09
IBM wins $1bn Nintendo deal for PowerPC

A customer folks - Big Blue has got a PowerPC customer...

IBM is to produce a custom PowerPC chip to power the next generation of Nintendos, according to a report in today's New York Times. The deal, due to be announced at E3 in Los Angeles later today, is said to be worth $1 billion to IBM, and will cover tens of millions of chips. These will be tailored 400MHz parts, and the machines …

Business 12 May 1999, 08:49
Amazon ad campaign fails to impress

Well, we didn’t think much of it

Online bookstore Amazon.co.uk has made such an embarrassing stab at making itself sound hip and trendy it's enough to make you cringe. In a series of three radio ads a spokesman for Amazon.co.uk tries to find an alternative location to store its 1.5 million books. Bemused and slightly hacked off receptionists at Strangeways …

Business 12 May 1999, 09:33
AMD K7 trounces PIII Xeon, says c't

And takeover rumour mill grinds on

German magazine c't is reporting that unofficial benchmarks they have for the AMD K7 platform show that it trounces a Pentium III Xeon chip. If your German's any good, go here. The magazine, however, asks the same question we posed some time back about the role of Coppermine in the future. (See story: Coppermine could finish AMD …

Business 12 May 1999, 09:52
Another senior Compaq exec flies the coop

Services chief Rando follows Pfeiffer’s lead

Compaq has lost its fourth top dog in a month, with the departure of its head of services. Compaq senior vice president and general manager of services, John Rando, will resign as soon as a replacement is named, effective from 1 July, said the company. His departure will enable him to pursue personal interests, according to a …

Business 12 May 1999, 09:52
Can AOL beat MS and the cable pack to Web TV?

The trick may be that the new AOL TV service can be deployed fast, and soon

Yesterday's AOL TV announcement involved a quantity of smoke and mirrors. Apparently the move takes AOL into space, delivers on the company's long-telegraphed plan to meld the Web and interactive TV, and - more or less as an incidental - shuts the door on Microsoft, but in reality these are places AOL is heading towards. It hasn …

Business 12 May 1999, 10:15
Moto flogs SCG group

Gets $1.6 billion from Texas Pacific Group

The uncertainty over the future of Motorola's semiconductor components group (SCG) is over. As expected, Texas Pacific Group has taken the lead in a management buy out, worth $1.6 billion to Motorola. Texas Pacific Group is a private investment partnership specialising in technology buyouts. The independent enterprise will be …

Business 12 May 1999, 10:22
MS to spend another $4bn on UK C&W deal?

Help - Microsoft's trying to buy all of us. Another few billion and we'll have to cut interest rates...

Microsoft's spending spree is - believe it or not - accelerating, with the company now tipped to blow $4 billion on up to 30 per cent of UK cable TV operator CWC, a Cable & Wireless subsidiary. What with MS already having slices of Telewest and NTL, and sweethearts deals with British Telecom on the go, it's beginning to look …

Business 12 May 1999, 10:54
Big guns form Citrix-inspired ASP group

But marketing's dodgy acronym detectors fail - it's called ASPIC, so could prove wobbly

Citrix Systems seems to have rounded itself up an impressive posse of members for a new "international advocacy group" intended to promote and define standards for application service provision. The Application Service Provider Industry Consortium acronymises itself as ASP Industry Consortium, funnily enough - presumably you can …

Business 12 May 1999, 11:43
Free calls man caught in Web of threats

Entrepreneur and family under siege as menaces grow

The man behind a new service that is set to offer 0800 toll-free Net access in the UK has received threats against himself and his family. Richard Jay of Freecall-UK said people have even turned up at his house and threatened him. The matter is now in the hands of his solicitor, he said, speaking to The Register today. Freecall- …

Business 12 May 1999, 12:03
LineOne gunning for AOL UK

New MD has £12m to spend on knocking the giant ISP off its perch

The MD of UK online service provider (OSP), LineOne, is gunning for AOL UK. Ajay Chowdhury, who has only been in the job for two weeks, said he had AOL UK in his sights and that LineOne was well placed to knock it off its perch and become the UK's leading OSP. Outlining his hopes for the next year, he said that LineOne now had …

Business 12 May 1999, 13:02
Big Blue announces Big Brother smartcards

Everything we need to know about you can be stored on a card you know

As part of its effort to become the dominant force in the ebusiness market, IBM has launched two smartcard enablers. Called the Internet Module and IBM Corporate Campus, they are designed to give companies easier access to customer and employee information. The Internet Module is basically a pumped-up supermarket loyalty card. …

Business 12 May 1999, 13:43
Lycos/USA Networks merger collapses

Three months ago today Shareholders bring down much hyped deal

If you visited The Register exactly three calendar months ago today, this is one of the stories that will have greeted you. At the time, the story was described as 'erroneous and irresponsible' by a top Lycos spin doctor. Turns out to have been painfully accurate too. Original story posted 12/02/1999 The proposed buyout of Lycos …

Business 12 May 1999, 14:00
What the hell is… a thin client?

Something Oracle doesn't know about any more

Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, walked the walk and talked the talk about thin clients oh so long ago... But Oracle has now dumped the entire idea, sources close to Ellison told The Register today. So it was an expensive waste of money, right? Other companies like NCD and Citrix might not think so. A thin client is a bit of …

Business 12 May 1999, 15:14
Informatica fights for ERP in the OK corral

SAP, PeopleSoft and now IBM want it bad

Informatica, a privately held company that IPOd a couple of weeks ago, seeing its share price at launch rise by 84 per cent, is close to striking a European deal with IBM. The company, said founding president Diaz Nesamoney, had struck deals with SAP R/3 and PeopleSoft for two main reasons. The first reason, Nesamoney admitted, …

Business 12 May 1999, 15:19
Granny attempts virtual Cyberspace suicide – but fails

She wears her nappies ready for the big drop

With a nappy to catch her adrenalin and a cotton bonnet to protect her skull should she fall during her 175 ft descent down the ICL Tower in Manchester, 82-year-old Granny Molli Turner is about to step out into the unknown. Sorry, but we don't have the pics to prove she made it to the ground without messing up the pavement...but …

Business 12 May 1999, 16:09
Death of a deal – Lycos and USAi come clean

Ecommerce mega deal comes to naught and don’t forget you saw it here first

The party’s over - and not before time. Lycos and USA Networks (USAi) have finally come clean and admitted that their ill-fated plan to merge has been killed off. US cable news station CNBC broke the news and an official statement was released this afternoon. The statement said: "Lycos, USA Networks and Ticketmaster Online- …

Business 12 May 1999, 16:42
UK Eurocrats vote to legalise spam

No use blaming Johnny Foreigner this time

Europe's decision to legitimise unsolicited email -- spam -- was swayed by the support of MEPs from the UK. Every single UK Conservative and UK Labour MEP -- except one -- voted in favour of the legitimisation of spam, according to The Register's very own gravy train spotter. This is at odds with the belief that the UK is the …

Business 12 May 1999, 17:15
Rise raids Intel for new CFO

Aims to exploit IDT wobble, Cyrix withdrawal

Rise, the low-cost CPU contender, has poached its new CFO from Intel. Newboy John Vinnanan (four Ns -count them) will mastermind Rise finances, as the company ramps up production big time in Q2. Rise is keen to exploit the space left by Cyrix, which last week retired hurt from the x.86 CPU market. Rival Winchip supplier IDT …

Business 12 May 1999, 22:43
Rise raids Intel for new CFO

Aims to exploit IDT wobble, Cyrix withdrawal

Rise, the low-cost CPU contender, has poached its new CFO from Intel. Newboy John Vinnanan (four Ns -count them) will mastermind Rise finances, as the company ramps up production big time in Q2. Rise is keen to exploit the space left by Cyrix, which last week retired hurt from the x.86 CPU market. Rival Winchip supplier IDT …

Business 12 May 1999, 22:43
Rise raids Intel for new CFO

Aims to exploit IDT wobble, Cyrix withdrawal

Rise, the low-cost CPU contender, has poached its new CFO from Intel. Newboy John Vinnanan (four Ns -count them) will mastermind Rise finances, as the company ramps up production big time in Q2. Rise is keen to exploit the space left by Cyrix, which last week retired hurt from the x.86 CPU market. Rival Winchip supplier IDT …

Business 12 May 1999, 22:43
Rise raids Intel for new CFO

Aims to exploit IDT wobble, Cyrix withdrawal

Rise, the low-cost CPU contender, has poached its new CFO from Intel. Newboy John Vinnanan (four Ns -count them) will mastermind Rise finances, as the company ramps up production big time in Q2. Rise is keen to exploit the space left by Cyrix, which last week retired hurt from the x.86 CPU market. Rival Winchip supplier IDT …

Business 12 May 1999, 22:43
Rise raids Intel for new CFO

Aims to exploit IDT wobble, Cyrix withdrawal

Rise, the low-cost CPU contender, has poached its new CFO from Intel. Newboy John Vinnanan (four 'N's -- count them) will mastermind Rise finances, as the company ramps up production big time in Q2. Rise is keen to exploit the space left by Cyrix, which last week retired hurt from the x86 CPU market. Rival supplier IDT could …

Business 12 May 1999, 22:43
Rise raids Intel for new CFO

Aims to exploit IDT wobble, Cyrix withdrawal

Rise, the low-cost CPU contender, has poached its new CFO from Intel. Newboy John Vinnanan (four Ns -count them) will mastermind Rise finances, as the company ramps up production big time in Q2. Rise is keen to exploit the space left by Cyrix, which last week retired hurt from the x.86 CPU market. Rival Winchip supplier IDT …

Business 12 May 1999, 22:43