21st May 1999 Archive

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Big Blue courts SMEs with Web StarterPacks

Bundles hardware and software to help small businesses get online

IBM has launched a scheme designed to make it easier for small businesses to buy and use Web technology. IBM is offering a range of StarterPacks to get companies on the Web from a cost of around £80. It is mainly targeting these hardware and software bundles at businesses with less than 50 staff. The scheme, launched in the UK …

Business 21 May 1999, 07:08
Centaur-IDT outlines chip plans

A year ago WinChip 2 and 2-3D to arrive in volume later this year

From The Register, 20 May 1998 (last year) IDT has outlined its product roadmap for its WinChip range of microprocessors, aimed at capturing the entry level x.86 compatible market. Glenn Henry, senior VP of IDT and its design subsidiary Centaur, showed versions of the chips at the PC Tech Forum in the US, which incorporate AMD's …

Business 21 May 1999, 07:33
Rhode Island Reds caught in Compaq Wildfire

Prod plans will be unveiled at DECUS

Insiders at The Great Stan of Alphabetas are once more tipping us off about the Big Q's product plans. According to our extremely reliable source, a set of wizards at CompaQ will announce that the AlphaServer GS140 coming with 21264 chips and Tru64 Unix 4.0F will support static hardware partitions. The news has implications for …

Business 21 May 1999, 07:49
Intel made big, big mistake

Sueing ViA was not a bright idea

Our scoop about Intel sueing our friends at ViA has been enhanced by a report on our favourite US site, Techweb, now owned by UK peer Lord Hollick of Hollick. (Story: Intel sues Via -- by mistake) According to Jack Robertson, a nice hack we met at a Big Blue conference in London a few years back, the lawsuit was not the mistake …

Business 21 May 1999, 08:08
How Softbank made its billions

They're largely virtual, but it's a big pile, nevertheless

Softbank, founded and run by Masayoshi Son -- the would-be Bill Gates of Japan -- has reported a consolidated net profit of $302 million for its fiscal year ending March, up from $78 million last year, but posted consolidated pre-tax losses of $124 million this year compared with $184 million profits a year earlier. …

Business 21 May 1999, 08:09
‘Hit team’ drives MS plan to bludgeon Linux with benchmarks

And who's in charge? Step forward Jim Allchin, we reckon...

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft has deployed a 'hit team' to deal with the threat from Linux. This isn't entirely surprising - in reality, you could see the hit team forming when the Halloween memos leaked, but it is surprising that the team's command structure is so simple to identify from what Microsoft …

Business 21 May 1999, 09:23
Asus confirms flood of fake mobos

And tells you how to tell

Asus has now confirmed the existence of fake motherboards in Europe, as reported here some while back. See our story: Fake Asus mobos circulate in Europe. An official document on how to spot the difference between a real and a fake board is here. The PDF is over 400K's worth. Asus also hit out at what it describes as "free …

Business 21 May 1999, 10:17
Is AOL running scared of the free access model?

Analysis Other service providers have been happy to adapt and survive, why not AOL?

The top man of AOL in the UK has published an open letter calling for wholesale changes to telecomms pricing policy criticising the emergence of subscription free services such as LineOne and FreeServe. Dave Phillips, president and MD of AOL/Compuserve UK, said: "'Free' Internet access services... are fuelled by regulatory …

Business 21 May 1999, 10:19
MS Newsedge deal to push Exchange-based news service

Newsedge seems to be more expensive than The Register, but from its results, maybe not much...

Corporate news aggregation specialist NewsEdge has done a deal with Microsoft to deliver its service via Exchange Server and Microsoft Outlook. The arrangement adds some weight to Microsoft's efforts to get Exchange accepted in major corporations by associating it with the delivery of what appears to be one of the industry's …

Business 21 May 1999, 10:21
More cash needed to fight kiddie Web porn war

US politician says it's time to step up the crack down

The FBI needs more cash to fight the growing menace posed by paedophiles on the Internet. With 35 agents already working around the clock to investigate the sick perpetrators of online kiddie porn, the FBI is doing all it can to combat the problem. But according to Republican Bob Franks, it's not enough. And the representative …

Business 21 May 1999, 10:29
Kryotech kreates kool kit

Chill out man, and be a renegade

Our friends over at Kryotech are set to release a family of vapour phase refrigeration products for ATX cases. The Renegade family will cool your central processing unit (CPU), that is your microprocessor, to room temperature. Hopefully, your room is not too hot. The Renegade family supports Socket Seven, Slot One, and Socket …

Business 21 May 1999, 10:30
Gateway CEO hints at future Amiga role

Internet + low-cost computers = Gateway strategy = Amiga?

Gateway CEO Ted Waitt yesterday outlined the direct vendor's increasing focus on the Internet. And, reading between the lines a little, it looks like he's finally figured out what to do with Amiga. Gateway's problem is, as Waitt put it at the company's AGM yesterday, that "the days of everyone buying a $2500 PC are over". In …

Business 21 May 1999, 10:45
NGIO architecture takes shape

PC Developers will hear all about it

The NGIO forum said today that it is holding multiple sessions on system challenges and technology of the input/output (IO) architecture. A full day tutorial is being hosted next Monday at the Santa Clara convention centre, with Jon Haas, manager of Intel's enterprise server group, moderating the panels. Hewlett Packard, Sun …

Business 21 May 1999, 11:08
AMD K6-2 dominates retail PC market

And Apple showed the highest unit growth

Unit sales of PCs through the US' retail and mail order channels increased 20.6 per cent last month, according to the latest figures from market researcher PC Data. But while sales were up, vendors found revenues fell, dropping 2.2 per cent on the same period last year, as average prices fell 19 per cent to $928. In fact, sales …

Business 21 May 1999, 11:12
TSMC goes 12-inch

And when will Intel?

Taiwanese manufacturer TSMC has confirmed it is to build a 12in wafer fabrication plant at the Hsinchu Science Park on the island. The fab will cost $240 million to build and will be partly financed by Vanguard. The overall cost, once the equipment is installed, is more likely to be around $2 billion. The 12-inch wafer plant …

Business 21 May 1999, 11:22
EU U-turns on caching ban decision

It's nothing to do with copyright after all

In the last hour the European Commission has made an amendment to its proposals to ban caching -- a move that would have brought the Net to its knees if it had been enforced. With the inclusion of a nine-word amendment in the Report on Copyright in the Information Society, the EU has said that bona fide caching is legitimate and …

Business 21 May 1999, 11:29
TFT screens in short supply – prices set to rise

Toshiba can't get 13" up to demand - ooh err

Toshiba is warning that severe price hikes and product shortages will hit the TFT market this year. The worst affected will be the popular 13.3" screen, UK resellers were told last week. The Japanese vendor said this size would suffer a "severe price rise and shortage." Prices for the larger 14.1" screen will also go up, the 12. …

Business 21 May 1999, 11:42
Register Web hack caught in the act

Why is he reading the Murdoch rag?

This was veteran hack Tim Richardson, this morning, caught in the act of reading the Sun rather than writing those snappy little stories wot he's supposed to...

Business 21 May 1999, 11:54
AMD to ship 500,000 K7s in Q4, says Intel

Correction Data comes hot from Old Mother Chipzilla's Almanac

(Apologies for the first rev of this story which had the zeroes and percentages in interesting places. MM) Chipzilla keeps a wary eye on the competition – or "imitators" as it so charmingly refers to them – and posts predictions of the kind of shipping volumes expected. One anonymous OEM very kindly shared Old Mother Intel’s …

Business 21 May 1999, 12:03
Emachines to offer own-brand ISP

Net access service to bolster narrow hardware margins

Leading US budget-priced PC vendor Emachines is to launch its own Internet access service next month with the aim of making it easier to live with hair's breadth hardware margins. The plan is quite canny. Emachines will initially offer the service as an optional extra, charging buyers who pick up on the deal a fixed monthly fee …

Business 21 May 1999, 12:43
Cyber snoops come unstuck

Plan to track emails and phone calls is scuppered

The decision to introduce a global wiretapping system that would allow governments, intelligence agencies and police to snoop willy-nilly has been put on hold -- for the time being at least. It was understood that the decision to rubber stamp Enfopol was due to take place next week but word has leaked out that it is to be …

Business 21 May 1999, 14:30
Golden Week rained off by Tosh management shower

Shortage of TFT screens means Japanese staff are denied holiday

That slave-driver Toshiba has made staff in its Japanese factories work their bank holiday this year, The Register has learned. The week-long Golden Week normally gives this hard-working nation a well earned rest. But the global glitch in TFT computer screens demanded the plants stay in operation during the fiesta, said Toshiba …

Business 21 May 1999, 14:40
Aliens: coming to a house near you soon

Screensaver could identify extraterrestrials any day now

Home users can now help in the search for intelligent alien lifeforms by downloading a screensaver here that uses their PC’s spare capacity to analyse signals from outer space for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. Since the project's launch earlier this week, over a quarter of a million users are now desperately seeking …

Business 21 May 1999, 14:59
It's ashes-to-ashes as Big Blue gets remains of the day

Dead woman's ashes shot into air over IBM Portsmouth

Employees at IBM's North Harbour office sprawl in Portsmouth aren't used to getting their hands dirty. But they may have noticed that surfaces weren't quite as clean as they're used to following an explosive event earlier this week that took particle theory into a new dimension. For plucky Sue Simmons asked for her ashes to be …

Business 21 May 1999, 15:29
X Windows creator calls for standard Linux GUI

Mainstream success demands it, warns Gettys

Compaq senior consulting engineer and co-creator of X Windows Jim Gettys used his keynote at the Linux Expo show yesterday to rally the open source OS' enthusiasts round the idea of a standard graphical user interface. Gettys was voicing a concern a number of Linux advocates have raised: that without a consistent, unified user …

Business 21 May 1999, 15:44
Compaq may release Linux micro-PC to open sourcers

Voice-enabled device could out-Palm Palm

Jim Gettys, Compaq consulting engineer and Linux Expo keynoter, yesterday said a tiny, 'deck of cards'-sized computer developed by the PC vendor might be made available to the open source community. The Palm-style device, dubbed Itsy, sports a 200x300-pixel screen, contains 32MB of memory, is powered by a 200MHz processor and is …

Business 21 May 1999, 16:03
Intel takes cowboy approach to branding

Chipzilla takes its eye™ off the ball®?

Now we at The Register™®© are getting increasingly confused at Intel®'s impenetrable marketing BS. This, remember, is the company (Intel, not us) with such a paranoid regard for its brand that has legally-approved abbreviations for its products in internal memos –- P3P for Pentium® III, ICP for Celeron™, AMDMOFOS (you work it …

Business 21 May 1999, 16:29
PC banking success ends 6000 jobs at Barclays

Not all bad news though -– 2000 PC banking jobs to come

The Internet and the rise in popularity of telephone banking are being blamed in part for Barclays Bank's decision to cut 6000 jobs yesterday. The bank is expected to cough up around £400 million to pay off the hoards of back office staff facing the chop. Around 6000 Barclays staff have been given the bullet. At the same time, …

Business 21 May 1999, 16:39
One-2-One up for use as collateral by C&W

Bank loans worth £3.8bn to be secured by mobile company

Cable & Wireless will put up its 50 per cent stake in One-2-One as collateral to fuel network expansion. Britain's smallest mobile phone company will be used to secure £3.8 billion in bank loans, according to CBS MarketWatch. The half holding in One-2-One will go to a new funding company set up as a joint venture with investment …

Business 21 May 1999, 16:42
Office 2000 to debut 8 June

World exclusive Spin paramedic spills the beans

The Great Stan of Software's latest Office offering, Office 2000, is set to launch worldwide in two week’s time, according to occasionally reliable sources in the UK. Last week, Paul Otellini, senior VP at Intel US, confessed he did not not know when the software would eventually come out. With a bit of luck, the full story will …

Business 21 May 1999, 16:44
Samsung's Alpha outfit joins Linux International

That should help the chips go out the door

As we went to press, news reached us that Alpha Processor Inc, Samsung's Alpha subsidiary, has joined Linux International, the Linux umbrella group for commercial operations. That is likely to give a huge boost to Alpha processors and to Linux enthusiasts. And, at the same time, will boost the 64-bit chip. Readers have reported …

Business 21 May 1999, 16:45
Amiga looks to iMac, Palm for inspiration

Concept designs reveal technology direction

Amiga Inc. has revealed its design plan for two upcoming machines: what it calls "a multimedia convergence computer" and a handheld personal digital assistant designed to operate alongside it. The company refused to give details of the machines' specifications and market positioning, but it's clear from the concept drawings …

Business 21 May 1999, 17:00
UK tourism threatened by soccer violence

Riot in Trafalgar Square scares old people and young foreigners

We don't normally comment on non-IT matters on this site but tonight is the exception that proves the rule. We found ourselves in deepest Trafalgar Square, the heart of London and about two minutes away from 10 Downing Street, in the middle of a riot. We were not worried about our own safety. The problem is, that tomorrow, a …

Business 21 May 1999, 22:31