8th June 1999 Archive
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Pfeiffer positions Alpha against Merced
A year ago Alliance with MS will produce interoperability, Compaq claims
From The Register a year back Compaq has kicked sand in the face of its partner Intel and will ship its high volume servers using the Alpha platform and Digital's 64-bit Unix. The company claims that will make the fast chip an industry standard, positioning it squarely against Intel's IA64 Merced platform. Eckhard Pfeiffer, CEO …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 07:54
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Judge beats up Intel in Intergraph case
Intel wants to beat up judge
Intel may have been let off the hook by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) but its antitrust woes are not at an end. Alabama judge Edwin Wilson yesterday denied the chip giant a summary judgement to end the case between it and Intergraph. Intergraph is pursuing its case against Intel because it claims it uses monopolistic ways …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 08:03
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Battle royal breaks out over Russian chip claim
But it's jaw-jaw really
A bitter argument has broken out over a claim that Russian technologists were the first to develop superscalar microprocessors, later adopted by Intel. Mark Smotherman, writing from a US university, said: "I would like to correct, for the record, the statement in Intel uses Russia military technologies" by Andrei Fatkullin in …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 08:17
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Via revenues soar on PC-133 wave
Revenues up 218 per cent, year on year
Taiwanese chipset firm Via said today that it sold NT$648.7 million of its kit in the period up to May 1999. That represents a rise in revenues of 218 per cent compared to the same period last year. On a sequential basis, claimed Via, its sales rose by 65 per cent from January to May 1999. Net sales in thousands of NT dollars …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 08:26
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Merced tape out resembles Desperation Derby
Has it happened? Does anyone know?
The question whether Merced has taped out or not is now becoming something of a burning issue, with Intel still refusing to give details on where it is on the 64-bit chip platform. Yesterday, we reported that architects were divided over the viability of the platform, with one British scientist claiming that Merced will run …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 08:45
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MS economist gets fail mark from his old prof
MS on Trial Complete analysis of Franklin Fisher's examination
Government economist witness Franklin Fisher did a better job in rebuttal than he did in his primary evidence, but he still showed that he doesn't know nearly enough about the industry. And Microsoft's cross-examination was designed to test how little he knew, rather than to counter his arguments. It was nothing but ritual …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 09:35
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Did Compaq and MS collude to ambush DoJ witness?
MS on Trial If so, Netscape paid money to help Microsoft
Franklin Fisher, the DoJ's economics expert witness, was made one of the victims of an elaborate sting operation by Microsoft, it would appear. It seems that Netscape was probably manipulated into paying Compaq to load its browser on new models, as part of a plan at least partly devised by Microsoft. Fisher was made to look …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 09:42
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AMD K7 veils lifted
JC collates what we know and what we don't
Our friends over at JC's have put together a cold collation of what is known about AMD's up-and-coming K7. The information on the site includes motherboard and other information about chipsets. It's a useful aide memoire to what we're about to see and our information is that high premiums are already being paid for available …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 10:00
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MS shines light on ShadowFactor
Buys multiplayer audio comms technology for DirectX 8
Microsoft yesterday announced its latest acquistion, Canadian software developer ShadowFactor Software. ShadowFactor makes software that allows online games players to communicate by audio rather than by typing in text -- always a tricky process when you're trying to nail some SOB with your Railgun at the same time. Gaming …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 10:19
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Forget the K7, how about the K8?
And the K9 is Dr Who's doggy
Moscape is collaborating with AMD to create a circuit analysis tool for the K8, it said. According to the Moscape release, its patented "assertion based" technology will allow chip designers to increase quality and performance before a design is taped out. Bruce Gieseke, K8's circuit design manager, said that AMD has chosen …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 10:24
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Race on for AMD domain names…
SLOTA.COM gone already...
It seems like there's a mad rush to jump on AMD's bandwagon before the K7 cart pulls out of the station. Our friends over at WWW.AMDZONE.COM have confirmed that they have registered WWW.SLOTA.COM. And two days ago we reported that an individual has registered the domain WWW.ADVANCEDMICRODEVICES.COM. But another reader has just …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 10:29
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Oracle buys Thinking Machines
Data mining software to boost Oracle e-commerce offerings
Oracle has bought Thinking Machines for an undisclosed sum, the company said yesterday. Thinking Machines' Darwin software uses artificial intelligence techniques to trawl customer purchase activity logs and use that data to predict future buying trends. That clearly sits neatly alongside Oracle's strategy of using e-commerce to …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 10:33
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BT blocks toll-free access to LineOne
And it will stay shut, warns telco
The technical loopholes that allowed some LineOne subscribers to log onto BTInternet's toll-free access service without paying the usual monthly subscription has been closed. A spokesman for BTInternet said technicians resolved the problem on Saturday. He also denied allegations circulated by some Net users that BTInternet is …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 10:41
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Quantum intros Fireball Plus KX
Twenty-seven gigs of space for £350
Storage company Quantum said it is shipping its Fireball Plus KX, with volume production slated for the end of this month. The Fireball Plus KX comes at 6.8Gb per disk, running at 7,200 revs per minute. The product has been qualified by six of the top 10 OEMs, claimed Quantum. HP will use the drives. The hard drives use giant …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 10:49
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MS ‘Office Servers’ to rival Web servers – Ballmer
And Office 2k to drive Microsoft into ASP biz as well...
With the official launch of Office 2000 yesterday Microsoft put some more flesh on the "knowledge worker" strategy it announced last month. Office 2k is heavily Web-enabled and tellingly, Microsoft president Steve Ballmer said he hoped that "Office Servers" acting as Internet collaboration servers would become almost as common …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 10:49
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Intel opens Unix developer's site
It's password protected tho..
Our latest trawl of domain names registered by Intel has pointed us to www.udigwg.org, a site aimed at Unix developers seeking to create solutions for IA-32 and IA-64 servers. According to the blurb, "The UNIX* Developer's Interface Guide for Intel-based Servers is a specification that will focus on specific areas affecting the …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 11:01
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40 per cent of business software installed illegally
Piracy still rampant, claim anti-piracy watchdogs
Nearly 40 per cent of all business software installed during 1998 was done so illegally, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) have reported. In a survey conducted jointly by both trade organisations, an estimated 615 million new applications were installed across the …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 11:01
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Amazon readies digital music delivery service
Online stores tests water with free promo singles
Amazon.com is to move into the downloadable music market today. It dipped its toe in the water earlier this year with one-off free singles, but this is the first time the online store has offered a specific department for downloadable music. The new site offers tracks from 14 artists, many of them fairly famous, which makes a …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 11:15
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US hackers picket for Mitnick…
... as Mitnick's German counterpart seeks to set up data protection company
Hackers in the US took a time out from trashing government sites to voice their support for gaol-bird Kevin Mitnick. Courtrooms in the US were picketed by slogan-waving youths eager to make a point about the detention of their hacker martyr. Mitnick has spent the last four years in custody awaiting trial after being arrested in …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 11:19
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The day Bill Gates screamed IBM's house down
MS on Trial Our 'visionary' gets very angry over SmartSuite and OS/2
Bill Gates went so ballistic in a phone call to a fellow IBM exec that Garry Norris could hear the screaming from across the room, the DoJ witness told the court yesterday. The awesome sound of Gates screaming about SmartSuite and OS/2 is regrettably lost to posterity, but Norris, who kept a diary of IBM's negotiations with …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 11:29
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Net study is a no-show
So here's one we prepared earlier...
A major socio-economic study into how the Internet affects people is to be launched today by the Center for Communication Policy at UCLA. It will find out how people react to the Internet and how it alters their behaviour. It will examine everything from the use of e-mail and shopping habits to how it affects personal behaviour …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 12:11
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Rambus Meltdown a sorry tale of fudge, mudge and kludge
Camino pushed back again
The aptly named "Rambus Meltdown" er, Plugfest, was hosted by Intel in a Silicon Valley hotel Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. Revision B0 (B-Zero) silicon has just started sampling, but it will not go to production as planned. Intel calls pre-production silicon A0, A1, A2 until it is certain that the next rev will really …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 12:24
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Court ruling vapes Intel's Pentium patents
Ancestral NatSemi cross-licence ain't no good, says the judge
Friday's ruling against Intel by Alabama district judge Edwin Nelson (Earlier Story) threatens the entire Pentium family of processors, If Intergraph is to be believed. Judge Nelson ruled that Intel does not have the right to use "Clipper" technology, and according to Intergraph this means that the entire Pentium family …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 12:25
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InQuest to host PC platform conference
Offers independent view on complex market
Market research firm InQuest is hosting a conference in July which promises to be interesting. Platform99, to be held in San Jose on July 21-22, will cover platform strategies, semiconductors and system integration. InQuest says that will include the current hot debate about memory technologies, bus standards, chip architectures …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 12:41
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Coppermine delay could give AMD aid
Sources say it's pushed back a tad and a half
Intel is not confirming or denying that its Coppermine process will be delayed, because it won't speak about unannounced products. But the word on the street is that CuMine, is, indeed, on the back burner. According to various reports, Intel will release 550MHz and 600MHz parts at the end of the year, and a 666MHz part in the …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 12:52
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Disney moots Infoseek buyout
Deal to tie up loose ends before full Web operation spin-off
Disney wants to increase its stake in Internet portal Infoseek from 43 per cent to 100 per cent, the company has said. Such a deal would require the approval of both companies' shareholders, said Disney, but it admitted it was discussing such an arrangement with the Portal to see whether it would be a viable way to proceed. What …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 13:17
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3Com faces insider trading lawsuit
Bosses talked up share price for personal gain, claims suit
3Com has been hit by a class action which alleges the company and unnamed "officers and directors" violated the US Securities Exchanges Act of 1934 by using company money to buy shares in order to boost the stock's value and thus allow the same "insiders" to sell their own shares for an even greater return. The suit, filed in …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 14:32
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Pawn star checks online pals for pulse
Microsoft lines up Kasparov vs. Netizens chess match
Chess may be a cerebral pursuit of strategy and tact, but Microsoft has just managed to make it plumb new depths of dreariness. It wants Net users to play chess champion Garry Kasparov. The catch is that this group of Net chess stallions will have 24 hours to send in their suggested moves. (d4) Kasparov with then have 24 hours …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 14:46
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ISP hopes to woo users with share option offer
Carpetbaggers expected to sign up in droves
A group of London financiers has developed a risk-free way of cashing-in on the success of Net shares by promising to give its users a stake in its ISP when it starts operating next month. Themutual.net is the UK's newest subscription-free ISP and plans to "seize the lion's share of the ISP market, toppling giants like Dixon's …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 15:59
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Turing's thoughts on Merced
Updated Can his theorem solve the Intel enigma?
(The IA-64 articles in the last few days have spawned some interesting correspondence. If you'd like to contribute your thoughts, why not post them in the thread we've opened on our forum? Ed.) One of our Big Blue readers has penned some thoughts on how Alan Turing might have regarded the IA-64 architecture. Turing (1912-1954), …
Business 8 Jun 1999, 18:13
