24th June 1999 Archive

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Dell takes its toll on Compaq

Claims to be cherry-picking Compaq corporate customers

The youngest billionaire in the Forbes Top 10, Michael Dell has been bragging again. This time it’s not about the size of his wad, but the rate at which his eponymous PC company is eating Compaq’s lunch. Talking at a press conference in New York this week, Dell scoffed at the idea that the PC industry is shrinking or stagnating …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 07:28
AMD issues severe losses warning….

...as prices of Athlon emerge

Chip maker AMD said late yesterday its Q2 results will be worse than it expected. The company warned it will lose $200 million in Q2. That follows a loss last Q of $128 million, which CEO Jerry Sanders described at the time as a very bad result. The company is now predicting it will only sell over three and a half million chips …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 08:02
Baan revives, but MS bid is probably smoke

A small stake, however, may be feasible

There's great interest at the moment in Baan's share price, which started its dive last October when Jan Baan announced at BaanWorld in The Hague that the company had just ended thirteen consecutive quarters of meeting financial analysts' expectations, and that it had started a partnership with Microsoft. The challenge was to …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 08:10
Systems builders must avoid complacency, says Microsoft

Big name PC brands are ready to swoop on independents' traditional markets

Delegates at the European integrators forum in Monte Carlo were issued with a stern warning from Microsoft that they must not miss out on NT workstations or the Internet if they want to survive. Laurent Delaporte, Microsoft OEM European marketing director, told system builders that customers were getting smarter and had higher …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 09:49
Microsoft to offer Word 2000 at $8 in Korea

...before it persuades users to upgrade to Office 2000

Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo is reporting that Microsoft is attempting to introduce a one year licence scheme where users can get Word 2000 at 10,000 won ($8). The paper claims that this is a move by Microsoft to capture the Korean wordprocessing market, which is currently owned by local software Hangul 815. Further, Microsoft …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 09:51
Hard drives get hard sell from Maxtor

There's more to storage than meets the eye, you know

Storage vendor Maxtor today asked system builders to stop thinking about storage solely as a capacity product if they want to cash in. Storage value was no longer measured in price per gigabyte, Jon Toor, director of product marketing at Maxtor, told the conference. Instead, assemblers needed to start thinking about what storage …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 10:05
Unmetered Web access championed by Japan

Rest of world shown the way by government decision

Japan has decided that affordable unmetered Net access is a priority if it is to excel in the digital world. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications said that unmetered access must be introduced by next year so that ordinary people can use the Net without worrying about the size of their telephone bills. It wants families …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 10:16
Do Athlon K7 figures add up for AMD?

Analysis It's going to be a narrow squeak...

The cynical amongst us might suspect that AMD introduced its Athlon K7 processor slightly early to somewhat mollify the thrashing it would get on Wall St after CEO Jerry Sanders III delivered his $200 million loss warning for Q2 yesterday evening. However, an AMD European executive claimed that was not true today, but he was …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 10:49
Cirrus, IBM rejig JV

IBM takes over MiCRUS

In a bid to reduce its costs, Cirrus Logic said today that it will cut its fab operation and allow its partner IBM to take over full control of its MiCRUS silicon joint venture. According to David French, CEO of Cirrus, eliminating the fixed market costs of the fab will allow his company to operate more efficiently. Cirrus will …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 10:55
If Slot A is Athlon, is Slot B Bi-Athlon?

And when can we expect more runners and riders in this race?

A reader points out Athlon is AMD's uniprocessor, and that should make Slot B, which we announced at the end of last week, the Bi-Athlon. He also says that we can expect Triathlons, Pentathlons and Decathlons. Is there no limit to these Olympian aims? ®

Business 24 Jun 1999, 10:57
Resellers must adapt to survive

Customer relationships are key to the future

The much talked about birth of the free PC need not spell the death of the PC reseller, this morning's delegates at the Integrator Forum Europe 99 were told. But assemblers will need to change and become more like service providers if they want to profit from the future. Using the analogy of the mobile phone industry, ZD Market …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 11:38
Tempo ISP customers get free Web calls at last

BT promises to get its ducks in a row by tomorrow

Screaming.Net has said that all 75,000 Net users who have subscribed to its service will be able to enjoy toll-free access to the Net tomorrow. In an email sent to users last night, the ISP set up by fridges-to-PCs retailler Tempo, acknowledged that there had been some difficulties transferring accounts from BT to LocalTel. "BT …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 11:40
Microsoft takes it on the Chin

Microsoft on Trial Judge Jackson's law clerk is wired

Judge Jackson is clearly determined that he is not going to be Sporkined or Lessiged. In 1995, Judge Stanley Sporkin's refusal to agree the feeble consent decree was reversed by a foolish Court of Appeals in a political decision that resulted in the present case being brought to do what the previous case failed to do. Judge …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 12:44
Lights go out at BTInternet as whole network crashes

Best course of action - go and put the kettle on

BTInternet customers were left twiddling their thumbs this afternoon as one by one the ISPs servers all crashed. First the mail servers fell over, prompting a stream of calls to BTInternet’s technical support line. Soon after the news servers toppled and then the Web servers came tumbling after. One BTInternet customer told The …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 13:55
S3-3Dfx deal had legs

Three wheels on my wagon-lit

Sources close to the discussions have confirmed that 3DFx made an offer for S3. But it was an offer that S3 could and did refuse. Instead, earlier this week, it bound Diamond. The issue at question for 3DFx is that its next generation chip, Napalm, has some problems with features and functionality, according to the source. While …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 14:12
AMD-Intel gladiatoral battle takes share shape

Protean shifting on US stock exchange

As the implications of AMD's predicted share loss reverbarated around the world, early signs on Wall Street were that the chip company's shares would fall further today. The price fell to 16 13/16th, down $1 1/4 from yesterday's closing price. And the news also appeared to affect Intel's price. Its shares, an hour after the New …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 14:50
C&W wins $75 mill Compaq deal

Armadas and DeskPros a plenty

Compaq will supply telco Cable & Wireless with its desktop PCs and notebooks for the next three years, it said today. The deal is worldwide across 53 countries and worth $25 million a year, Compaq claimed. However, Compaq will have to give C&W "best pricing" and guaranteed support, which corporate dealer International Computer …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 15:09
Compaq wins $75 mill C&W deal

Armadas and DeskPros a plenty

Compaq will supply telco Cable & Wireless with its desktop PCs and notebooks for the next three years, it said today. The deal is worldwide across 53 countries and worth $25 million a year, Compaq claimed. However, Compaq will have to give C&W "best pricing" and guaranteed support, which corporate dealer International Computer …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 15:09
Freecall-UK ready to go live at last

Users can earn points toward getting free Web calls

A service which claims to offer toll-free access to the Net will be launched on Monday. Finally. Freecall-UK says that unlike other services, users will be able to "earn" free calls online during peak hours depending on how often they use the Net. The service is aimed at small businesses and home workers who get clobbered with …

Business 24 Jun 1999, 16:50