7th July 1999 Archive

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Intel cowboy talks to Intel cowboy

Hamidi horseplay gets Chipzilla's goat

Ken Hamidi, the scourge of Intel's email system and the organiser of Face Intel, took matters a step or four further on Monday when he rode a horse up to Chipzilla Central in Satan Clara to deliver mail by pony express. Hamidi, who has campaigned against Intel over its employment practices for years, lost a case against the chip …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 08:34
Compaq demands 15 per cent cuts from component makers

Hires Q-Run to produce 200,000 sub-$499 boxes a month

The local Taiwanese press is reporting that Compaq has asked its suppliers on the island to cut their prices by 15 per cent. Earlier this week, Compaq started finalising its plans to sell PCs direct over the Web, rebating former channel partners, soon to be called agents, for passing on sales leads. Compaq prices had been much …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 08:44
Acer wins massive Dell deal

Worth a cool $1 billion, and IBM in frame too

The organisers of the Taiwanese Computex trade fair are reporting that Acer has won a massive OEM deal with direct PC supplier Dell. According to the report, the value of the contract, which covers both desktop and notebook PCs, is worth nearly $1 billion for over one million systems. From the beginning of next year, Acer will …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 08:50
Exclusive: We reveal Gateway exec's secret MS evidence

MS on Trial You could call it von Holle's 'white' deposition...

James von Holle, Gateway's director of software and Internet services, has been deposed three times by the DoJ. The first was on 23 September 1997, a month before the DoJ launched the contempt case, when he said that Gateway wanted to offer users a choice of browsers, but Microsoft was being difficult about it. The second was on …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 08:50
TSMC chairman spells out chip futures

Claims Taiwan will be third biggest semi generator in few years

Morris Chang, CEO of the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), earlier this week outlined his company's plans for the future. Chang claimed that Taiwan's chip production already exceeds the combined efforts of Germany, France and Italy and is now the fourth biggest manufacturer. In the next few years, he said, Taiwan …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 09:04
Chip sales grew in May, trade body said

Worldwide market recovering, but Europe down

US trade body the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said sales of chips in May continued to show market recovery. Sales in May, worldwide, amounted to $11.28 billion, a rise of 11.8 per cent, year on year. The Asian market is also showing growth, said George Scalise, president of the SIA, amounting to 18 per cent year on …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 09:24
AMD flogs off chipmaking kit

Want a wafer scrubber or a stripper? AMD's got one or two

Chip manufacturer AMD is selling its surplus semiconductor kit. A full list of what AMD calls its surplus assets may be found here. On the same page, the firm also gives directions to its warehouses in Santa Clara and Austin. Aside from sputterers, wafer scrubbers and the like, there are also more mundane items for sale …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 09:39
Football more popular than sex, Novell claims

A year ago Yet another dodgy survey from Provo, Utah company

From The Register No. 85 -- a year ago Football is more popular than sex among office workers, according to Novell, in yet another dodgy survey designed to plug BorderManager. More than 25 per cent of UK employees with access to the Web have been tracking the World Cup online, according to Novell. When they should be working. …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 09:47
Hackers convention rolls into Vegas

They'll be shooting craps no doubt

A spangly oasis in the middle of the Nevada desert is to host a massive jamboree for hackers at the weekend. It will be the seventh year on the trot that the "annual computer underground party" for hackers will have been staged, and Las Vegas is gearing up for one heck of a party. "We are not trying to teach you to learn how to …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 10:29
Restructure for JBA as legal case looms

Sheds jobs and contracts as customer files $18m lawsuit

JBA Holdings has announced a rejig that will split the company into four sectors. The internal restructuring will lead to the Warwickshire-based business focussing on apparel and footwear, food and drink, car parts, and electronics. The company now consists of four divisions: product, marketing, finance and geographic operating …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 10:36
IBM sells Dominion share to partner Tosh

Big Blue begins DRAM manufacturing exit strategy

IBM has pulled out of its Dominion Semiconductor DRAM fab joint venture with Toshiba, according to Japanese business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Sources cited by the paper claimed IBM has agreed to sell its share in Dominion to Toshiba for Y20-30 billion (approx. $165-250 million). Neither party would confirm the reports, but an …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 10:41
Infineon pegged for October IPO

Siemens' semicon division to go public once full-year results are in

Siemens' semiconductor operation, Infineon, is now ready to launch its IPO, company executives said yesterday. The timing of the issue is yet to be decided, but Infineon finance director Peter Fischl said the company is geared up to make its IPO in October. That would follow the end of the company's first fiscal year as a spin- …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 11:14
Freeserve claims phone charges are irrelevant

Has the UK's No 1 ISP gone mad?

With just days to go until Freeserve closes the door on applications for its partial sell-off, worrying news has reached The Register about the ISP's understanding of the issues facing Net users in the UK. It seems Freeserve's grasp of what Net users think is important is horribly misplaced. In fact, it's so way out you have to …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 11:24
Secret trial evidence II – how MS brought Gateway to heel

MS on Trial Remove IE and lose Windows licence threat

The first von Holle deposition revealed that Microsoft was being difficult about the renewal of Gateway's Windows licence. Microsoft allowed a temporary extension to the agreement that expired on 30 June 1997, but was not about to let Gateway rest easy until Gateway came to heel and stopped asking for concession that potentially …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 11:28
Secret evidence III: 'give in or we'll audit you' – MS

MS on Trial The evidence begins to move beyond the anodyne

The en clair information in the first version of the von Holle deposition that was released by Gateway was about James von Holle's background; there was also a plug to the effect that Gateway bears the cost of customer support; a few lines of description of Gateway's Destination system; with the remainder concerned with the …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 11:47
MS UK Win98 SE free offer not very free really

Updated Ms denies PR stunt, picks up tab for some users, apparently

Finally, we have the complete and totally accurate poop on Microsoft UK's free update to Windows 98 SE. And with a bit of luck, all of the people working for Microsoft UK will themselves have had their knowledge upgraded within the next few hours. Unfortunately, it turns out to be not very free at all. The story so far. …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 12:06
Secret evidence IV: the ‘MS Product Leverage Model’

MS on Trial Almost all of what Gateway wants to keep quiet about

Examining what was omitted in the less-redacted, second version of Gateway software director James von Holle's second deposition gives some amusing insights into corporate paranoia. Gateway decided it even wanted to keep confidential the names of people involved in contract negotiations with Microsoft. We fail to see why Penny …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 12:09
IBM-Compaq in Alpha copper fever talks

And so it might come to pass

IBM is close to striking a deal with Compaq to make copper Alphas. We predicted that last February, but yesterday US magazine CRN got confirmation from an IBM group VP of worldwide marketing. He said that IBM and Compaq had been in discussion for some time over the move. Both Compaq and API say they will produce copper Alpha …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 12:22
Pledge to create 3000 jobs from Dixons

Strong results will help continued growth, retailer says

Dixons will create 3000 jobs after recording a nine per cent rise in pre-tax profit to £237.1 million. The pre-tax profit for the year ended 1 May 1999, compared to £217 million for the previous year, was slightly ahead of analysts’ forecasts of between £230 million and £235 million. Turnover was up 13 per cent to £3.1 billion. …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 12:27
Toshiba back-tracks on anti-Linux stance

Japanese notebook specialist opens Linux-oriented Web site

Toshiba appears to have reversed its policy on Linux and decided to support the open source OS on its notebook PCs after all. To prove it, the company's Japan-based Computer Engineering Group has opened a Web site devoted to users keen to run Linux on their Toshiba laptops. The site, which went live on 1 July, doesn't offer much …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 12:35
Free round the clock Web access is here

Well, it's actually in Germany but it is getting closer

A German ISP appears to have started offering round-the-clock unlimited access to the Internet for a flat-fee of around £50 a month. Details are still sketchy but it appears Bremen-based ISP Internet-Professionell is offering five different price plans. Among them, PC Profi-Tarif gives users round-the-clock access plus five …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 12:39
ARM confirms it's talking to TI and others…

Board "notes" the share movements

The share price of ARM soared by 114p yesterday and prompted the company to issue a statement intended to quell takeover speculation. The rise in the share price is a 12 per cent movement. ARM said it "noted" the rise and had seen speculation in the media about the company's involvement with Texas Instruments. The company …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 12:44
Optimisers not optimistic about Merced

That old load latency has it in its spell...

A communication from a reader has pointed out that one big problem with Intel's up and coming Merced processor is optimising the compilers. The reader, who preferred not to be named, said that optimising simple programs with small data sets is easy, but for real world applications, including server programs, it is almost …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 13:03
Intel-NatSemi war looms over VIA, PC133

We mentioned legal salvoes last week - here they come

VIA Technologies and NatSemi have thrown the gauntlet down to Intel with the announcement of a deal designed to allow VIA to produce PC133 chipsets. VIA has already agreed to buy NatSemi's Cyrix unit, in a move generally interpreted as an attempt to escape from Intel's licensing straightjacket, and as Intel has already gone on …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 15:04
CPUGate: US citizen issues writ against US Commerce Dept

It's all about supercomputers, it seems and IBM, Sun and Compaq implicated

A private citizen has accused the US department of commerce of wilfully shipping technology secrets to foreign powers. The civil case, Charles R. Smith vs US, centres around the American government shipping supercomputer technology to Russian and Chinese military labs for nuclear weapons research. Mr Smith claims that his …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 15:30
Win98 free update part 99 – it was possible, once

Rather than writing this story over and over again, next time I'm coming back as a cockroach...

We thought we'd finally nailed down the Microsoft UK free update to Win98 SE story a couple of hours ago, but no, there's more. It was possible to get a totally free update, without paying postage, for an OEM version, but now it isn't. The latest information we had from Microsoft said that the company would be picking up the tab …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 15:32
Intel's chequered background to Merced emerges

Why should anyone expect it to work, is plaintive plea

A reader of The Register has given us the background on Intel failures of the past. He was responding to an earlier story today, where a chip architect was wondering how good the IA-64 Merced platform is. The correspondent detailed a story about the past of Intel processors which also did not work too well. He said: "Intel did …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 15:38
Infineon IPO to fund US Net acquisitions

Siemens to move into e-commerce after flogging off chip company

Siemens said today it will use the money it makes flogging off Infineon, the spin-off company formed from its semiconductor division, to buy US Internet companies. The company didn't say which Net businesses it had its corporate eye on, but if it makes as much out out Infineon as analysts expect, it should end up with up to $9 …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 15:39
Spam investigated by MS pirate catchers

Cut price Office 97 too good to be true

Microsoft plans to investigate a Web site selling MS Office 97 Pro for $89.95. The software giant was notified yesterday by The Register that email users were being spammed with details of this discounted jewel cased software. The offer, with an angelfire.com URL, was described as a "close out sale." "They will go fast!!" …

Business 7 Jul 1999, 15:51