The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

15th July 1999 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • NatSemi will announce IA chip today

    As seen first by The Register at Computex...

    We were asked, nicely, by NatSemi's spin outfit in London, to wait until this afternoon, 1600 UK time, before we wrote all about the IA (info appliance) processor we saw at Computex in June. We first saw the IA chip at Computex in early June. (Story: NatSemi starts to fab System on a Chip) But as the WSJ seems to have published …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 07:37

  • IDT exits x86, puts Centaur up for sale

    It's had its WinChips...

    Another one bites the dust - IDT is to follow NatSemi out of the x86 clone business announcing yesterday that it is putting WinChip developer Centaur up for sale, and is considering shutting it down if it doesn't find a buyer. Centaur's WinChip was designed as a low-cost chip that would power bargain-basement PCs, but although …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 09:07

  • Excite goes shopping for iMall

    Deal worth $425 million brings Excite's customers to threshold of eshops

    Excite@Home, the portal operator, is laying the foundations of an online shopping centre, and is sending a warning to competitors like Yahoo and AOL. It has agreed to acquire iMall, the e-commerce software specialist, in a deal worth around $425 million. It has also established an agreement with payment processor, First Data. By …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 09:10

  • US Congress sits on hands while Web whizzes by

    'Bookend' legislators hope industry will fix privacy so they won't have to

    Don't look to the US government for online privacy protection. It's all too confusing. The Congressional Commerce Committee were scratching their heads while Federal Trade Commission reps testified on Internet privacy legislation earlier this week, contradicting each other, and at times even themselves. FTC commissioner Sheila …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 09:48

  • AT&T contract obliges MS to make its APIs public

    Grief - have AT&T's attorneys cunningly set Bill on the road to open source?

    Long-standing Microsoft critic Senator Orrin Hatch was querying AT&T's alliance with Microsoft yesterday, and there was a nasty little hand grenade for Redmond in what he had to say. Would it be a good idea to have a "third party" appointed to make sure Microsoft gave other software companies fair access to its APIs? Oh dear. If …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 09:54

  • New NetWinder owner launches StrongARM-Linux server

    Rebranded rebels bounce back with Office Server

    The outfit that bought Corel's NetWinder business earlier this year has taken the wraps off the latest in the range of StrongARM-based Linux machines. The NetWinder Office Server is being aimed by Rebel.com at small and medium-sized businesses needing Internet, intranet and standard office server functions. Rebel.com? Yes, it …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 10:33

  • Kingston Technology in big buy back bonanza

    Softbank to sell memory outfit back to founders

    Four years ago, the founders of Kingston Technology sold 80 per cent of their business to Softbank, raking in a cool $1.8 billion in the process. When we met the founders at Comdex/Fall, they looked very happy indeed with this result. Perhaps they had an inkling that the very next year the memory market would take the dive it …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 10:50

  • AltaVista brings free ISP model to US mainstream

    No call charges, and now no subscription charge

    The recently sold-by-Compaq search engine service, AltaVista, could be about to spark a revolution in the US Internet access market. It has announced it will be beefing up its presence in the market by offering a free ISP package. In so doing it is shifting the financial emphasis of the ISP model directly on to e-commerce. Sold …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 10:55

  • Intel to divide chip, comms lines

    Lan, Wan, thank you man

    Intel is to make its processor and comms business separate units. The comms business, which Intel has spent $3 billion on in the last year, will now be run by John Miner. He will control its Internet server products, Lan and Wan lines, and the Dialogic business it acquired recently. Miner will assume control of its hubs and …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 11:07

  • Euro giants poised to pounce on US mobile outfits

    Our cellular expert returns after a substantial pause (how long's winter in Helsinki anyway, Tero?)

    This year the transformation of the mobile phone industry has been picking up momentum. The year began with the ground-breaking merger of Vodafone and Airtouch - fusing the complementary European GSM operators controlled by Vodafone with the partial US CDMA coverage Airtouch. Since January, the biggest merger splashes have been …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 11:09

  • Toshiba denies semicon spin off

    Staffer who mooted it was not toeing company line. Allegedly

    Toshiba yesterday denied it is has plans to spin off its semiconductor business into a separate company. Suggesting that it might be considering such a move emerged last week when the general manager of the strategic planning division within Toshiba's semiconductor operation, Yoshihide Fujii, said: "I personally think the …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 11:13

  • FreeServe to offer Microworkz $199 Net access device

    Free ISP's move into hardware next logical step

    UK free ISP FreeServe is in talks with US cut-price computer manufacturer Microworkz to bring the vendor's $199 iToaster Internet appliance over to Britain. The deal, which Microworkz said is close to completion, almost certainly covers the mysterious £200 Web PC Dixons chairman Sir Stanley Kalms recently said his company would …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 11:34

  • Big Blue to put millions of $$$ Acer's way

    This time it's for LCD screens

    Just 10 days after we reported that Acer had secured a massive OEM deal from Dell, it appears that the Taiwanese firm has won yet more business. This time, IBM is in the frame, with the local Taiwanese press reporting that Acer Peripherals will sell over 200,000 high-end LCD monitors to Big Blue. The deal is worth over $300 …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 11:36

  • Intel to push bigtime into ADSL

    It's that building block stuff again, we'll be bound

    Sources close to Intel confirmed that it will make a major announcement today aimed at the ADSL market. According to the source, it will make and sell ADSL modems aimed at both the small and medium sized business market as well as home users. The move coincides with an announcement from Intel that it will split its business …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 11:45

  • Apple prepares Palm partnership

    Analysis iPalm release gets nearer and nearer

    Having attempted to buy Palm Computing from its current owner, 3Com, and failed, it should come as no surprise that Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs might opt for an easier target: Handspring, the company formed last year by Palm founders Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky to create Palm-based consumer products. That at least is what …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 11:46

  • Aum! Doomsday outfit starts selling PCs

    Would you Adam and Eve it?

    UK national The Grauniad is reporting that Aum Shinrikyo, the cult that spread Sarin gas throughout the Tokyo subway system, is entering the cheap PC business. Don't attempt the upgrade yourself by opening the box...

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 11:47

  • Audiohighway patents MP3 digital music player

    Company sits back and waits for the royalties to flow in

    US purveyor of online music Audiohighway.com put the cat among the digital music pigeons yesterday when it announced it had been granted a key patent on portable digital audio players. The company applied for the patent, number 5,914,941, back in 1995. It describes the use of a "portable information storage/playback apparatus …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 12:00

  • Softbank to dismember Ziff Davis empire

    It's Internet time for the jolly Japanese giant

    The WSJ is reporting today that Softbank has decided to sell off bits and pieces of its vast publishing empire. The reason, according to the report, is because Softbank sees bigger opportunities investing in Web ventures rather than traditional businesses like paper magazines and events such as Comdex. According to the Wally, …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 12:07

  • Plasmon buys chunk of Cygnet Storage

    For $3.65 million...

    Storage company Plasmon PLC, which owns Plasmon Data, said today it had bought the Cygnet's 12-inch jukebook manufacturing business for $3.65 million. Cygnet will carry on making the range of 12-inch jukeboxes at its San Jose plant until the end of this year, the company said. According to Plasmon chief executive Nigel Street, …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 12:33

  • Apple CFO predicts continued strong growth

    Exec spills the beans

    Apple CFO Fred Anderson yesterday predicted continued year-on-year growth for the Mac maker and looked forward to significant improvements in the Christmas 1999 quarter. Anderson's comments followed the release of Apple's latest Q2 results, which saw the company beat Wall Street's earnings per share expecations by five cents, …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 12:45

  • Telewest to make a move on CWC

    NTL also interested after France Telecom cash injection

    Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) saw its shares jump six per cent as rumours circulated that the battle for the UK's largest cable company is intensifying. Banking sources indicated that Telewest Communications was seeking a loan to raise the £1 billion needed to fund an offer. Telewest's main competitor for CWC's …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 12:49

  • Man Utd enters free ISP race

    UUNet over the moon after scoring second deal

    They'll be scratching their heads in disbelief in Stretford today as news breaks that Manchester United FC is actually giving something away - for free. The world's largest - and richest - football club (that's the game where you kick the ball with your feet, hence the name football, in case our US readers were getting confused …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 13:20

  • Freeserve price tag questioned

    Dixons values its ISP above Yahoo! - can this be right?

    Yet more speculation is doing the rounds over how much Freeserve is really worth. This time it comes from Broadview, IT mergers and acquisitions specialists. It reckons that based on value per subscriber and revenue the £1.3-£1.5 billion valuation put about by many sources, including Dixons, could be flawed. In today's Financial …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 13:25

  • Free PC for MSN users

    But only in the US and there's no monitor…

    The great Satan of software fancies itself as a big noise on the Internet and as such is staking itself a hefty claim in the future. Anyone signing up for three year's connection to MSN will now be able to get a free PC from Microsoft. But according to Satan's spin doctors, this only applies if you're in the US. The software …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 14:20

  • Killer monitors – the facts

    We dig beneath the surface and bring you some in-your-face science stuff

    Given yesterday's brouhaha over the possible health risks from monitors, The Register called upon its in-house scientist, Lucy Sherriff, to dig beneath the spin and examine the scientific evidence. Monitors produce low frequency magnetic fields and these, in turn, induce electric currents. This is an established fact. These …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 15:32

  • Monitor health risk is rubbish

    So says leading monitor industry analyst, and who are we to argue

    The debate over the health implications of sitting two feet away from a computer monitor all day, goes on. Yesterday, many of the UK's national newspapers devoted many column inches to a survey which claimed radiation from monitors represented a health risk. This radiation, it was suggested, can penetrate concrete walls more …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 15:50

  • German site catches MSN running on Unix, Apache

    c't no longer on Redmond Christmas present list shock

    You may have noticed that Web operations bought by Microsoft tend to implement massive server upgrade programmes shortly afterwards. Often, it is rumoured, these hapless new acquisitions don't run on Microsoft software. Well, there's apparently one law for the subs that need to be switched to NT pronto, and one for pre-existing …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 16:15

  • One2One price scares off bidders

    Suitors back off leaving way set for a float

    The sale of mobile network One2One has run aground as potential buyers, France Telecom and Mannesmann, question the asking price. The company failed to spark enough interest at the current price to complete a trade sale, so it now look set for a float. Perhaps One2One's most attractive feature is that it is practically …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 17:02

  • NatSemi rolls out Information Appliance chip

    But no FireWire support, yet

    National Semiconductor, as revealed earlier today, duly rolled out its information appliance processor, dubbed the Geode. The integrated processor will be produced in a .25 micron, 270 square mm die size initially, but later in the year will move to a .18 micron, 140 mm die size. Yomtov Sidi, NatSemi's director of the project …

    Business 15 Jul 1999, 17:03