16th July 1999 Archive

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Integration sends PC component market into tail-spin

A year ago We're all doomed

Posted 17 July 1998 -- a year ago The market for traditional PC components like microprocessors, graphics accelerators, system logic and sound chips peaked in 1997 and is now in decline, according to Rearchitecting the PC, a new report from Mercury Research. The shrinking market is due largely to the shift to lower-cost PCs, …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 07:12
AMD's Sanders drops another clanger

Analysis To lose Vin Dham was careless..

Although AMD's spinola department was putting the best gloss it could on the resignation of president Atiq Raza two days ago, it could not have come at a worse time for Intel's little brother. The spin is that at some time in the future, Raza may return, in some unspecified role, to help AMD out. Further, according to AMD, Raza …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 07:41
What's the bet on Willamette?

Delayed or just Coppermined? We spill the beanies

A couple of hardware sites have said Willamette is late, based on a hesitation senior Intel VP Paul Otellini made at a conference call earlier this week. Someone asked him if Willamette products would start arriving in the year 2000, and then he corrected himself and said, no, the year 2001. And at the AMD conference call, execs …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 10:35
S3 passes water on Wall Street analysts

$1.1m profit beats anticipated loss by 20 cents a share

Graphics accelerator specialist S3 felivered on its promise to beat analyst expectations when it posted its second quarter results yesterday. The company posted a profit of $1.1 million on revenues of $57.3 million. That compares with a loss of $11.6 million and sales of $53.3 million for the same period last year. Translating …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 10:47
Network Satan talks to Chip Satan on ADSL deal

Little networking and chip imps, start getting scared

As first reported here yesterday, Intel has entered the ADSL broadband market. (Story: Intel to push bigtime into ADSL) But it has done so by striking a deal with the Great Satan of Networks: Cisco. The deal is that Intel and Cisco have struck a technology agreement and will develop, manufacture and market PC based ADSL modems …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 10:49
Taiwanese foundries slog it out over 12-inch fabs

Mine's bigger than yours...

Responding to news earlier this year that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) will build a 12-inch wafer fab, its competitor United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) said it would as well. According to reports in the Taiwanese press, UMC will spend an estimated $3 million to build the plant. The fab will be located in …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 10:49
Iridium invokes 30-day debt delay

Holds creditors at bay in battle to survive

Iridium yesterday called in its right to a 30-day grace period on the $90 million of interest charges it owes on a senior notes debt of $1.45 billion. Company interim CEO John Richardson said Iridium had invoked its right to the payment delay in order to facilitate ongoing negotiations with the company's creditors and investors …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 10:57
Microsoft poised to spin-off MSN?

As hugely unprofitable Web operations are worth a fortune, it would be (more) money for free

Microsoft may announce the creation of a "tracking stock" for its Microsoft Network operations next week, according to US reports. The notion first surfaced in May, and the likelihood of such a move was reinforced by CFO Greg Maffei last month, who said the company would separate out some of the figures for its Internet …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 10:57
Iomega Q2 loss deeper than expected

Predicted $18m restructuring charge balloons to $41.9 million

Troubled storage specialist Iomega yesterday reported grim second quarter results centring on a total loss of $61.7 million on revenue of $349 million. Much of the loss came from a $41.9 million restructuring charge, made as the company cut jobs and made other cost-reduction manoeuvres under CEO Jodie Glore's ongoing battle to …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 11:20
Amiga releases technical brief with ‘exciting Linux CPU’

Collas outlines spec and explains Linux choices

Jim Collas, Amiga's president, has just released his briefing about the future of the platform. Products under development include the Amiga Operating Environment and the Amiga Multimedia Convergence Computer (Amiga MCC). The former is a distributed software architecture which will provide support for pervasive networking, and a …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 11:32
Motorola preps enhanced PowerPC G3

Faster, smaller G3 to match IBM's fast silicon on insulator based PPCs

Even as Motorola is -- we hope -- gearing up for its launch of the PowerPC 7400, aka G4, the company appears to be continuing to evolve the current G3 line. According to anonymous sources cited by Apple-oriented Web site MacOS Rumors, the G3, officially known, in its two versions, as the PowerPC 740 and 750 (the 740 is the …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 12:18
Amiga Usenet exchange heightens Transmeta spexulation

He doesn't confirm it and he doesn't deny it...

An exchange between Jim Collas, president of Amiga, and another individual on Usenet has heightened speculation that the company may use the Transmeta processor in its Amiga MCC platform. This morning, Amiga released its specs for its hardware platforms (see Amiga releases technical brief with 'exciting Linux CPU'). Yesterday, …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 12:20
Dealers expelled from schools market

Government wants less than 20 resellers to stay behind

Resellers may find themselves pushed out of the education market this month after the government names those companies selected for its accreditation programme. Through BECTA (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency), the government wants to appoint a select group of resellers accredited to supply IT kit and …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 13:29
Dell & Gateway succumb to Voodoo

3dfx secures major win in PC market

Two of the big names of the direct channel model, Dell and Gateway, have hopped into bed with 3dfx. The graphics card vendor announced late yesterday that it had scored deals with the two PC giants to supply its Voodoo3 3000 graphics accelerator. Gateway will feature the 166MHz Voodoo3 card in its Gateway Performance range of …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 13:47
Freeserve haemorrhaging subscribers, claims paper

Possibly, we say, but so are all the other ISPs

UK free ISP Freeserve is losing over 4000 registered users every day, according to London local paper, the Evening Standard. Having pored over the ISP's IPO prospectus, the Standard reckons that for every five users who register with Freeserve, three and up deserting it for other ISPs. Such a high churn rate should worry the ISP …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 14:31
Graphics companies in 3D fix

S3, Diamond, Nvidia, STB -- what a mass there is

Reports on hardware pages say that 3Dfx not only missed its shipping date of 24 June for its Voodoo 3 3500 but has also missed 15 July, its secondary date. That, coupled with S3's latest results, has led to speculation from reliable sources that a deal with Diamond may be off and a deal with Nvidia may be on. A hardware page, …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 14:42
France Telecom takes stake in NTL

Successful talks lead to $1 billion investment plan

France Telecom (FT) has, as anticipated, made a major move on the UK cable market with a $1 billion investment in NTL. Right now, FT will take a ten per cent stake in NTL, but that will be increased if NTL is successful in its bid to buy Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), the cable subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Plc. CWC is …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 14:50
Web site warns of new UK Jahou speed system

It's speed cameras, you see, and it can issue 60K tickets an hour

A system devised by ICL is now in operation on major motorways in the UK, with the cops netting 4,300 offenders on a single day, last weekend. The system, which is operating on both the M25 London ring-motorway and the M1, has been hailed as a breakthrough by both the Kent and the Leicestershire cops. Both will implement it soon …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 14:51
Tiny offers free PC if you join its telco

Seems like a small price to pay…

Tiny Computers is giving a free PC to everyone signing up to its telecomms service, launched today. Worth over £300, users get a free PC with Internet access. Or rather, they get the PC keyboard and a base which can be plugged into any TV. Subscribers have to sign a 12-month contract with TinyTelecom that guarantees their phone …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 15:11
Major High St firm to out-Tiny Tiny

But who could it be?

A major UK retailer is set to out-do Tiny by offering ISDN on free PCs. That follows the news that Tiny had negotiated a deal to offer so-called "free PCs" as part of a deal with a major telecomms supplier. Our source, who definitely did not wish to be named, said that the High Street retailer will trump Tiny's offer over the …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 15:12
Nanotech takes defects into account

It's greased lightning, it's Molecularelastic…

Nanotechnology, long a feature of sci-fi novels, came a step closer to reality this week as researchers from Hewlett Packard and the University of California, Los Angeles announced that they have made logic gates the size of a molecule. The research opens the road for the electronics industry, beyond the limits of silicon. With …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 15:21
Official: it's legal to screw Unix – MS beats Bristol rap

MS on Trial Connecticut jury clears company of antitrust violation

Microsoft has beat the rap in the first of its serial antitrust trials to come to a verdict. A Connecticut jury has decided that the company did not violate antitrust law, but that it had broken a state law, the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act. The plaintiff, Bristol Technology, was awarded a derisory $1 for this. Bristol …

Business 16 Jul 1999, 19:12