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19th July 1999 Archive

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  • Pentium Pro on death row

    A year ago Intel says socket eight Overdrive on way

    From The Register No. 87 -- a year ago Intel said today that it has formally decided to kill the Pentium Pro in favour of the Pentium II platform. It will honour existing orders and give its OEM customers six months to make new orders. The processor will finally disappear in 1999. It is suffering a cruel and unnatural type of …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 07:23

  • iMac Celeron lookalike could lead to sour Apples

    Will Jobsworth allow this one to pass him by?

    A Japanese company has released a PC clone which has something of the look and feel of the iMac. Priced at ¥128,000, the E-one machine from Sotec uses Celeron technology and a case which, shall we say, looks a tad familiar. The machine comes with an 8.4Gb hard drive, a 433MHz Celeron and 64Mb of synchronous memory. At Computex …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 07:29

  • Compaq to push harder on platform Alpha

    Price cuts and 32-CPU Wildfire prods arrive

    As part of its continuing push to make Alpha its high end server of choice, Compaq will today announce its cost reduced Turbolaser, known as the GS60E. At the same time, it will announce a fresh flavour of its DS20 Alpha platform called the DS20E. More significantly, Compaq will also make public its AlphaServer GS80 and its …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 07:52

  • Via confirms Apollo PC-133 has landed

    Beats Intel to market with chipset touch down

    Taiwanese chipset manufacturer Via has now confirmed it has released its Apollo Pro133 chipset. Over the weekend, we reported that motherboards using the chipset are already for sale in Japan. It had the design ready at this year's Computex show in Taipei, but was forced to hold fire because of negotiations between it and chip …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 09:41

  • Intel confirms i740, i754 dead duckies…

    ...and the i810 hasn't long to go

    Chip giant Intel has now confirmed that its i740 chipset will become a thing of the past in August. The information is on its website. Intel said it will stop supporting the i740 in August. And Intel has also confirmed that it has canned its high end i754 chipset. (See Intel has (late) designs on your graphics) Intel said it has …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 10:00

  • NEC awards FIC $.5 billion notebook order

    That's not a bad win for the Taiwanese outfit

    Following hard and fast on deals struck between Acer and IBM, Taiwanese firm First International Computer (FIC) has won a deal to supply NEC with notebook computers. According to the Taiwanese report, the deal is worth $NT15 billion ($464,396,000) and extends for one year. The deal will up FIC's turnover by around 30 per cent, …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 10:17

  • AOL to launch free Net access in UK

    Leveraging Netscape brand -- but will newbies recognise it?

    AOL today finally coughed to planning a free Internet access service, to be called Netscape Online and launched in the middle of August. The service, which was to have been announced last month until scooped by German daily Der Spiegel will offer its own range of content through a Netcenter-style portal. AOL said the service …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 10:35

  • Palm to launch low-end Palm IIIe PDA

    Expansion-limited device to replace Palm III

    3Com subsidiary Palm Computing is to launch a cut-price (ish) version of its Palm PDA, according to reports in today's Wall Street Journal. The Palm IIIe will come in at the bottom on the Palm range, below the IIIx and V, and replacing the 16-month-old Palm III. The IIIe will feature the improved display of more recently …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 10:46

  • Orange eyes up US expansion

    Seeks to establish virtual global presence

    Ambitious mobile phone operator Orange is planning an assault on the US market. The company, owned by Hutchison Whampoa, is said to be considering a number of options for such a move. These include establishing semi-formal arrangements with US operators which would give it access to an extended network without having to follow …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 10:56

  • Apple's PowerBooks incompatible with Apple's FireWire

    New G3 notebooks just don't like it, apparently

    Apple's latest generation of PowerBook G3 notebooks are not compatible with the company's own much-touted FireWire connectivity standard, according to a report on troubleshooting Web site Bug.Net. The notebook's manual claims that the computer will work with the latest version of Apple's FireWire software, 2.1. However, when Bug …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 10:57

  • What's happening at… ARM?

    Shares Q2 results out this week

    UK company ARM (ticker ARMHY) is set to report its second quarter results this Wednesday and all indications are that those results will be exceptional. The company was forced to issue a statement on the 7 July last after rumours sped round the world that it was shortly to conclude an important deal with Texas Instruments. See …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 11:00

  • The man who ate the Y2K bug

    Says he will keep it in his body to save the world. Which is nice

    Millennium frenzy has spawned its very own would-be IT messiah, says the NHS. One patient believed he had swallowed the Millennium Bug, according to a report in today's Guardian. But the man was prepared to save the world by keeping this phantom menace in his body until the year 2000, even though he thought it could kill him. …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 11:01

  • AMX to plug your hi-fi into the Net

    First step for Net as universal connectivity solution

    Dallas-based AMX is set to launch an device that connects TVs and hi-fis to the Internet, used as a source of digital video and audio. The Panja Gateway 1000 -- if only AMX had called it the Gateway 2000 -- looks like a VCR and hooks up to the Net via a built-in DSL box or a cable modem, AMX said. The device hooks up to its own …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 11:15

  • Compaq aims Prosignia direct at SMEs

    Old name given a new lease of life as the direct selling range

    Compaq starts shipping its Prosignia range aimed at small businesses today. Prosignia servers, desktops and notebooks will be sold through Compaq's indirect channel until the end of the third quarter, when users will also be able to buy direct. The server range includes the NeoServer, which can be used practically straight out …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 11:24

  • Bankers overconfident about millennium

    Or perhaps thinking too far ahead

    If you tip up on the Bank Facts site, you'll see that they've got the whole thing under control. One conference, called Year 2000 and managing the Millennium weekend, is slated to take place on 30/9/9999…. ®

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 11:32

  • Lucent exec wins HP CEO race

    Carleton 'of the FO' Fiorina beats course favourite, HP's Ann Livermore

    Hewlett-Packard today poached the president of Lucent's global service provider business, Carleton Fiorina as its new president and CEO. Fiorina beat HP insider Ann Livermore to the role recently vacated by chairman Lew Platt. Platt will retire from the chairman's post on 31 December. According to reports last month, Livermore …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 11:36

  • Teens worth £3bn in online spending

    Survey warns etailers they are missing out on juvenile pound

    Online shops are ignoring the potential of the teenage market, says new research. According to a report from KPMG, 80 per cent of 12 to 16 year olds want to buy stuff on the Net. While individual teens don't have much cash, as a group they are worth £3 billion a year, says the professional services firm. There are many hoops …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 11:44

  • MS to remove Sidewalk from Road Ahead

    It was paved with cash injections, apparently...

    Sidewalk, Microsoft's local information service, is likely to going to be taken over by rival TicketMaster/CitySearch. The deal has been brewing for some months since it became clear to Microsoft that it was unlikely to see a return on its investment - put at $200 million plus - despite refocusing, relaunches, firing staff and …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 14:28

  • Intel confirms price moves

    We were not wrong, after all

    As we reported yesterday, Intel is hammering AMD, using the Pentium III as its wedge. (Story: 600mhZ .25 micron thing out) The prices of the 550MHz Pentium III have dropped to $658, the 500MHz to $423 and the 450MHz to $230. And the 600MHz PIII part is cheaper than ever. According to an Intel source, the cuts are being made …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 15:06

  • NTL gains upper hand in C&W fight

    Secures period of exclusivity for negotiations

    It looks like NTL has the upper hand in the race to buy Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC). Backed by France Telecom, it has negotiated a period of exclusivity in its £8 billion bid for CWC. Telewest also tabled a bid late on Friday, also said to be worth around £8 billion, but the one-time favourite looks like it is being …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 15:21

  • Serious Fraud Office probes PC Science

    Exclusive Investigation will hamper planned sale

    The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating PC Science, the Yorkshire manufacturer that went into receivership earlier this month. The SFO said the case had been referred to them by North Yorkshire police on 9 June. The investigation, which is being handled in conjunction with North Yorkshire police, started on 13 July. The …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 15:40

  • AT&T to integrate a2b digital music format into QuickTime

    Hitches lift with Apple open source programme

    AT&T today nailed its colours to Apple's mast by committing itself to supporting its a2b digital music format within QuickTime 4. The company said it will offer a plug-in for Apple's extensible multimedia technology that would allow QuickTime Player for Windows and Mac to play back music tracks encoded into the a2b format. And …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 15:57

  • Intel changes mind on PC-133

    It was kind of inevitable...why didn't Intel do it in the first place?

    Intel will, within the next three hours, announce it is re-evaluating the PC-133 SDRAM standard for the chips it makes. The goliath has had back up plans for the whole year but has now kowtowed to pressure from its third party manufacturers. But this is far from a humiliation for the chip giant, said a source. She said that …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 16:01

  • Half of credit card problems are Web related

    Survey from Visa shows there's more to security loopholes than the Internet though

    This week, the Investors Chronicle (IC) reports that problems are being reported with 50 per cent of Internet credit card transactions. Obviously interested, this Register reporter went digging for more details. A phone call or two later, it transpired that not only had the IC got the wrong end of the statistic - Visa actually …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 16:20

  • UK Court rules on ISP liability

    Demon told to intervene in bulletin board postings

    Demon Internet has been ordered to remove derogatory remarks about a libelled UK scientist from a newsgroup bulletin board. This is the latest development in the on-going case between Laurence Godfrey and Demon, according to today’s Daily Telegraph. It has come to be seen as a landmark case in the UK. "This is the only case that …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 16:47

  • Flashpoint Marshalled by Avnet troops

    US distie gains AMD foothold thanks to deal

    UK distributor Flashpoint will be swallowed up in the Avnet acquisition of Marshall Industries. This will give components distributor Avnet an AMD franchise in the UK. Marshall owns part of Sonepar Electronique (SEI), which owns part of SEI Diploma. Flashpoint is part the Diploma group of companies. Slough-based Flashpoint was …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 17:25

  • How does the UK conceal its Y2K problems?

    Opinion It should be a scandal, but you know what Brits are like...

    Last week, Don Cruickshank, appointed by PM Tony Blair to look after the Y2K problem after Oftel didn't want him, made some bold statements. According to Cruckshank, there were between six and eight "financial services" companies which were not year 2000 compliant. The UK national newspapers, we are told, repeatedly asked him …

    Business 19 Jul 1999, 20:57