5th August 1999 Archive

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Via to buy IDT's Centaur

Whew...does Via have any AMD ambitions?

In one of the most remarkable moves in the computer industry for at least two days, Taiwanese chipset manufacturer Via said it was going to buy x.86 subsidiary Centaur from IDT. As part of the deal worth goodness knows how much, IDT and Via will issue licences to each other. That is bound to make chip giant Chipzilla (Intel) …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 06:36
Xeon delay stories wrong, says Intel

A year ago No delay anticipated for four-way system shipments

From The Register No. 89 -- a year ago. Plus ca change or what? Reports that higher end Xeon processors are delayed are spurious, Intel said today. But at the same time, details of pricing changes to arrive on the 24 August have emerged, as well as future plans for its high end chip platforms. Reports on US wires had said Intel …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 06:52
Intel to send PIII/450 to gulag

And slashes prices on Celerons -- stone the crows

The 450MHz flavour of the Pentium III is set to be phased out within the next week or two, sources close to Intel confirmed today. That probably sets a record for the quickest movement of any Intel processor from birth to banishment. It also indicates -- quite clearly -- that despite advice from senior chip analysts, Intel is …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 07:09
Wall St brutalises Net shares

...time to buy, buy, buy

The dot in ".com" got a bit ragged yesterday as the Dow Jones Internet Index sank by more than 40 percent since reaching its high water mark back in mid-April. Retailers like Amazon and eBay were among those hardest hit. Amazon took an especially merciless battering, and only a week after CEO Jeff Bezos announced bold plans to …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 07:34
AMD uses Intel Inside top Fab Sandpit

...and so it goes

We tipped up at Fab 30 in Dresden blissfully, and unaware of a document called a non-disclosure agreement and so were ready and willing to walk around and admire AMD's fancy collection of electron microscopes, unfettered by bits of paper we'd never seen or even discussed. In one of the offices, we talked to a crystallographer …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 07:39
Net IPOs slump on first day trading

Overpriced and oversupplied

Four Internet stock IPOs -- new issues as they are known in the UK -- have failed to rise above their opening price. It was bound to happen sometime. The "failures" were 1-800-Flowers.com, BigStar Entertainment, Quotesmith.com and Splitrock Services. All fell around at least 20 per cent on the first day. So why the fall? The …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 08:12
Why the fuss about the Red Hat IPO?

Looks sensible, to us

Some newbie would-be Red Hat IPO investors have been upset that they could not meet the criteria required by E*Trade to open trading accounts. Red Hat is about to come to the market. Because demand usually greatly exceeds supply, E*Trade has elaborated a policy of only allocating shares to experienced investors who do not have a …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 08:24
Baratz swaps place in the Sun for investment bank

Software head lasts two months only

Alan Baratz, who two months ago was appointed president of Sun's software division, is leaving to go to Warburg Pincus & Co, the private investment bankers, in mid-August where he will be managing director of an affiliate. Ed Zander, Sun's president and COO said that Jon Kannegaard will assume Baritz' role on an acting basis, …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 08:37
Regulators check Corel CEO share deals

Business as usual, Cowpland says

Michael Cowpland, CEO of Corel, has been investigated by the Ontario Securities Commission for alleged insider trading, according to a report in the Canadian National Post. At issue is Cowpland's trading record in Corel shares in August 1997, when Cowpland sold 2.4 million shares a month before a reported loss of $32 million on …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 08:45
How Intel should treat Americans – unofficial

intro

John Newton, a reader who's worked "for many years" in the US advertising and defence industries was inspired by our Intel pocket press guide, to write a new chapter for how to treat American. He think's its "fairly accurate". USA Background: Americans are more impressed with style than substance. Give them a good show, and they …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 09:20
Intel Coppermine delay caused by fear of AMD

But Intel has a secret weapon up its sleeve

Reliable sources close to Intel said today that the so-called delay in its first desktop processor using Coppermine was a knee-jerk reaction to AMD's K7 Athlon. However, an Intel representative has denied that claim. According to the source, Intel released its .25 micron Pentium III/600 to soften the market for AMD's up-and- …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 10:37
Lara Croft to turn games players away from piracy

Lame slogan to defeat criminals, apparently

The European Leisure Software Publishers Association (Elspa) has recruited Tomb Raider star Lara Croft, she of the unfeasibly large pixellated paps, to fight software piracy. With a cry of "Don't play games with criminals -- it will all end in tears!", Lara will (apparently) strike fear into the hearts of 14-year-old boys …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 10:39
IT Relief issues fundraising call to arms – and legs

Get on your bike and do your bit

IT Relief, a close cousin of Comic Relief, is doing what it does best, and encouraging IT couch potatoes to chip in for a good cause. Fancy a bit of fund raising? Then read on… On 11 and 12 September IT Relief is running an event called KIDS Bike ride - a 240 mile cycling trip from Yorkminster to Westminster with a stop over at …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 10:50
Scottish Internet hub planned

Major hub will speed Scots' Net access

Contracts for the UK's third Internet exchange, called Scotix, were completed yesterday. Founders, including the Royal Bank of Scotland and BT, said that they hoped the new hub would someday be a rival to global hubs such as the MaeWest and Abovenet exchanges in California. The new exchange should make Internet traffic flow …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 10:52
Industry analysts diet for charity

Perhaps they're going to eat their words...?

Some analysts are just starving for press coverage at the moment, The Register has learned. Top staff at London investment bank Granville are losing weight in an effort to alert us all to the lean times ahead in the Millennium. Talk about taking your job seriously. Analysts George O'Connor and Roger Phillips, along with Richard …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 10:54
Rush for free books knocks over BOL server

Site buckles as more than 30,000 people dash for freebie

What happens when you promise free books to a literate online population? Well, for a start you might have a few problems with your server. BOL did when it gave away books yesterday. A spokesman for BOL said that they had had between 30,000 and 50,000 people trying to access the site simultaneously, and that at best every other …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 10:55
Diamond, RIAA end MP3 spat

Both parties drop legal battles, become best of pals

Erstwhile arch-enemies over the MP3 digital music market Diamond Multimedia and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have agreed to make up and be friendly. Both organisations yesterday confirmed that they had agreed to suspend their legal battle, though neither would specify what each has had to do to ensure …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 11:12
Online liquor sales under fire in US

HoR votes to implement stringent rules

The US government is set to limit the sale of booze over the Internet following a three-to-one majority vote in the House of Representatives. If ratified by the White House it would give US states with tough liquor legislation the power to take legal action against out-of-state Web sites if found to be in breach of those laws. …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 11:35
Samsung unveils SDRAM-beating SGRAM

More than a match for Rambus too

Samsung yesterday claimed its latest 32Mb SGRAM part is up to 55 per cent faster than "best of class" 32Mb SDRAM. The new chip, operating at 222MHz, was also described by the company as an "evolutionary alternative" to Rambus Direct DRAM, at least in graphics applications. Samsung claimed the part can deliver 1.8GBps throughput …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 11:38
Onsas.com spams UK journalists

intro

Who the hell is onsas.com? Describing itself as a "leading UK online press distribution and public relations company", onsas.com has embarked upon a sustained spam campaign targeting British journalists. Multiple copies of the same press release -- in bandwidth-wasting Word format -- sent as attachments -- emailed to several …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 12:42
Sun plans Corona PC Killer

$499 kick-off price

Sun has developed an "ultra-secret PC-killer", just when everyone was thinking that JavaStation NCs had been killed by inexpensive PCs. Codenamed Corona, the new device will ship probably next month for $499. When volume sales kick in, the price is expected to fall to under $400, according to Forbes The Corona has an Ethernet …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 13:09
Sega signs AT&T for Dreamcast Net access

Just like we said...

Sega has signed up AT&T to provide access to American buyers of its Dramcast games console, as predicted. Of course, how many people will actually sign up for the service remains to be seen. The Dreamcast is due to begin shipping in the US on 9 September. Sega claims that over 200,000 consoles have already been ordered. That's …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 14:22
Microsoft, stealth bombing and the hacker challenge

Games people don't play

Usually, Microsoft is PR-adept when it comes to dealing with its customers and the media. But when it comes to understanding hackerdom, it hasn't a clue. Last Tuesday, Microsoft challenged hackers to attempt to break the Windows 2000 + IIS security system, and was foolish enough to hope that it would generate positive publicity …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 14:29
Telewest to tackle BT, NTL with broadband launch

Microsoft investment forms key part of next phase for cable co

Cable operator Telewest has thrown its hat into the broadband arena following hard on the heels of BT and NTL. The well-flagged announcement confirms that Telewest will launch its broadband Internet service -- 100 times faster than conventional dial-up access -- early next year. Before then it will launch a co-branded Web portal …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 14:38
LinuxPPC mounts hack challenge as MS fails to tempt crackers

Weather, not crackers, brings down Win2000 server

Mac-oriented Linux distributor LinuxPPC has responded to Microsoft's challenge to the cracker community to break into Windows 2000, with a contest of its own: break into a standard LinuxPPC 1999 install and win the Power Mac it's installed on. To date, 5669 people have tried to break into the server, which even has Telnet …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 14:59
Govt e-commerce stand under attack – again

Cyber Rights accuses IBM & BT of ignoring privacy issues when advising govt

There's further pressure on the government today to rethink its stand on e-commerce following the publication of an open letter by the campaigning group Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK). In an open letter to the heads of IBM and BT, Cyber-Rights claims that employees of BT and Big Bleugh helped advise the government on key …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 15:09
Alpha Coppa not a stonking whoppa

Will you, won't you, will you won't you join the ball

All this year, we have reported that IBM will make copper Alphas for Compaq. Even at Eckhard Pfeiffer's valedictory London showing at the Landmark Hotel, the story still had four legs. But the denials of the European director of Compaq's Alpha corporation earlier this week that it had copper samples from IBM may be just that. …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 15:24
IBM to debut ‘Gigaprocessor’ CPU at Hot Chips

Power4 chip to be first multi-core part in PowerPC family

IBM will next week unveil its latest Power CPU, the chip line that formed the basis for the PowerPC family. The Power4 processor will beat Motorola to the goal of unveiling a multi-core PowerPC chip. According to EE Times, Power4 will contain two cores and an L2 cache on a single die constructed using a 0.18 micron process and …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 15:34
MS considers free Net access for US

Looks to Freeserve in the UK for 'AOL-killer' business model

Widespread free Internet access could be coming to the US sooner than everyone expected, thanks to Microsoft's latest aggressive plans to attack AOL. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, MS bosses are at the very least looking at low-cost Net access. "We intend to be aggressive with access," said Brad Chase, VP of …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 15:55
NT faces RISCy future

Unix still got legs in the corporate market

Both Intel and Microsoft will have to take a back seat to RISC this year, according to research from IDC. The company also predicts a compound growth rate of over six per cent in the server market. Microsoft's NT will continue to be the low end product of choice, but will fail to make the leap to the lucrative mid-range market …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 16:30
Tosh develops combo CD/DVD drive

But it can't make toast

Toshiba has developed a product that combines a CD rewritable drive with DVD storage. Toshiba's new SD-R1002 drive, classified as a 4x-4x-24x model, reads and writes CD-RW and CD-R media at 4x speeds, reads DVD-ROMs at 4x speeds, and reads CD-ROM discs at a 24x clip. DVD-ROM seek times still somewhat longer than CD-ROM: 140ms …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 16:31
Memory Corp turns last year's loss into Q2 profit

Jump in sales of 370 per cent helps somewhat

Second quarter figures from Memory Corp tell a happier tale than this time last year. For Q2 99, MemCorp turned a loss of $926,000 (Q2 98) into an operating profit of $474,000. Profit after tax was $52,000. Year-on-year turnover was up from $10.8 million last Q2 to an impressive $40.1 million for the three months ending 2 July …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 16:33
How Sun can Magic away Apple's consumer success

Analysis Apple's right to be unconcerned by the free PC concept -- the real threat lies elsewhere

While everyone was talking this week about FreeMac.com's upcoming million-Mac giveaway, an announcement that will have far more impact on Apple seems to have passed them by. Sun Microsystems said it is working on a super-chip for Internet access devices. Dubbed the Microprocessor Architecture for Java Computing (MAJC -- or ' …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 16:33
MS ready to take free ISP battle into US

AOL under attack on a new front?

Microsoft could be ready to undermine AOL's position in the US as the leading dial-up Internet service provider. The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft is looking to offer dial-up access cheaper than the $21.95 monthly fee currently charged by AOL. There is also speculation that Microsoft may even go as far as to scrap …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 16:34
Former Compaq sales director joins Fujitsu

Jackson bobs up in channel again after leaving Tiny

Former Compaq UK channel sales director, Ian Jackson, has turned up at Fujitsu. Less than a month after Fujitsu lost its UK sales director, Frank O'Brien, Jackson is in place as head of the company's UK channel sales division. O'Brien left Fujitsu to pursue other opportunities. Jackson left Compaq to take up the post of MD at …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 16:35
Intel Coppermine: the facts emerge

The PR bunnies and spinolas, they speak truth

After we filed Peter Sherriff's earlier story about Coppermine being delayed because of marchitecture rather than architecture issues, an Intel engineer in Israel has emailed us to put the record straight. (Story: Intel Cumine delay caused by fear of AMD) At the same time, she also commented on our stories about AMD's process in …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 16:37
3i drums beat for Jungle Online

Clicks and Mortar department store

3i is shelling out £10 million for a 20 per cent stake in new web retailer Jungle Online. Opening its virtual doors for business on August 18, Jungle Online is the latest wheeze of Steve Bennett, serial entrepreneur and boss of Software Warehouse, one of the UK’s most successful IT retailers/mail-order operations. Jungle Online …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 21:33
FortuneCity founder chases silver surfers

Some are born middle-aged, some achieve middle age, and some have it thrust upon them

FortuneCity co-founder Richard Jones has recruited his former boss, VNU publisher Ben Tisdall to run his latest venture, a community site for the over-50s. We’ll give you more details of the silver servers...as soon as we get them. Word from former colleagues is that Jones no longer plays an active role at FortuneCity, where he …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 21:39
Computers kill Brits

Stiff upperlip defenceless against killer notebooks, death ray monitors, crippler keyboards, cancer phones

It's official -- computers are killing us. We Brits are in the throes of a love affair with technology , but it will all end in tears. We have so many computers, mobile phones and other gadgets that we are now ahead of the US when it comes to how frantic and stressful our lives are. According to a report in London local paper …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 22:32
Softbank closes $600 million VC fund

And we reprise our ZD 'debt-bloated carcass' quote

That most curious Japanese company, Softbank, has capped SBTV V, its spanking new Net VC fund at $600 million. This is nearly twice as much as SBTV IV, the previous fund, which invested in 40 or so Net companies. Softbank is a computer distributor-cum VC which owns ZiffDavis; which, until this week, owned DRAM company Kingston …

Business 5 Aug 1999, 23:47