2nd September 1999 Archive

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Intel move to PC-133 mere lip service

Intel Developer Forum i820 won't have it, while special chipset won't have Rambus

A press conference at the forum has revealed that Intel's commitment to PC-133 is essentially a lack of commitment. (Earlier story: Intel in full cunning strategic retreat from PC-133) The upcoming i820 Camino chipset will not have PC-133 support, and Intel appears to be saying that it will introduce a special chipset sometime …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 00:46
Olivetti Computers Worldwide shuts down

Six months after MBO, it's game over

Olivetti Computers Worldwide (OCW) has ceased trading, sources have told The Register. The company, with an office in High Wycombe, was the sales and marketing operation for Olivetti EuroComputers, the PC manufacturer. OCW was a separate company based in The Netherlands, which also had offices in France. Price Waterhouse Coopers …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 06:53
Slivka latest MS exec to join exodus

He's one of the bright ones, too. Can't afford to lose too many of them...

Another one of Microsoft's execs, this time one of the brightest, is heading for the hills. Ben Slivka is moving over to the post of director of IT at Amazon, where his talents may be more appreciated. Slivka was one of The Register's favourite Microsofties. It was he who came up with the quote "grow the polluted Java," but he …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 08:07
Silver surfers ride the wave of e-commerce

They're oldies but goldies

E-entrepreneurs looking to cash in on online shopping should be targeting silver-haired surfers, according to a study by US research company Greenfield Online. It found that 92 per cent of "surfing seniors" window shop online. Seventy eight per cent of those questioned had actually bought something. According to the research, …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 10:02
Deutsche Bank, Nokia offer WAP banking

German customers to get first bite of online banking trial

Nokia has teamed up with Deutsche Bank to develop a mobile phone banking service, based on the new Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). WAP allows Internet access from mobile phone handsets. Deutsche Bank now plans to exploit this and will offer a dedicated channel to its customers for online banking. Deutsche Bank claims that …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 11:20
BBC free ISP blasted for stifling market development

Industry body cries foul over use of public money for Net service

The BBC's launch of its subscription-free ISP, Freebeeb.net, has been branded anti-competitive and an abuse of public money. Industry leaders have rallied together to criticise the BBC and the government has come under fire for not intervening to stop the operation. BIPA, an alliance of major British Internet publishers …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 11:26
Sun poised to ship 64-bit Solaris for Merced

At least six months ahead of Win64 first beta. Oh dear...

Sun will turn up the heat on Microsoft this autumn by shipping key developers an early access release of Solaris for Intel's IA-64 simulator. Although Intel has now demonstrated Merced silicon in action, for the near future much software development will still be carried out on the simulator. Sun is demonstrating 64-bit Intel …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 12:26
Nokia launches mobile phone for the deaf

Portable Talk-Type system developed with help of RNID

The Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) has joined forces with Nokia to bring a more portable text phone to the deaf. The partnership is working to adapt the Nokia 9110 Communicator to handle a Talk-Type service. A representative of the RNID said that the move was important, as people came to rely increasingly on mobile …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 13:07
Big Blue backs out of networking via Cisco deal

Agreement worth billions of dollars to both companies

IBM has announced a five-year deal with Cisco Systems that will let Big Blue bow out of the routing and switching marketplace. IBM will supply networking vendor Cisco with network technology, components and services in the deal which was yesterday valued at an estimated $2 billion. Cisco will buy IBM's network equipment business …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 13:08
IBM guns for Intel with comms chip strategy

Both companies' approaches remarkably similar

IBM today announced the IBM Network Processor (INP), the programmable processor its hopes will propel it to the forefront of the communications device component market. The only snag: Intel did almost exactly the same thing yesterday. IBM's shift to comms chips follows hard on the heels of its decision to sell is comms hardware …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 13:14
UK e-commerce envoy coming RSN

Secret squirrel announcement due in two weeks' time

The government is to appoint its much-touted but long overdue e-commerce envoy in less than a fortnight, The Register has learnt. The announcement will be made at the St John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge on Monday 13 September. The minister responsible for e-commerce, Patricia Hewitt, will be there and The Register …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 13:15
Iridium CFO bails out

Management turns to turnaround agency for help

Iridium CFO Leo Mondale has quit the company barely five months after taking on that role and given tacit acknowledgement to the very real difficulties the company has had sorting out its survival. "I accepted the CFO position to support Iridium's efforts to bring about an out-of-court restructuring," said Mondale. "Since this …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 13:54
Jewish Web site values teen entrepreneur at millions

Site is less than a year old, but has already turned into a gold mine

A London teenager has had the Web site he started for the Jewish community less than a year ago valued at up to £5 million. Benjamin Cohen started Jewishnet seven months ago to put the UK Jewish community in touch with Jewish businesses. The 17 year-old's site has since grabbed 2.2 million visitors. Cohen's site provides a …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 14:09
Microsoft says life's simple

Intel Developer Forum It's very simple, it's complicated

David Cole, general manager of Microsoft's consumer division, faced over 2,000 developers in Palm Springs today and attempted to guide them through the Windows labyrinth. His message was that as he liked things to be simple, everything Microsoft was doing was simple. But it isn't. Talking about Win2000, Cole showed a slide of …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 15:51
Fear and loathing as TM card played for Red Hat Linux

It's a logical and justifiable move, but it's still really dumb...

Red Hat has caused a storm in the Linux community by demanding that the trademarked name Red Hat Linux only be used for boxed and unmodified software from Red Hat. So companies supplying the GPL version of Red Hat can no longer describe it as such, and it's not immediately clear what they should call it instead. The issue was …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 16:13
Four way Merced: the pix

Intel Developer Forum It's a great big lumbering beast

Intel was exhibiting a two way and a four way system in its Showspace area. The four-way box is upgradeable to eight ways, and uses the AL460GX chipset, and supports up to 64Gb of memory. It also includes hotswap fans and HotPCI drives. (Memory type corrected -- we didn't mean 64GHz :|) We had exclusive pictures of the Merced …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 16:36
Y2K bug eats into South African economy

Damning report claims 80 per cent of country's transportation could fail

South Africa's lack of preparedness for the date change at the end of the year is starting to show. Cargill, the agricultural trading group, has said it will avoid trading in the country over the mid December to mid January period. The move has angered South African officials. The technology manager at the South African Reserve …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 17:00
Cyber bullies told to goof off

Lilly Corp alleges silly site is cyber squatting

Industrial giant Lilly Industries has been branded a cyber bully for allegedly interfering with Goofoff.com and its Web business. Rick Schwartz, owner of the domain Goofoff.com, is so outraged by the alleged bullying tactics he has decided to sue the company instead. The dispute hinges on the fact that Lilly has a stain remover …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 17:01
Hunt for biodegradable PCB begins

Calls for greener PCs prompt search for new materials

Mutterings within the green movement about recycling in IT are beginning to surface, and the hunt for a biodegradable circuit board is on. Tough new regulations from the EU have captured the attention of the electronics industry and forced investigations into environmentally friendly design and disposal. One promising lead is …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 17:01
Free calls announced by BT

You save £1.80 per quarter - you pay £1 per quarter for the privilege

BT has announced a string of "innovative" pricing changes for residential customers in the UK. From 1 October all residential customers will be able to make three hours of local weekend calls free each quarter -- a saving £1.80 a quarter. In return, BT has increased the cost of line rental by £1 a quarter which means consumers …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 17:02
Dell's Bell admits company overclocks chips

Intel Developer Forum But all in the cause of science, of course

"If you find yourself in a hole stop digging". That was the advice Denis Healey, a British Labour politician offered to those faced with questions that put them on the spot. Jay Bell, a Dell Fellow, was enlisted by Intel yesterday to laud the praises of Rambus over PC-133. At one point, he said that Dell had experimented with …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 17:03
Compaq has copper Alphas working

IBM fabbed parts would run NT scorchingly

Conversations in newsgroup COMP.ARCH have revealed that samples of Alphas using copper and SOI technology are already up and running. The reports come after yesterday's claim by Intel's John Miner that its IA-64 processors will outperform any Risc platform. According to a user on the thread, he is already achieving clock speeds …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 17:34
Alpha NT: More disappointed two per cent speak up

"Compaq has a moral, if not legal obligation to support users"

Further evidence that Compaq has left its corporate users in the lurch after it abandoned Alpha NT has emerged. Yesterday, we reported that a large Fortune 500 was girding its loins for a legal battle with Compaq after it was persuaded to shift its strategy from VMS to NT on Alpha. (Story: Compaq may be forced to back down on …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 17:43
Rambus shares rocked by Intel shock

But now may be a good time to buy...

Intel's best efforts to prop up its Rambus connection have not left a sweet taste in the mouth of investors in the company. The company's share price lurched sharply down today after yesterday's news that Intel would apparently give succour to the PC-133 SDRAM standard. The share price fell by over $7 on Wall Street, and …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 19:00
How Intel raced flat out to demo Merced

Intel Developer Forum Two weeks ago it booted at 700MHz

The background to the introduction of Intel's Merced processor earlier this week has emerged. The Register beat the world's press with the news that Intel had booted silicon in the week before the Forum. According to the report between that first boot and Intel's Craig Barrett showing it, engineers worked flat out to show a …

Business 2 Sep 1999, 23:46