13th September 1999 Archive

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DoJ document details how MS harmed consumers

MS on Trial Helps deal with gap in government's case

The DoJ has, at last, produced a concise summary as to why and how consumers were harmed and will continue to be harmed by Microsoft's actions. It relies on the fact that antitrust laws are based on the principle that the wilful maintenance of a monopoly harms consumers, and that the Supreme Court has repeatedly held this. The …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 07:56
Gates' claimed ignorance of Netscape ‘bizarre’ – DoJ

MS on Trial Trial pattern continues as rival refutations filed

Bill Gates' video testimony comes under fire in the DoJ's final written contribution to the Microsoft trial. In a 21 page memorandum in response to Microsoft's proposed findings of fact, Gates is slammed for "bizarre assertions... that he was not aware of what Netscape was doing in mid-1995" and that his statements were "simply …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 07:59
MS makes last minute bid to suppress Compaq evidence

MS on Trial Threatening Big Q over Netscape icons not evidence really shock

A curious sidelight in Microsoft's criticism of the DoJ's proposed findings of fact is that Microsoft is now trying to get documents detailing its earlier actions against Compaq to be ruled inadmissible, and to substitute a different story. In the contempt case, the DoJ produced a deposition from Steve Decker, Compaq's Director …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 08:02
European Internet users to pass US by 2003 – IDC

Outfit predicts 500 million users by then

European Internet use will overtake the US in 2003, IDC predicted at the IDC European IT Forum in Paris this morning. At present, half the Internet users are in the US, and a third in Europe, but the 44 million European users will grow to 170 million by 2003 and equal the number in the USA. Six of largest 10 countries in the …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 10:21
Intel confirms PIII/Celeron price cuts

Preparation for Coppermine continues

As revealed here earlier, Intel has cut prices on members of its Pentium III and Celeron processor family. (Story: Intel burns desktop prices again) The company confirmed the following adjustments, on OEM prices of 1000 processors. The PIII/600 drops to $615 and the 550MHz to $423. New Celeron prices are as follows: The 500MHz …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 10:42
Trade body says no to ebiz legislation

Industry heavyweights set out self-regulation stall

An industry body is meeting in Paris today to stave off attempts by politicians to regulate ecommerce. The Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce (GBDe) was set up earlier this year by a mix of IT companies, media companies an retailers, such as AOL, Disney and Time Warner. It plans to issue a set of guidelines for …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 11:03
Blair appoints e-envoy

Pom from down under says 'G'day'

Former civil servant Alex Allan has been appointed as the UK's first e-commerce envoy. His job will be "to champion e-commerce" in the UK and "spearhead a wake-up call to British business". He will be charged with encouraging business to embrace the Net "as a matter of urgency". Prime Minister Tony Blair made the announcement …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 12:06
3Com set to IPO Palm

Building leadership positions

In the topsy-turvy world of Wall Street finance, Palm Computing could be worth more as a standalone company than with the rest of 3Com dragging along behind it. We'll soon find out. For 3Com is hiving off its Palm handheld operations into a separate, publicly-traded company which will IPO early next year. Palm is the unqualified …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 13:07
Citrix ports to Unix, Linux, aims at telecoms, devices

Analysis Nobody will say it flat-out, but MS-free version of Citrix is looming

Despite studied nonchalance on the part of company execs at its iForum event in Florida last week, it now seems inevitable that Citrix is poised on the brink of a major break from dependence on Microsoft. The execs still talk happily about the importance of "adding value to NT terminal server," but under the covers Citrix is …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 13:08
Big Blue outlines copper, RS, Monterey futures

Talks big boxes, little boxes, Magic Boxes, Tragic Boxes

IBM rolled out its S/80 "Magic Box" today and at the same time gave sneak previews of its microprocessor PowerPC futures. At the same time, it released version 4.3.3 of Aix for its RS family and said that this is effectively Monterey for its Aix family. Senior IBM US executives also spent much time knocking Sun, and claiming …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 13:32
Sony puts PlayStation 2 at heart of Net strategy

Console provides missing link between IT and home entertainment

Sony today took the wraps off the PlayStation 2 and immediately positioned the devices beyond its games console roots, promoting it as a home's gateway to digital content distributed via the Internet. It's a canny move, and while the PlayStation 2 isn't the first console to embrace the Net -- Sega's Dreamcast is already shipping …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 13:44
Computer Resale builds nationwide second user PC chain

Twenty-six franchises signed up

A new franchise business is attempting to build the UK's first national retail brand for secondhand computers. Called Computer Resale, the Hertfordshire-based firm has opened six outlets, and has signed up franchises for another 20 shops.It says it will have 100 stores opened by the end of next year. The company aims to keep …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 13:53
US army dumps NT for MacOS, us.gov going open source?

Hacked Army Home page switches to 'more secure platform'

Grim news for Microsoft indeed - the US government seems to be tilting towards open source software, while the US Army's ArmyLink News claims the US Army Home Page has switched from NT to "a more secure platform" (MacOS and WebStar) following a nasty hacker invasion. ArmyLink quotes Christopher Unger, web site administrator for …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 14:03
PlayStation 2 ship date slides three months

Japanese shipments will begin in March 2000 not December 1999 after all

Sony today confirmed that it has put back the release date for the upcoming PlayStation 2 by three months. The games console/information appliance was originally to have shipped in Japan at the end of the year -- at least that's what Sony said when it announced the machine back in April. However, in a release focusing on the …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 14:03
Ford Motor loses suit against Webmaster

David survives encounter with Goliath

Webmaster Robert Lane of Dearborn, Michigan is "elated" by a federal court decision restoring his right to operate BlueOvalNews.com, a Web site devoted to Ford automobiles and their various shortcomings. The company had sought a restraining order to shut down the site after accusing Lane of publishing its trade secrets, but US …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 14:04
Cadence to appeal Avant court digest…

...but internal memo reveals Cadence anger

Design house Cadence said it is to appeal against a US district judge pre-trial ruling in its ongoing case of alleged trade secret theft against Avant. Meanwhile, an internal Cadence document has come to light which reveals what the company thinks, in private, about Avant and the case. An official statement by Cadence said that …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 14:09
Taiwan traders vote ALi IPO a winner

Acer sub to buy more IP but forget CPUs

Chipmaker Acer Labs' over-the-counter listing today appeared to be a hit with investors in Taiwan, but a low initial price meant that almost no one was willing to sell. "Before we listed, the gray market price was around NT$100," said Acer Labs Inc. (ALi) Finance Director, Daniel Chien, "and our initial price is NT$68 (US$2.14 …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 14:13
UK cash draining to US because of high Internet costs

And UK Unix programmers feel the pinch

The president of a major US Internet company claimed today Britain was losing huge amounts of money to the US because of poor bandwidth and infrastructure in the company. Jack Reynolds, president of Quik Internet, and a guest at IBM's S/80 launch near Heathrow, this morning, said that the large cost of connecting and the high …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 14:30
No Pentium IV re-name on way – Intel

Company denies Coppermine to get cosmetic makeover

Intel has discounted rumours circulating on bulletin boards worldwide that it will name its .18 micron Coppermine processor the Pentium IV. An Intel representative said there were no plans to change the name when the chips debut next month -- as far as he was aware. Be that as it may, there is a marchitecture move afoot. Intel …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 14:40
Student sued for site's links to MP3 files

Linking to dodgy MP3 files is as bad as making them in the first place, claims IFPI

A 17-year-old Swedish student has been hit with a lawsuit by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for promoting piracy by linking his Web site to an archive of allegedly illegal MP3 digital music files. According to German newspaper Der Spiegel, student Tommy Olsson's site is the first Web site owner …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 14:45
NEC ramps up flat panel output

Switches production at Japanese factory

NEC is to open a new LCD production line in its Kagoshima plant in western Japan at a cost of 10 billion yen (around £58 million). The plant will churn out some 25,000 14in TFT colour LCD's per year. They will go to NEC and NEC Kagoshima - the local subsidiary. The 14in TFT colour panels are beginning to feature in thin monitors …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 15:18
The Blair Net Project

Enough hot air to stage a round the world balloon flight

Tony Blair flirted with technology today by ordering flowers online for his wife Cheri. One vulture-eyed Registerreader who attended the appointment of Britain's first E-envoy watched the PM in action as he visited the Interflora Web site. Although his technical ability was sound, by all accounts his typing was lousy. No matter …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 15:20
08004u – where's it gone?

Last week's bravehearts have become this week's brokenhearts as service vanishes

A Scottish ISP claiming to offer round-the-clock 0800 access to the Net for £49.99 a month appears to have vanished. 08004u launched last Thursday at 9pm on the 9/9/99 as a deliberate ploy by MD David Banks to fly in the face of all those scaremongerers who thought something nasty would happen on that day. Well it didn't. But by …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 15:21
Sub-$1 PCs? MIT chief speaks, but do we believe?

Negroponte holds forth on this, i-laundry and Web use inflation

Speaking to the IDC Forum in Paris today Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the MIT media labs, gave a refreshing and non-American view of the Internet, which he was able to do since he had been educated in Europe and spends nearly half his time there. He expressed a healthy cynicism towards the figure of 500 million Internet …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 15:26
Dell chief lays down rules for ‘Internet revolutionaries’

Millions snooze...

Michael Dell, of Dell, has a modest view of what he terms "rules for Internet revolutionaries" (and the contradiction between "rules" and revolutionaries" has clearly not occurred to him - the titled sounds borrowed). Dell's success is based on not rocking the boat, and being a solid PC player that has shrugged off the Internet …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 15:39
Diamond opens Vipers' nest of boards

Features S3 Savage 2000+ chip

Diamond Multimedia has launched its new Viper II graphics accelerator, one of the first graphics boards with the S3 Savage 2000+ chip. The board is due to ship at the end of October, and is expected to retail Stateside for under $200. Scott Vouri, VP of the multimedia division at Viper, said: "Viper II is the ultimate graphics …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 17:16
Nokia unveils Linux broadband wireless Web system

And the killer is that it sounds like it could work, and is shippable RSN...

Nokia may be a fully paid-up member of Symbian, but the company's multimedia operation seems to be putting its eggs in the Linux basket instead. In the past few days Nokia Multimedia Terminals (set-top boxes et al has been talking about a Linux-based prototype mobile digital TV and cellular convergence product. On the one hand …

Business 13 Sep 1999, 18:45