14th September 1999 Archive

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Landis prepares to go hostile on ilion

'Considering its position'

Landis is marshalling its forces for a hostile takeover of rival networking distie ilion. In a statement to the Stock Exchange yesterday, the Dutch-owned company said it was "considering its position" considering a possible offer of ilion. Landis has a head-start: earlier this year founder Paul Kuiken snapped up more than 12 per …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 07:00
Phone Phreaker faces prison

Leicestershire Lad clocks up £45K bill

A teenage phone phreaker is set to go to jail after he admitted stealing £45,000 worth of phone calls. Paul Spibey, 18, dialled up the world, using a PC and "cyber-trickery known as blue-boxing", which spoofed the defrauded telcos by routing calls to Nicaragua, the London Metro reports. Spibey has yet to hear his fate at …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 09:27
Via's chip roadmap takes shape

Will use Cyrix name for Centaur parts

The first indication of how Via will integrate its Cyrix and Centaur chip families has appeared on the Web. According to JC's news, Via has plans to now release its Gobi S370 part towards the end of this year, with NatSemi fabbing the part. He adds that six months later, production of its part, which will be renamed Joshua, will …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 10:00
Camino review pops up on Web

BX chipset beats i820 "senseless"

A hardware site has posted what it claims is the first review of motherboards using the i820 Camino chipset. Got Apex also has more information on the Cape Cod and Vancouver mobos Intel will shortly release. The reviewer was restricted to testing boards using a Rambus 64MB RIMM. He wanted to buy a 128MB RIMM but was quoted the …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 10:20
Compel declares record profits

Gearing down, cash flow up

Compel has turned in a sparkling set of results, with record full year sales, profits and EPS. The Welwyn Garden City-based corporate reseller saw turnover for the year to 30 June 30 1999 leap 40 per cent to £293.89 million (1998: £210 million), PBT up 41 per cent to £12.7 million (1998: £9.0 million) and earnings per share …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 11:03
ATI slumps on Compaq loss

Supply problems, dear?

Another day, another stock market disaster for ATI, the graphics card market leader. Its share price slumped 8.55 per cent to $C16.55 and more than 5.4 million shares were traded yesterday on the Toronto Stock Exchange on news that it had lost a supply contract with Compaq. Could there be any connection with the supply win for …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 11:22
Phoenix pledges to lift Amiga from ashes

Platform's users, developers combine to take control of Amiga's future

Some of the best-known names in the Amiga community have banded together to wrest control of the platform's destiny away from its official sponsor, Amiga Inc. The Phoenix Platform Consortium (initials 'PPC', you'll note...) will "assume responsibility for aid and recommendation for reference platforms for the Amiga users who …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 11:29
Johnny Foreigner Y2K laggards named and shamed

Whatever you do, folks, don't go to the Ukraine

Brace yourself for a diplomatic incident or ten. The Government has named and shamed foreign countries who are falling behind with their Y2K preparations. Keep plenty of cash when in Egypt, don't fall ill in Malaysia or Japan. And what ever you do, cancel that package holiday in the Ukraine. Immediately. The Government has …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 11:41
China warns West over Net interference

Outside investors not welcome and will be stamped out

Investors looking to cash in on the Net revolution in China may have to think twice after Beijing warned it wouldn't tolerate foreign companies exploiting its online development. According to information industry minister Wu Jichuan, investment in the Internet by foreign companies is illegal under Chinese law. He described those …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:02
Handspring unveils long-awaited Palm clone

Visor offers consumer focus, clever customisation system

Handspring, the handheld-computer company set up last year by Palm Computing founders Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins, yesterday unveiled its long-awaited entry into the consumer and business palmtop market. Dubbed the Visor, the Palm III-style machine will ship in four iMac-esque translucent coloured cased, plus jet black for …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:10
Aureal retails into Creative territory

Gloves are off

Since time began, Aureal has conducted guerilla skirmishes with sound market leader Creative Labs. The California-based firm has decided it's now time for some bare-knuckle fighting with its bitter rival. The company is striking deep into Creative's heartland with its first retail branded soundcard. And just in time for …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:15
Yahoo, L&H sign translation deal

Meanwhile, Lernout & Hauspie continue buying spree

Software company Lernout & Hauspie said it had struck a deal with Yahoo to localise the Web firm's pages by delivering translations. Yahoo will use L&H translation software for countries including Korea, Japan, Francy, Italy, Germany and Spain. The deal will include not only machine translation but specific localisation for each …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:16
Have Bluetooth buddies pulled a flanker on Intel?

All-new 54Mbit/s system with global, seamless roaming makes Bluetooth 'cable replacement' after all

A clutch of companies led by Nokia and Ericsson is pitching a new broadband wireless standard for office and home networking, and for use in conjunction with 3G mobile phone networks. But in aiming to make HiperLAN 2 a ubiquitous global standard they may be clipping Bluetooth's wings. Among the prime movers behind the Bluetooth …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:19
HP UK squeezes Sun in workstation market

Dataquest says HP on top

Market research firm Dataquest issued figures today showing that Hewlett Packard is maintaining its shipment lead in the UK workstation market. According to Dataquest, in Q2, HP has a market share of 26 per cent, the second consecutive quarter it has reached this position. The workstations include Unix, NT and Linux boxes in the …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:23
E-envoy's home page has skeleton in closet

Well, it's actually a collection of Grateful Dead songs

As of yesterday Britain has a full-time Internet ambassador -- Alex Allan -- whose chief claim to fame is that he's a senior civil servant -- currently British High Commissioner to Australia until starting his new post. Yawn. Just what the industry needs: another faceless official. Or maybe not. Allan it turns out is something …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:25
LinuxPPC releases Q3 upgrade

Improves Power Mac, iMac, PowerBook support

LinuxPPC has released the latest version of its same-name implementation of the open source operating system for PowerPC-based machines. LinuxPPC 1999 Q3 consolidates many of the numerous changes made to the PowerPC Linux kernel since LinuxPPC 1999 was released back in July. In addition to the modifications made to the Linux …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:27
Linux could pip other OSes to Merced post

Win64, others, lagging behind in Desperation Derby

It was no coincidence that Intel showed off Linux Apache running on Merced at its recent Developer Forum, although Microsoft managed to squeeze in with a demo which, unfortunately, ended up with an error message. Information we received just before IDF suggested that teams of engineers were working flat out to make Win64 run on …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:43
Intel, UUnet team up in channel program

Big $$$ for dealers

In a move intended to help sell its Express Routers and its Inbusiness Internet station, Intel announced a joint move with provider UUnet targeted at small and medium size firms. Under the deal, both companies will offer commission and sales incentives to resellers who manage to sell the combined services of the companies. Sales …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 12:51
Pentium II dead as dodo as famine strikes Intel chip parts

But really they're shuffling off their mortal coils

Intel has told its distributors and dealers that there is limited availability on some of its range of server and desktop microprocessors. The parts affected are the 500MHz Pentium III, but the famine is at its worst on the soon-to-be killed Pentium II family. There are shortages on both the 400MHz SECC2 and the 400MHz SECC …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 13:02
AMD ships Athlon 700s in volume

And thick monthly book does it again

An OEM close to AMD's plans has told The Register that it has started to receive supplies of the Athlon 700MHz microprocessor in volume. That means that AMD has exceeded its target in ramping up the processor frequency of the Athlon K7, and means machines are likely to be available in a matter of weeks. The German OEM, who …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 13:23
0800 (weekend only), PC supplied – how much?

Fujitsu teams up with BT for Net bundle

PC manufacturer Fujitsu has jumped into bed with BT to provide punters with an "everything you need" Internet package for just 90p a day. The offer includes a Fujitsu PC delivered and installed at the customer's home plus subscription to BT Internet and unlimited 0800 Internet access at weekends. The Fujitsu multimedia PC on …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 13:41
08004u back in public view

Traffic brought site to its knees

Flat-fee ISP 08004u appears to be back on its feet again after falling over less than 24 hours after the service opened its Web site for business. But it seems the problems that have plagued 08004u in the first four days of its life haven't all gone away. Although additional servers are being roped in to handle the demand the …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 14:19
JDE to announce new version of OneWorld

ERP, is this enough? - Ed.

JD Edwards will announce next Tuesday the new version of its OneWorld product, for delivery in October. JDE's angle is to make it easier for non-technical staff to change the business processes and develop self-service applications. If it turns out that as a result, ERP is at least somewhat freed from the tyranny of having to …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 14:39
Jet-setting keynoting CEOs are crap

Exclusive RegPoll reveals...

Tales from IT executives about the perils of travel, missing aeroplanes and getting stuck in the traffic are just not interesting. The audience at the IDC European IT Forum in Paris this week gave low marks to speakers who bored the audience in this way, according to an unscientific poll conducted by The Register in the bar area …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 14:44
Auction Site Pulls Prostitute Listing

What does this mean?

We enjoyed this headline culled from today's Newsbytes so much that that we ran it through The Register's very own BabelFish engine. And this is how it turned out. Sothebys has sex for the first time with leaning prostitute. Translators' notes: Auction site we assume this a noun, not an imperative. Pull is English, English slang …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 14:55
Good news, and bad for Scottish Natsemi fab

First the good news...

Chip company National Semiconductor said today it will hang onto its fab in Greenock, Scotland. That's due to a surge in demand for analogue parts, the company said. It had intended to sell the fab, which is located in a former shipbuilding area of Scotland. The bad news, however, is it will close its four inch wafer fab at …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 16:30
Intel, PC giants announce network security plans

IPSec method to prevent crime inside firewall

Intel is announcing what it claims is an end-to-end security network solution, in conjunction with IBM, Compaq, Microsoft and Entrust. The announcement, at Network+Interop in humid Atlanta, includes IPSec (Internet Protocol Security) products for PCs and servers, optimised for MS Win2000. Compaq and IBM will also include this …

Business 14 Sep 1999, 17:46