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6th October 1999 Archive

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  • Intel Itanium to make moves on mainstream

    High-end 64-bit databases given MMX, SSE support -- surely some mistake...

    Intel today relaunched its IA-64 architecture, moving the processor once codenamed Merced but now officially branded Itanium much, much closer to the mainstream desktop PC market than Chipzilla has previously suggested. At last year's Microprocessor Forum, Intel spokesfolks poo-pooed claims that Merced was anything more than a …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 01:22

  • AMD unveils server-oriented Athlon ‘Xeon’

    Multi-processing Athlon to be first to support x86-64, AMD's 'Merced mauler'

    AMD followed yesterday's launch of the 700MHz Athlon with the announcement today that it wants to push the chip into the more lucrative server and workstation markets. And in a bid to take Intel's own new server and workstation processor, Itanium (aka Merced) head on, the Chipzilla wannabe launched it's own move into 64-bit …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 01:26

  • IBM all out for bandwidth with 170m-transistor Power4

    Still keeping quiet about speed, though

    IBM did indeed put some flesh on the bones of its Power4 processor, codename Gigaprocessor, but the revelations focused solely on the upcoming chip's architecture rather than less technical but more prosaic information like, well, host fast the damn thing will be. Speaking at Microprocessor Forum, Big Blue's Power4 design chief …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 02:18

  • MS tops UK online ad spend table

    A large slice of a smallish pie, it would seem...

    Microsoft is spending more on online advertising in the UK than any other business, according to a study by Internet AdWatch and Fletcher Research. Not that the sums involved are vast. In June (the latest figures available, apparently), Microsoft spent 141,000 pounds, pipping IBM's 124,000 pounds. Intel was a more distant third …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 09:02

  • Insurers attacked over Y2K exclusions

    Xerox, Microsoft, others, thought to have contested claims worth $Millions

    A string of top US firms have filed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of millennium bug claims in court against their insurers in a move that threatens to expose the entire industry to billions of dollars in claims. Research published by boutique investment bank Fox-Pitt, Kelton says that three corporates have filed $598 …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 09:24

  • Compaq buys X-rated consultancy team

    But can they speak English?

    The trouble with IT service companies -- and one of the reasons we write so rarely about them -- is that you can rarely be sure what they actually do. (Except charge a lot of money.) Take Xteam Ltd for example -- a British business assurance consultancy company that Compaq announced it bought yesterday. What is business …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 10:10

  • Software escrow – a useful tool for small developers?

    If the customers know where the source is, and know where to get it, maybe

    Software escrow, essentially a way of preserving source code by depositing it with a third party, is becoming increasingly fashionable as small developers seek to license software to large organisations. An op/ed in the current issue of Dr Dobb's Journal by Andrew Moore makes a case for software escrow agreements. Moore of …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 10:26

  • Net Finance News: 16-23 Sept 1999

    intro

    23 Sept 1999 Amazon has been wooed by the peal of wedding bells. The Web-based bookseller is to acquire a 20 per cent stake in the online wedding pressie outfit Della & James. It is one of a congregation of companies chucking $45 million at Della & James as if it were confetti. AIM-listed On-line PLC and GlobalNet Financial ( …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 10:33

  • Net Finance News: 24-30 Sept 1999

    intro

    30 Sept 1999 Cruel City types in London's financial capital have christened Britain's number one ISP Freeserve "Freefall" after its recent descending share performance Cash Register has learnt. Europ@web -- the Internet investment arm of Group Arnault -- has taken a majority investment in the French online auctioneer Aucland …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 10:36

  • Halifax turns to Net banking for Greenfields and pastures new

    Spends £100m on standalone division

    Leading UK building society turned bank, Halifax, is taking the lead in Internet banking. It is investing £100 million to establish a stand alone Internet and phone based banking operation, which will see it become the largest UK banking name to set up on the Net. Others from the UK financial sector to embrace the Internet as a …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 11:15

  • MS renews assault with ‘Linux Myths’ document

    Which is worth paying attention to in order to see where MS thinks it should attack

    Six months on from its last major assault on Linux, Microsoft has returned to the fray with a "Linux Myths" page, here. The content isn't exactly original, but it makes it clear first, that Microsoft sees Linux as serious competition, and second, that it's targeting areas where it thinks it can score PR and marketing points …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 11:31

  • Nortel Come Together tagline has pulling power

    And yes, it really does have an office in Maidenhead

    Thanks to the reader who sent us Nortel Network's Come Together TV ad schedule, and no thanks to the reader who asks if 30,000ft sex shame Mandy who got Randy on Brandy has lost her visiting rights to Nortel's Maidenhead office. No sniggering at the back! Especially: Thursday 7th October (Carlton) 20.00 - During We can work it …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 11:41

  • Novell digitalme – a privacy can of worms?

    The company's intentions may be honest, but that might not help...

    Novell has leapt into the profiling technology business with its digitalme announcement yesterday at Internet World in New York, seemingly without looking for landmines first. The consequence may be that it finds itself attacked by privacy advocates, when all it was really trying to do was to show that NDS was a secure product …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 11:52

  • MS and BT team to launch global wireless Web service

    And in this case, MS is David, not Goliath

    Microsoft may be a lot closer to carving itself a share of the mobile phone market than it looks. Today British Telecom announced that the two companies would be starting a trial of wireless Internet services with a view to kicking off a live service early next year. The service is being pitched at corporate customers initially …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 13:02

  • Bid online for airline seats – and then wait for the post

    British Midland sells off spare seats to the highest bidder

    UK airline British Midland has set up an online auction for its empty flight seats - with bids starting at £45. Fast and furious it may be but don't expect to leave for at least a week because your tickets won't have arrived before then. So far, British Midland has had eight three-hour auctions and plans to run one every two to …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 13:45

  • Mesh is top of the consumer pops

    Beats off stiff competition to pick up gong

    Mesh Computers has won the Personal Computer World magazine award for service and reliability. It beat off rivals such as Dan and Evesham, and even pipped Dell to the post. Paul Kinsler, general manager of Mesh, was delighted at the result: "It is rewarding to see that our investment in customer service systems and personnel is …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 13:52

  • SVA Storms into the channel

    StorageTek hitches Leeds-based reseller to SVA bandwagon

    StorageTek has added Storm to its list of UK distributors as part of its plan to attract resellers to its Shared Virtual Array (SVA) high end product. The company said its SVA storage device would be available to the UK channel from today. It follows the break up of StorageTek's deal with IBM in April, in which Big Blue was …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 14:04

  • Thin is in at Compaq

    Remember when Compaq said thin clients were a poor substitute for the PC, we do

    Bouts of amnesia are not uncommon in the fast-moving world of IT, but when Compaq announced its was launching what it called its first thin-client products, there was a definite niggling in the back of our minds at The Register. Is this the same Compaq that commissioned a rain-forest's worth of research into why the network …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 14:18

  • As if by MAJC, a new chip arrived

    Sun shines light on new processor initiative

    Sun has unveiled details of its new Java-based MAJC microprocessor which will be able to deal with several different channels at the same time - ideal for multimedia applications where sound, video and graphics are used simultaneously. MAJC first stuck its head over the parapets back in August. It's not the first time that a …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 15:28

  • It's Time to beam me up Scotty

    Star Trek star to advertise UK assembler's machines

    Pay attention all you Trekkies out there, Time Computers has roped in Spock to star in its latest advertising campaign. Leonard Nimoy will be making his first appearance for Time tonight at 7:45, while Coronation Street's on. Using the tagline that its PCs are Time machines (and after a fashion, that's exactly what they are) the …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 15:29

  • Chipzilla coughs on Coppermine

    733MHz part initially rising rapidly to 800MHz and beyond

    Intel took the wraps off its Coppermine "next generation... with performance optimisations" Pentium III chip at Microprocessor Forum today. Chipzilla project architecture manager Jim Wilson would only say that Coppermine will become available "later this month" at 700MHz or greater, but as The Register has already reported, the …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 15:31

  • Motorola speeds PowerPC to compete on clock speed

    Apple clearly losing the MHz marketing battle

    Motorola's pitch at Microprocessor Forum centred not the recently roadmapped chip it's now calling the G5 but on a new, intermediate version of the PowerPC 7400 (aka G4) designed to help both Motorola and Apple play catch up with the Wintel world's increasingly way higher clock speeds. Shortly after last autumn's Forum, which …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 15:33

  • Intel underestimated Rambus difficulty, Tyan says

    But does it add up to strategic inflection point for VIA?

    Motherboard supply will return to normal in December, a leading vendor forecasts. That's how long it will take for vendors to overcome the dislocations caused by the Taiwan earthquake and The Great BX Chipset Shortage in August and September. The industry had already been under supply constraints prior to last month's earthquake …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 16:32

  • Red Hat takes aim at Linux Web portal business

    Huge switch in business focus to come via e-commerce, content efforts

    Red Hat is planning a dramatic shift in the focus of its business by - effectively - betting it on the Web. Speaking to The Register earlier today company COO Tim Buckley said: "Our goal is to become the definitive site for Open Source software." Over three to five years, says Buckley, Red Hat intends its business to split as …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 18:17

  • Bloodstained pix of executed man crash Florida Web site

    Good taste? They've heard of it...

    Web entrepreneurship is all about eyeballs, and Florida Supreme Court seems to have struck the mother-lode by, er, frying them. The court's Web site has been bombed for most of today after it published pictures of Allen Lee Davis, who'd been 'prepared' in the State electric chair a little earlier. The site (Don't click, you …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 18:47

  • PlayStation 3 to ship 2002

    Sony exec hints at rapid evolution of Emotion Engine, PlayStation line

    Head of Sony's PlayStation operation Ken Kutaragi today pledged to drive the technology behind the company's Emotion Engine processor line -- the heart of the upcoming PlayStation 2 -- way beyond that of Intel's Pentium family within the next six years. And he hinted at the rapid evolution of future versions of the PlayStation …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 19:33

  • GigaPixel takes on 3dfx, S3, Nvidia with… tiles

    Tile-based rendering faster, better looking than polygons claims company

    US 3D graphics specialist GigaPixel this week issued a challenge to the likes of 3dfx, Nvidia, S3 and ATI -- the company claims its GP-1 chip, based on its Giga3D architecture, has rival products well and truly licked on both image quality and performance. What makes GP-1 interesting is its use of a tile-based rendering scheme …

    Business 6 Oct 1999, 20:24