8th October 1999 Archive

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Why the UK will always be second best on the Internet

Opinion: While Bell Atlantic is launching broadband in a box, UK web users are still waiting

The prime minister goes around the country trying to persuade the business community that the Internet is a good idea; a second senior exec walks out of one of the UK's top companies complaining of a lack of Web investment. While '.com' is worth millions, '.co.uk' can't scrape together the price of a cup of tea. Americans have a …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 06:56
Samsung man slept with DJ – official

Epidemic of sleeping with celebs sweeps across London - where's our invite!

What's going on? They're all at it in the IT industry. Earlier this month we told you how a top exec from ICL had been exposed as having slept with actress Jenny Agutter - she of The Railway Children fame. Now we can reveal that Trevor Duplock, marketing director of Samsung, based at the Korean giant's Surbiton offices, spent …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 07:21
Dell to jump component queue by pressurising Taiwanese

Boxzilla won't have a shortage - you will, says Mike

After being marked down as a potential prime victim of the Taiwan quake (Quake hits Dell) Dell is coming back and playing hard-ball. From what CEO Michael Dell was saying to analysts yesterday, the company is going to make sure its potential component shortage is going to become other people's actual component shortage. Dell's a …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 10:21
How many people does it take to (not) market an IBM PC?

Dole beckons for marketing overlaps

IBM's PC marketers look like they are going to be ex-IBM PC marketers, following the company's decision to put up to 10 per cent of PSG, its 10,000-strong PC division on the jobs scrap heap. Nearly all the lay-offs will come from marketing, -- overlapping positions will be eliminated on the return of the company's consumer …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 10:45
Pizza service turns Couch Potatoes into e-Potatoes

Topping idea

Boring old Couch Potatoes can become trendy new e-Potatoes by ordering pizzas through their TV remote control. Fewer calories spent on talking, means more energy saved for eating. The service is supplied courtesy of Domino's Pizza, which is launching the UK's first Digital TV pizza delivery service on Sky Digital. It's rolling …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 11:01
3Com tipped to join Symbian – a bridge to MS and/or Palm?

Symbian can afford to be choosy about shareholders, but 3Com has attractions

Rumours in the London market today suggest 3Com is poised to announce that it will take a stake in Symbian, the Psion spin-off consortium that is currently jointly owned by Psion, Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and NTT. Such a move would potentially conflict with 3Com's Palm Computing subsidiary, which is a competitor to Symbian, but …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 11:10
MS minions bid for Bill airtime again – attorney washes cars

Yes folks, it's the annual charity auction...

The items in this year's Microsoft charity auction are once again headed by a tour of Bill Gates' house, where the employee who makes the winning bid will gain a brief audience with His Billness. But there's some other chilling stuff there as well - how about getting chief counsel Bill Neukom to wash your car? On the other hand …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 11:12
Ecommerce gets a big piece of the Action

Mail order giant sets sights on Web sales

Action Computer Supplies has re-jigged its sales force to put more muscle into its Internet business. The mail order reseller laid off 22 sales staff from its key accounts over the summer. But it has taken on 96 people over the same period to work in its telesales department. These Internet donkeys will handle Action's ecommerce …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 11:51
Motorola biochip to fight super bugs

Diagnostic chip will speed medical detection process

Motorola is leading a development team working on a biochip that will form the basis of a machine used in the fight against bacterial super bugs. With a budget of $9 million, the three year project brings Motorola together with Arizona State University and CFD Research. Motorola will take charge of chip development and …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 12:19
Camino to appear in Q1 2000, says Intel

Oh yeah?, says world + dog

Coppermine based Pentium IIIs will hit speeds of almost 800MHz sometime in Q2 next year, according to the latest leaks from Chipzilla’s roadmap. Internal Intel charts show a 733MHz (133MHz FSB with a 5.5x clock multiplier) part aimed at systems in the $1.5 - $2K price range and a mysterious '7XX' part for systems in the over $2K …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 12:52
DRAM prices start to drop

Market back where it was in January

DRAM prices have fallen over 20 per cent since last month's high in the aftermath of the Taiwan earthquake. Memory Corporation was this morning quoting £140 for 128MB modules (PC 100), down from prices nudging £200 in the last week of September. Pricing from the Far East was more around £160 to £170 – a drop of 10 per cent, it …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 13:13
Dell gunning for iMac with ‘Webster’ Web PC?

Cheap, maybe free, low-spec box due for November unveiling

Having told the analysts how he was going to swipe everybody else's Taiwanese production yesterday, (See earlier story) Michael Dell also came up with some more information on the company's Web PC, codenamed Webster. He doesn't seem to have said much, but he said enough to make it sound like a pop at Apple combined with a …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 13:13
NT security busted by new virus threat

Lives in your memory, monkeys around with your apps

Worried systems managers are facing what is thought to be the first virus to integrate with NT's security protocols. Found in the wild, it is called WinNT.Infis and acts as a system driver. It resides in the memory and will infect files in systems running NT4 with the following services packs – 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Although not …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 13:31
Gates foundation under fire from anti-abortionists

Plans to fund a birth control awareness campaign cause a raising of the blood pressure

It seems that our article about Microsoft's and Gates' charitable activities was a hot button for many people, and there's more to report on the saga. A focus of the Gates Foundation philanthropy has been population control and planned parenthood, and not surprisingly this has resulted in howls of anger from pro-lifers. It is …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 15:14
Branson's pickle as 120 workers lose their Virginity

Call centre plans undercut by NTL outsourcing bid

Over 100 people were out of a job this week after Virgin Net dumped them for a cheaper outsourcing deal. The Internet company was due to open a support centre in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, next month, but has changed its plans. It had already promised jobs to 120 people in the area, many of whom were due to start work later this …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 15:56
Yahoo best sex site, according to Google

Updated: Cheeky monkeys

A kind reader points out more evidence of anti-Microsoft bias at Google, the fab new search engine. Try searching for "best computer made" and it throws up Apple at the head of the queue. For "best operating system", the search engine places Linux at top of the list. And "worst operating system"? Number One hit is "Welcome to …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 16:01
US senator Orrin Hatch priced at $45k

It's difficult to imagine a dafter piece of cybersquatting than senatororrinhatch.com

Former Miami detective Joseph Culligan, now a cybersquatter hawking Web addresses that might prove desirable to a more legitimate owner, seems to have made a mistake in trying to get $45,000 for senatororrinhatch.com. Hatch is the co-sponsor of a bill to protect trademarked names being misused in this way, with fines of up to $ …

Business 8 Oct 1999, 17:33