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14th October 1999 Archive

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  • Compaq now a victim of anti-Dell move to Taiwan

    It struck a huge deal back in June but acts of god intervene

    Earlier this year, we reported that Compaq had revisited all of its relationships with its Taiwanese OEMs and had struck hard deals in a bid to compete successfully with Dell and its direct doings. It's a surprisingly little known fact that boxes sold by many of the big PC manufacturers are mostly built using components which …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 08:10

  • Athlon 700 price to crash: AMD, Intel war escalates

    Battle continues across already bloody landscape with Celeron, PIII cuts in offing

    A fresh round of price cuts from both AMD and Intel is set to benefit consumers shortly but will draw more blood from the protagonists in an increasingly bitter struggle. Sources said that AMD will drop the price of its top-of-the-range processor, the Athlon 700MHz part, from around $835 to a rather spooky $666 on the 24th of …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 08:55

  • Via hit by chipset glitch

    Is this chipset disease catching?

    Reliable sources at customers of chipset manufacturer Via are reporting that the initial stepping of product is displaying bugs which will have a knock-on effect on motherboard, and therefore PC, shipments. Via production has also been adversely affected by the Taiwanese earthquake, the sources add. Despite bullish statements by …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 09:25

  • Samsung breaks 1Gb flash barrier

    Breakthrough comes at right time

    Korean web site Comtimes is reporting that Samsung has today announced it has managed to create a 1Gb flash memory. Earlier this year, Japanese firm Toshiba said it had managed to put 256Mb on a flash module. According to Comtimes, the Samsung process works at 2.5V and uses a 0.15 micron process, so making it suitable for …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 09:47

  • Blair outbids Gates on Net platitudes

    Stop talking, and get Oftel on the case, Our Graham recommends

    Bill Gates made another sales call on Tony Blair yesterday in Downing Street to see how he was progressing with his computer lessons (Blair admits to being a two-fingered typist and technophobe), and perhaps to find out whether he was going to mandate the use of Microsoft software for UK Ltd, starting in the schools. To Bill's …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 09:55

  • Free monitor promo to kick off in US

    First there was the free PC, now the free monitor, what next -- a free lunch? Nah

    A US company is to give-away 100,000 "free" monitors to help launch itself into the online advertising market. Broadscape will offer the 19in colour monitors to US consumers from March next year, with plans to introduce a similar offer in the UK by the end of 2000. Using the same principle as US company Free-PC.com, applicants …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 10:31

  • Big Blue backs PowerPC G4 with production deal

    IBM to second-source G4s for Apple -- Jobs breathes major sigh of relief...

    IBM made a surprise comeback to the desktop PowerPC market yesterday, when it was announced -- albeit by Apple -- that Big Blur would be fabbing PowerPC 7400 (aka G4) CPUs. It's not yet clear whether this is simply a little arm-twisting on Apple's part to get IBM to produce extra chips, or whether this is a commitment on the IT …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 11:26

  • The Register PR bunny of the month award

    Lead-Head

    Proof, were it needed, of the mental acuity of the World's puff merchants reaches us from chip design behemoth DeCadence. Chief European spin paramedic Andrew Thomas enquired at his local garage about modifying his gas-guzzling Jag to use unleaded petrol, only to discover the mod had already been made by the car's previous owner …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 11:53

  • Northern ISP to charge service abusers

    GreatXscape wants to stop free call scalpers

    Manchester-based ISP GreatXscape has denied it is planning to charge subscriptions for people who abuse its toll-free service -- for the moment at least. However, it is investigating how to deal with the small minority of people who abuse the service using it only to receive toll-free off-peak dial-up access to the Net. …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 11:58

  • Apple Q3 profit down to $111m

    Better than expected -- just

    Apple has once again pushed up its profits by offloading ARM shares, it emerged yesterday when the company released its Q4 financials. The Mac maker reported a profit of $111 million, a smidgen up on last year's $106 million. However, knock off the $37 million it made from selling ARM shares and a $21 million "favourable impact …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 12:01

  • Sun to triumph over MS in Web wars – StarOffice chief

    And Steve Ballmer is all mouth, Boerries seems to reckon

    The traditional $300 software package is doomed, and in the race to replace it with a service model Sun will triumph over Microsoft, says Star Division founder Marco Boerries. Speaking in London in his new capacity as a Sun VP* earlier today, Boerries opened up on the company's strategy for application service provision and the …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 12:12

  • Watchdog bares teeth at Net companies

    Dodgy ads bring stern reprimand from ASA

    The advertising watchdog has given three Net companies a good ticking off this month for publishing misleading ads. In the latest monthly report, Lycos.co.uk, Online Direct and the X-Stream Network were all subject to investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Rival search engine Excite.co.uk complained about a …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 12:37

  • Apple downgrades Power Mac CPUs – but not their prices

    Motorola blamed -- again

    Apple yesterday tacitly confirmed the existence of a major bug in the PowerPC 7400 (aka G4) when it admitted it had been forced to reconfigure its Power Mac G4 line -- downwards. However, the pricing for range remains the same. Each of the three models in the G4 family have been downgraded by 50MHz. Instead of 400MHz, 450MHz and …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 12:44

  • Intel porno squatters want $400k – bare faced cheek

    Bare naked ladies giveway to bare naked capitalism

    The porn site exposed yesterday for using Intel's name to promote online sauciness, has put its domain up for sale at $400,000. The cheeky owners of intel-inside.com had this morning removed their usual array of writhing bedroom images in favour of the following notice: "This domain is for sale. Price $400,000 -- USA Dollar. For …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 13:01

  • Judge re-rules for Intel in Intergraph patent fight

    Chipzilla wins round two -- Intergraph prepares for round three

    Intel did not infringe Intergraph's patents, a federal judge has ruled -- after already ruling that it did violate the PC vendor's intellectual property rights. According to Maximum PC, Intergraph's case against Chipzilla was thrown out in by Judge Edwin Nelson, who earlier this year ruled in Intergraph's favour. That initial …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 13:02

  • Families sought over Net to adopt UK kids

    Social workers resort to technology to find homes for children

    Pictures of British children looking for adoptive families have been put on the Web to spur on would-be parents. The move is believed to be the first time a British adoption agency has used real photographs of children on the Internet. The pictures, on the Derbyshire County Council site, include four sisters who have been split …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 13:15

  • MSN Europe to go subs-free

    UK's MSNFreeWeb sets example

    Microsoft is looking to drop subscription charges for its service provider across Europe, MSN confirmed today. Following the success of the subscription-free model in the UK, Georges Nahon, senior director for network solutions at Microsoft's Europe, Middle East and Africa business, said that MSN could not ignore that the models …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 13:52

  • Initiative seeks to ease Linux internationalisation

    Language to be independent of applications, Linux distributions

    European Linux distributor SuSE today launched its effort to encourage the creation of a version of the open source OS that can be more readily localised for users in different countries. Dubbed the Linux Internationalisation Initiative (known by the tongue-twisting shorthand Li18nux -- go figure...), the plan is to develop a …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 15:04

  • Intel to buy DSP Communications

    Chipzilla spends it way into cellular comms chip market

    Intel extended its interest in the embedded market today with an agreement to acquire of digital cellphone-oriented ASIC developer DSP Communications. The purchase will be funded through Chipzilla's capacious wallet with a cash offer that values the publicly-traded DSP at around $1.6 billion. Intel proposes to buy all …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 15:22

  • US ups the DRAM anti-dumping stakes

    Taiwanese makers hit by massive tariff hikes

    The US plans to hike anti-dumping duties as high as 69 per cent on Taiwanese DRAM makers. Etron Technology will shoulder the biggest cost hike, with duties raised to 69 per cent from five per cent, according to Eurotrademag. The US Commerce Department also plans to up taxes on Mosel Vitelic to 35.6 per cent from 30.9 per cent, …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 15:36

  • Net secrets land aircraft engineer in gaol

    Chinese gov't in lenient prison sentence shock

    A Chinese aircraft engineer has been gaoled for eight months for posting top secret information about a new aircraft on the Internet. According to AP, Guo Jian of the government-run Chengdu Aircraft Company didn't realise the information about the J-10 fighter was classified or of a sensitive nature. Although he was arrested in …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 15:37

  • MS to switch to rental model with Win2k?

    If you sift through Ballmer's remarks about 'service', it looks like it could happen

    Microsoft's long-standing plan to switch over to an annual rental model for software sales could roll early next year, with Windows 2000 as the engine that drives it. As internal documentation that has made it into the public domain thanks to the trial has shown, the company has been trying to make the move for years, but from …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 15:49

  • Apple still missing the mark on megaHertz

    Analysis Get those clock speeds up, folks...

    This analysis was written less than 24 hours before Apple announced IBM was to produce PowerPC 7400 processors, which just goes to show how quickly the chip biz moves these days... Back in January, at MacWorld Expo, interim Apple CEO Steve Jobs happily told the keynote crowd how the colour of a computer was way more important to …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 16:08

  • AOL Germany blitzes its way to one million members

    First AOL country outside US to hit the magic number

    AOL Germany has notched up more than a million members -- the first time such a demographic milestone has been reached by the Net provider outside the US. The offspring of a joint venture by America Online Inc and Bertelsmann AG, AOL Germany claims its new pricing plan and the introduction of lower dial-up costs has helped fuel …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 16:21

  • Gas chips to replace semiconductors, predicts boffin

    How it became necessary to destroy the silicon chip in order to save it

    Forget solid-state computing devices -- fluid-state is the way of the future if work begun by a Berlin-based chemist is taken to its logical conclusion. According to today's New Scientist magazine, James La Clair has constructed a substance whose molecules, called SENSI, become fluorescent in the presence of Nitrogen and non- …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 16:33

  • MS stops customers from revealing MS software performance

    The customer is always right to remain silent. I didn't know that, bleats Ballmer

    Microsoft president Steve Ballmer was caught on the back foot yesterday when Gartner Group analyst Tom Austin asked him about the "conspiracy of silence" -- a Microsoft contract clause which stops Microsoft's customers from giving out performance information about the Microsoft software they're running. "It sounds like a goofy …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 16:33

  • Win2k rollout sliding to February?

    We told you this already, and lesser mortals are starting to agree

    Last month teams of Register forensic experts picked over Dell's NT 4.0 upgrade plans and concluded they meant that Windows 2000 would ship in February, at the earliest. So it's with a certain satisfaction that we note that a story from our good friends at ZD with the usual reliable sources today tells us that Win2k will ship in …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 17:08

  • Celeron III, anyone?

    ... new Intel brand gets stealth launch

    It pays to read the small print. When we looked at some leaked Intel roadmap pictures last week, we concentrated on the usual stuff about clock and bus speeds. But on a second glance, another interesting factoid can be seen. The entry level Celeron systems arriving in the next six months or so bear the legend "Celeron III" and, …

    Business 14 Oct 1999, 17:36