15th October 1999 Archive

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Satan's little helpers get hammers out to i820 mobos

Still looks like Q1 as gnomes and elves remove third slot

Information from insiders close to Intel's plans is painting a picture of feverish activity as staff get rid of a third slot to fix an embarrassing problem with Rambus memory on i820 motherboards. It reminds The Register of Santa Claus surrounded by hordes of gnomes and elves frantically attempting to make toys quickly so that …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 06:54
Rambus performs well in Q4

It's a good buy, not a goodbye yet

Rambus shares crept up to just under $73 last night in anticipation of the company releasing its financial results for the fourth quarter. The firm, which specialises in fast memory technology (cough), recorded an increase in both revenue and profits, year on year, despite its recent problems. It showed revenue of $12.3 million …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 07:20
Localtel savaged by BBC's Watchdog

Tempo announces on national TV that it will stop stocking Screaming.net CDs

Electrical retailer Tempo is to cease stocking software offering Internet access via its ISP Screaming.net. The decision was announced on Thursday night's edition of Watchdog after the flagship BBC consumer affairs programme broadcast a damning investigation into the ISP. Only last month, Tempo withdrew CDs from its stores after …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 07:44
Priceline's MS lawsuit: shark versus shark?

All the MS trademarks are there, but this time the 'victim' is a little different

The lawsuit Priceline launched against Microsoft this week has all of the components needed to make it a Redmond classic for nostalgia buffs. There's a lengthy negotiation period while Microsoft considers investing, the break-off followed by the launch of a rival service, and then the Bill Gates outburst. The outburst might …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 08:43
LCD drought set to worsen

Component shortages compound problem, push up prices

TFT LCD panel shortages are set to worsen due to an impending components drought, IDC is warning the industry. Serious shortages of key components including motherglass, display driver ICs, condensers and colour filters will bite into LCD production over the next year. The situation will hit the notebook PC and LCD monitor …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 10:34
Mobile Squelcher jams cellphone calls

What diseased mind thought this one up?

Fights are going to break out over this: Hong Kong inventor Anil Vora is marketing a cheap and cheerless device that can jam mobile phone signals and disrupt calls. Vora came up with idea for the Mobile Squelcher (cost: £18) after becoming very irritated indeed by mobile phone users conducting private conversations in public. …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 10:50
Mr Modem goes to work at Carphone Warehouse

Cellphone retailer signs to sell PC Card modems in all its stores

Networking and comms vendor Microcomputer Research (MRi) has signed Carphone Warehouse as a distributor for its PC Card modem range, Mr Modem. Mr Modem will now be putting in an appearance in all Carphone Warehouse's 200 stores. Until now, according to MRi, Carphone Warhouse has only stocked modems in two stores. There are two …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 11:14
Corel chief charged with insider dealing

Cowpland fights to clear his name after offloading shares

Corel saw its CEO Michael Cowpland charged with insider dealing yesterday. The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) charged the head of the Canadian software vendor with three counts of violating the Securities Act. It also laid one count against Cowpland's personal holding company, MCJC Holdings. Cowpland will be in the dock at …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 11:26
Iomega continues to shed red

Q3 profits worse than last time

It may have briefly returned to profitability during the first quarter of its current fiscal year, but trendy storage specialist Iomega has clearly fallen back into its loss-making rut. Yesterday, it posted its Q3 results, which showed a loss of $78.3 million on revenue of $356.6 million (down nine per cent on the same period …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 11:34
Ericsson, Symbian, Palm lead wireless Web alliance

With help from IBM and Oracle - but where are Nokia and MS?

Palm's dance card at Geneva this week has been pretty full. Hot on the heels of the Palm-Symbian and Palm-Nokia deals, today we have the announcement of a GPRS alliance consisting initially of Ericsson, IBM, Lotus, Oracle, Palm and Symbian. Nokia and Motorola are mysteriously absent from the initial roster, and the mystery is …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 11:50
Sun announces record levels of smugness as Q1 results rocket

We're the best, stuff the rest -- Zander, McNealy, et al

Sun continues to shine financially -- and executive heads continue to swell. Just look at its latest financial results, posted yesterday, which show its revenue grow 25 per cent year-on-year and its income rise by 138 per cent over the same timeframe. So, earnings for the company's first quarter, ended 26 September, reached $271 …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 12:06
Action suspends shares – again

Statement expected soon from mail order giant

Action Computer Supplies has temporarily suspended its share trading pending an announcement. The mail order PC company made the statement to the stock exchange at 12:15pm today. No explanation was given regarding the forthcoming announcement. A representative of the Middlesex-based company was unable to say when further details …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 12:12
Landis gets ilion at last

Official announcement made today

ilion Group today accepted the take-over bid from fellow networking distributor Landis Holdings (UK). In an announcement to the stock exchange, Landis said its cash offer of £40.2 million, or 160 pence per share, for ilion had been declared unconditional in all respects. By 3pm yesterday, the closing date for the offer, Landis …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 12:24
Quake pushes back iMac's Japanese debut

Only standard iMac, iBook make it on time -- but in limited numbers

Apple has admitted it has been forced to delay the shipment of the latest version of the iMac in Japan. The company's Japanese subsidiary told the Nikkei newswire that it was working on the problem. This mere days after Apple Japan marketing director Naohisa Fukuda told the newswire: "[The iMacs] will all be in stores on 16 …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 12:35
Pro-coup hackers crack Pakistan site

Support for military regime pledged online

The military coup in Pakistan has spread to the Internet. Only a few days after the Pakistan military deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the home page of the regional government of the Punjab has apparently been hacked by someone calling themselves the Islamic group of hackers (Al-Sooraj wing). According to reports on BBC …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 12:55
MS lobbies to slash DoJ antitrust budget

Conduct during litigation (against MS) has been shocking, apparently

Microsoft is attempting to shut off the DoJ's air supply. Not Netscape's this time, and actually, not even the whole DoJ air supply - Redmond's beef is with the DoJ Antritrust Division - the section of the operation it's been having most trouble with. According to a report in today's Washington Post, Microsoft allies and …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 14:27
Fat and Fast – IBM drive breaks land speed record

Dinosaur comparisons for dinosaur company

IBM has pumped up the volume and turned on the accelerator with the 72ZX, the latest and greatest member of the UltraStar family. In terms of size, the 72ZX is a sauropod (Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus) of the hard disk industry, bulking up to a massive 73GB capacity. But when it comes to speed, the 72ZX has more in common with …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 14:35
Chipzilla risks humiliation with breakneck i820 launch

Old Mother Chipton foresees doom and despondency

For a company which still likes to remind its employees of the FDIV flaw that caused early Pentia to lose their grip on mathematical reality, Chipzilla doesn't seem to learn (see Satan's little helpers get hammers out to i820 mobos). The knee-jerk reaction to early pressure at the low end from what Intel lovingly refers to as " …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 14:40
US Congress' electronic signatures bill clears hurdle

So much for the sprint -- now it's an uphill climb....

A virtual triathlon of civil contract lawmaking continues in Washington as legislators struggle to accomplish a deceptively simple thing: drafting consistent, national regulations for electronic transactions without affecting the status of paper contracts, and without trampling the rights of the states which, constitutionally, …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 14:41
Xeon to beat desktop Pentium IIIs in MHz stakes

Workstation chief predicts thousands of Merced systems with developers by early next year

Intel will implement higher MHz Coppermine speeds in its future workstation and server chips before it migrates that technology to desktops. That emerged from a briefing this morning with Raghu Murthi, director of marketing workstation products at Intel's plant in Dupont. Murthi also disclosed that Intel will implement up to …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 15:12
Sun, Fujitsu to shore up Sparc in time for Itanium assault

Unified multi-processors hardware spec. due 2001-2003

Fujitsu has announced that it has come to an arrangement with Sun to ensure both companies' future Sparc-based hardware will conform to a common reference model -- or, as we say in the trade, will become fully compatible with each other. Essentially, the deal will ensure anyone who writes software to run on a Sun box will also …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 15:14
StarOffice chief: why Sun community source beats GPL

Marco Boerries runs the highest profile Sun community source operation - by choice, he says

Sun's Community Source Licence (SCSL) model has come under fire from the open source community as an unsatisfactory halfway house, and quite possibly a trap at that. At Sun, StarOffice founder Marco Boerries is the one who's most obviously in the firing line in this area, and speaking in London yesterday he took it on the chin, …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 15:32
Apple reverses CPU downgrade for existing orders

Updated Buyers of 500MHz Power Mac to get $350 off on 450MHz model

A red-faced Apple made a very sudden about-turn last night and reversed its plan to ship existing Power Mac G4 orders with lower-spec. CPUs but for the same price. According to reader reports posted on the MacInTouch Web site, would-be buyers who contacted Apple after the processor downgrade was announced, are now being told …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 16:05
Woman walks away from $70k online gambling debt

Visa and MasterCard write-off debt, thanks to Californian state law

A Californian woman has had her $70,000 online gambling debt rubbed out by two leading credit card companies. This bizarre act of charity came about after the woman, Cynthia Haines, was sued by MasterCard, Visa and her bank Providian National, for running up debts which she failed to repay. Haines, in an act of audacious …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 16:19
1GHz copper Athlon production starts next week

Strange but true - the new-look efficient AMD seems to be on schedule

The first copper Athlon production should roll out of AMD's Dresden Fab 30 next week, after the plant's official opening on Wednesday. That means that despite problems with cost, and associated negotiations with Motorola to help fund Dresden development, AMD is probably on schedule for 1GHz copper Athlon parts for Q1 next year. …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 16:26
Whatever happened to… Intel's processor serial number?

Little storm in big teacup

Remember all the fuss about Intel's processor serial number back at the beginning of the year when The Processor Formerly Known As Katmai was launched? Gone a bit quiet, hasn't it? A quick trawl around the web failed to reveal anything going on at all. Even Zero Knowledge Systems, the Canadian outfit that tried to cash in on the …

Business 15 Oct 1999, 17:14