5th November 1999 Archive

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US finance bill rammed through both chambers of Congress

NOTICE: you have no privacy

The Senate passed a final Conference Report on the Financial Services Modernisation Act of 1999 yesterday afternoon following a rather brief debate. (Conference Reports are the final drafts of bills after House and Senate versions are reconciled by a Conference Committee.) The bill enables banks, securities firms and insurance …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 08:37
The email of the species is more deadly than the male

Love's young dream gets burned on the Net

A love-struck squaddie has had his romantic hopes dashed via cyberspace in front of the world's military. Christian Kolden, a cadet at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado, proclaimed his love for another cadet through an email a few weeks ago. The 18-year-old Romeo bravely penned his feelings to Laura Schatte, a member of the …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 09:16
Caldera wins another round in MS antitrust case

Judge rules case to be answered in three more key areas

Microsoft has lost another round in the Caldera private antitrust case. Caldera inherited the right to fight the case along with DR-DOS, which was formerly owned by Novell. Judge Dee Benson earlier this week denied four motions by Microsoft for partial summary judgement. He denied three earlier motions in June, and ruled …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 09:48
Web ads drawing huge investments – analyst

Now, if they would only start paying off....

Online advertising is now drawing the sort of money that financial analysts notice, much to the delight of ad agencies, and much to the puzzlement of Web merchants who consistently fail to profit from them. Internet ad sales jumped a whopping 35 per cent over last quarter, from roughly $600 million to $935 million, as reported …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 11:49
Apple Raycer takeover ‘all but done’

Analysis The key lies in Raycer's hush-hush system-on-a-chip work

Apple has bought high-end 3D accelerator chip developer Raycer Graphics for around $15 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. News of the two companies' negotiations emerged earlier this week. Since then, MacWeek.com sources confirmed that the deal is "all but done", and it now looks like Raycer's staff will become Apple …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 11:50
Tatler awards Foxy Lady Little Black Book accolade

Lastminute.com founder is hot property

Lastminute.com founder Martha Lane Fox has made it into the Tatler's Little Black Book, beating Kate Moss and Helena Bonham Carter in the posh people's magazine's league table of the 10-hottest female dates for 2000. The 26 year-old, who last month said she didn't get out of bed for cash, is officially one of the hottest dates …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 12:32
Washington State sues Microworkz

'We only sell software now,' claims COO

Budget-price PC vendor Microworkz has been hit with a lawsuit from Washington State alleging flagrant disregard of consumer protection law, according to a report on PC World News. We're not entirely surprised. Microworkz doesn't appear to have had much success selling computers, not least because it apparently had much success …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 12:39
Blind AOL users sue over discrimination

Courts urged to force AOL to update service

AOL is being sued by the National Federation of the Blind for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Nine blind members of the Federation are claiming the ISP is incompatible with software programmes that change text into audio or Braille, despite other ISPs offering the service. Despite the Disabilities Act coming into …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 13:18
Glasgow thieves target Compaq Armada

Is this the most desirable laptop in the world

Thieves have nabbed a consignment of Compaq Armada notebooks – the second time this has happened in the last three months. This most recent incident saw 141 Armadas slip their moorings in Glasgow - a haul valued at around £250,000. This could make the Armada the most popular notebook in the UK. How has The Register come to this …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 13:23
Amazon gets in on the gavel action

If you don't auction these days, you're a nobody

Amazon has joined the latest gold rush by launching its own auction service. Apart from its usual staple of books, CDs and videos, Amazon has ventured into jewellery, garden furniture, software and art, among others. What with QXL, eBay and the multitude of other highly valued Internet companies already in on the action, Amazon …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:25
Taiwan beefs up TFT facilities

Aims to take 20 per cent of global market

Taiwan is to take a fifth of the world's LCD-TFT pie by the end of next year, according to a report by Acer Display Technology. The island has struggled with production of laptops and LCD monitors in the past due to a lack of local makers of LCD-TFT panels. But following the purchase of technology from Korea and Japan, the …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:26
Oftel calls for cheaper Net access

No can do, say BT; come off it, barks watchdog

David Edmonds, head of watchdog Oftel, has finally pricked the BT hot-air balloon and said there is no reason why unmetered Internet access should not be made immediately available. He expects to see data calls charged at lower rates than voice calls and sees no reason for continued delay. BT's attitude to the Internet - summed …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:41
DR-Dos is terrific, says MS tester

MS on Trial Runs everything, far superior to the MS version...

The best product endorsement that Digital Research ever obtained for DR-DOS was from Microsoft, it turns out, and we know this thanks to a disclosure by Judge Benson in his 4-0 decision this week for Caldera. Phil Barrett, who was managing Windows 3.1 in 1990, received an email from a subordinate about DR-DOS 5.0, which said: " …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:53
Win95 – is it just Dos 7 plus Windows 4 after all?

MS on Trial The judge thinks it could be...

Brad Silverberg, who is now surely rich enough to hire somebody to work his shift key for him, was concerned early on about how to make DR-DOS run badly, or preferably, not run at all. He emailed Barrett on 27 September 1991: "can you tell me specifically what we're going to do to bind ourselves closer to ms dos? ... Let me …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:54
How MS played the incompatibility card against DR-DOS

MS on Trial Real bear-traps, and spurious errors

One of the claims by Caldera that Microsoft wanted dismissed concerned intentional incompatibilities between Windows and DR-DOS. David Cole and Phil Barrett exchanged emails on 30 September 1991: " "It's pretty clear we need to make sure Windows 3.1 only runs on top of MS DOS or an OEM version of it," and "The approach we will …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:55
How much is that Rambus in the window? Woof, woof

The one with the waggily tale...

Now that Intel has finally confirmed that it will introduce the i820 chipset, and presumably its VC820 (Vancouver) and its CC820 (Cape Cod) motherboards too, it's worth looking at what you will get for your dollars. Although Intel will use Comdex/Fall to demo its flagship chipset and the Coppermine processors it recently …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:56
Kill Novell! Allchin fingers the real competition

MS on Trial It might seem strange today, but then, the lad had a point...

Jim Allchin, whose job these days is to pilot Windows 2000 into harbour, was a key Microsoft figure in the Caldera case email chains, and was seriously worried about Novell. On 9 September 1991, he emailed Bill Gates: "We must slow down Novell. ... As you said Bill, it has to be dramatic ... We need to slaughter Novell before …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:56
Pokemon more desirable than sex and MP3

And certainly more popular than the joy of CEX

Thanks to British games retailer Computer Exchange for the following readership-grabbing ditty, inspired by Lycos' revelation that Pokemon has replaced 'sex' and 'MP3' as the most frequently looked-for word on its search engine. "I think you'll guess the words, so feel free to join in whenever you're ready." Pokemon, Pokemon, …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:57
Dos 5 vapourware campaign: 'I am not a crook,' says MS exec

MS on Trial Reporter insists on believing the wrong (right) stuff

Microsoft's inglorious history of employing preannouncements in order to destabilise the opposition goes back a lot further than DR-DOS, to Windows 1.0 and beyond, but by 1990 the practice was thoroughly bolted into the company's systems and business practices. In an email to several Microsoft executives on 2nd May 1990 MS-DOS …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 14:57
Apple drops British English MacOS

Mac maker shows its true colors...

A week after astounding UK Mac users by pulling out of its own show, Apple has apparently knocked the localised version of MacOS 9 on the head. According to UK sources cited by US newssite MacCentral, Apple UK is keeping mum on the plan, relying on the fact that most users intalling the 'International English' version won't …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 15:01
Special Caldera case report: Microsoft's smoking pistols

MS on Trial Compelling evidence underlies the judge's latest rulings

Microsoft's efforts to block key aspects of Caldera's antitrust suit have now almost entirely run into the sand. US District Judge Dee Benson issued a judgement denying a further four Microsoft motions. Microsoft has been trying for summary judgement of various parts of Caldera's case, but has scored straight zeros, and only has …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 15:02
Dell eats into Compaq's European sales

Growth rate outpaces rest of the pack

Heads are bound to roll at Compaq after yet more research has revealed it is losing its lead over Dell. Research by Dataquest showed Dell's shipments of PCs in Europe climbed 49 per cent to 9.7 per cent of the market. Though Compaq stayed ahead, its European sales rose just 18 per cent to secure 16 per cent of the market. Total …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 15:11
UK journo discovers new search engine in head

Qazy name, qazy concept

A British journalist has launched a Web site which he claims takes advantage of your brain cells to speed up searches on the Internet. Steve Homer, founder of Qaz.com, which opens for business on the 8 November, claims that the site works by category, making it easy to find stuff on the Web that interests you. He said that …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 15:29
AMD Athlons undercut equivalent Pentium IIIs

There will be no end to this price war soon

The battle between AMD and Intel in the high end desktop sector seems to be getting more, rather than less intense. Bill Henning at CPU Review has just updated his regular comparison between Athlons and Intel's clocked at 500MHz, 550MHz and 600MHz, and has released figures showing the AMD parts are cheaper at both the low and …

Business 5 Nov 1999, 18:31