12th November 1999 Archive
Browse by publication date, or search the site.
-
Compaq Wildfire to debut February 2000
Platform will eventually scale to 512 CPUs
Reliable sources close to Compaq's plans have said that the company's Wildfire clustering and server technology will be introduced in February of next year. The introduction of the system has been delayed for quite a while, but in recent weeks, Compaq has shown demonstrations of the high end platform both at the Telecoms show in …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 09:11
-
Flanders Language Valley sails into action
Foundation will open 10 additional science parks worldwide
To the tunes of a choral fanfare, and the synthesised sound of a computer, the Belgian royal family yesterday evening opened the Flanders Language Valley park, near Ypres, the site of mass slaughter during the First World War. At the same time, the former prime minister of Belgium, Jean-Luc Dehaene, announced the future …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 10:03
-
AMD future roadmap recalls World War II
Spitfires and Mustangs buzz over Intel's head
The share price of AMD bounded to $28 yesterday after CEO Jerry Sanders III said the company expected to break even in its fourth financial quarter. For some months, its price had languished between $16 and $20. For once, Sanders was able to report good news on both the microprocessor and flash memory fronts, and at the same …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 10:59
-
ISPs lash out at BT
New tariff gets a proper kicking from trade association
Britain's ISPs have slammed BT for misleading the public about its plans to cut the cost of dial-up Net access. In a statement issued through their trade association, ISPA, ISPs said BT's new Internet tariffs are "not a good deal for consumers or for the Internet industry in the UK". ISP's also hit out at the monster telco for …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 11:29
-
ICO wins court approval for McCaw's $150m cash injection
Merger with Teledesic now even closer
Our prediction of a Teledesic/ICO Global Communications merger appears to be coming true. The US bankruptcy court -- along with a pair of the same in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands; so you see where the money will end up -- approved Teledesic chairman Craig McCaw's plan to pump first $150 million into the much-troubled satellite …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 11:40
-
Ingram loses HP Unix contract
Broadliners too general for this sort of thing, says HP
Hewlett-Packard has dumped Ingram Micro as a Unix distributor in the UK for not supplying high enough levels of sales and support. The PC vendor said in a statement it was ending the Unix contract with Ingram because "our expectations no longer equate". But John Young, HP UK channel and partner manager, said Ingram had failed to …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 12:02
-
Streambox converts RealAudio to MP3
And it's perfectly legit, claims developer
Software developer Streambox has figured out a way to crack RealNetworks' RealAudio encryption and has released a utility that will RealAudio files into MP3, WAV or Windows' MS Audio format. The software's USP is that it allows users to record streamed RealAudio files 'off the air' and play them back at a time that best suits …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 12:11
-
Intel Sabre stab at SMP misses mark
Corporate customers forced to make compromises
Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems which use the Sabre motherboard lack appeal because of a glitch that forces corporate users to either under-spec or over-spec their systems. According to a reliable source close to Intel's plans, the Sabre chipset still needs tweaking and performance is not as good as it should be for …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 12:19
-
Chip Sage goes for IPO
Looking to raise $36 million
Semiconductor designer Sage is to float on Nasdaq, offering three million shares of common stock at $12 each. The company will use the cash from the IPO for working capital expenditures and general company uses, it said yesterday. The offering is being made by its underwriters managed by Robertson Stephens, Prudential Securities …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 12:30
-
Amazon could announce a profit any time it wants
Goldman Sachs has it all figured out
Amazon.com could be profitable if it wanted to, or if investors demanded it, investment bank Goldman Sachs has claimed in a report published this morning. The GS report will no doubt come as a surprise to many -- Amazon is one of the e-conomy's most notorious loss makers, having consistently failed to report anything near a …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 12:35
-
Ding dong Dell, profit growing well
Another monster quarter, but what about that profit warning?
Dell saw profit jump 26 per cent for the third quarter, despite warning last month that earnings would be hit by chip price hikes. Pre-tax profits before exceptionals were $483 million for the period ended 29 October. The direct PC seller posted sales up a whopping 41 per cent at $6.78 billion. Profit included a $194 million …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 12:50
-
Two cheers for BT's latest tariff
UK Net sector shakes head in disbelief
BT's bid to "slash the cost of Internet access" has been received as well as a vegan addressing a get-together of abattoir owners on their annual works outing to Bognor. Far from causing a hot flush of excitement among ISPs, it appears to have left most lukewarm about BT's "dramatic" offering. It seems that the ISP marketplace …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 13:15
-
New Year's Eve won't be a gas
You'll be lucky if you're as snug as a Y2K bug
The company responsible for providing Britain with gas, BG, has said it cannot guarantee its supplies won't be disrupted by the millennium bug. "The risks associated with the Y2K issue are unpredictable and wide-ranging," the company stated. "An extended disruption could cause the group's activities to be materially affected." …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 13:34
-
BT's witch doctors of spin fail to cast a spell on the UK
Opinion PR juju disappears in a cloud of its own steam
BT's latest pricing offer for cheap rate Net access in Britain has been exposed as little more than a sham. But you have to hand it to the telco -- the press release issued on Tuesday is spellbinding. A sprinkling of key words and phrases such as "slash the cost", "reduce dramatically", and "unlimited dial-up calls to the …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 14:44
-
NTL to buy its way into mobile market
More diddley, diddley, diddley annoying tunes from mobile phones no doubt
NTL is aiming to start its own mobile phone service by buying airtime from one of the next generation mobile networks. According to today's Financial Times, the cable company has propositioned all four existing mobile operators with cash offers to buy space on their third-generation network. It was still said to be waiting for a …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 15:02
-
Fujitsu to cut DRAM production
Outsourcing becomes flavour of the month
Fujitsu is to reduce DRAM production for both PC and non-PC devices and outsource manufacture to companies in Taiwan. The Japanese company will expand its current outsourcing of DRAM production for PCs. It will also start looking for other companies to make DRAM for non-PC devices, AsiaBizTech newswire reported today. Although …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 15:11
-
Yahoo! sued in price comparison patent clash
Apple's Sherlock 2, others could be under threat too
A New Zealand woman's lawsuit against Yahoo! for alleged patent infringement may have larger implications for the computer industry. The patent in question covers software which allows prices from different e-commerce Web sites to be pulled onto one location and compared -- something increasingly used on the Internet and is the …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 15:12
-
Korean developer ports Linux to Palm
Embedded marketeers not the first, though
Korean operation OSK has released what it claims is the first version of Linux for the Palm handheld organiser. In fact, it's not the first -- that honour must go to µCLinux but OSK's WindStone does appear to be the first implementation of the open source OS' kernel to provide PalmOS compatibility too. WindStone is based on …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 15:16
-
How to moan to the FTC about Intel
DoJ points the way to FTC folk
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) is referring all enquiries about alleged antitrust activity to the FTC. And it is being extraordinarily helpful in its advice for complainants, providing US citizens with email addresses and phone numbers. One reader got the following response from the DoJ, when he emailed their complaint line …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 15:38
-
22,000 people and the 08004u security lapse
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse...oh dear, oh dear, oh dear
It seems the 22,000 or so people who gained totally toll-free access to the Net earlier this week courtesy of Scottish ISP, 08004u, didn't even have to blag their way past password security. That's because there was no security. It simply didn't exist. Any login ID and password would have got them into 08004u's network and onto …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 15:41
-
Sega moots console hardware exit
Dreamcast to be company's last console, says chairman
Is Sega set to quit the games console business? According to the Gaming Intelligence Agency Web site, that's exactly what the company plans to do, in order to allow it to become an Internet and software company. Sega Enterprises chairman, Isao Okawa, apparently told a audience gathered together at the Okawa Foundation that …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 15:47
-
Scotland Vs England game live on the Net
Sky's the limit - shame about the picture
It's Bravehearts versus Lionhearts, the qualifier for Euro2000, and it's due to be broadcast live on the Web 2pm tomorrow. BSkyB, which owns the viewing rights, has joined up with BT and UUNet to produce what is apparently the first live Web broadcast of an international football match. The company has said it will give the …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 16:31
-
Oftel holds private meeting with Internet A list
But it's a secret...so mum's the word
Telecoms watchdog, Oftel, is holding a top-level meeting next week with selected personnel from the Internet industry -- in private. Not only will the invitation-only bash be held behind closed doors, it won't be open to the scrutiny of the media or ordinary Net users. The only thing a spokesman for Oftel was able to say was …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 17:01
-
Record sales for Far East chipcos
For wafer thin read wafer fat
Wafer foundries Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and United Microelectronics both reported record sales for October. The two Taiwanese chip companies saw revenues rise to NT$7.212 billion and NT$2.87 billion respectively. UMC added that the figure would hit NT$6.4 billion if the sales of its three subsidiaries – United …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 17:17
-
AMD, Intel in shares see-saw
Up, down, shake it all around, do the Hokey Cokey
The share price of AMD fell by a couple of bucks this morning after its precipitous ramp yesterday. But it did not drop as much as Intel's price, which fell by over five dollars after Merrill Lynch issued a warning on the stocks. Merrill Lynch has shoved Intel down a notch to "accumulate" rather than "buy", following yesterday's …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 17:22
-
Singer Gary Glitter jailed for child net porn
We don't wanna be in your gang anymore, all right, Gazza?
One-time king of glam rock Gary Glitter has been jailed for four months for downloading child porn from the Internet. Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, pleaded guilty to 54 counts of making indecent photographs of children. In mitigation, his brief said Glitter was unaware that he was doing anything illegal when he …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 17:24
-
Film biz delivers legal threat to DeCSS-linking Web sites
Uses hammer to crack a nut
The film industry has launched a major legal assault on Web sites promoting DVD rippers following revelations that the DVD encryption algorithm has finally been cracked. Lawyers in the US and Europe have already threatened Web site owners with court action if they fail to remove either the software that can copy a DVD's movie …
Business 12 Nov 1999, 17:53
