24th November 1999 Archive

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Intel trashes huge Gateway rebate scheme

Oops there goes another kilobuck -- damn

Earlier this year we reported that Intel had managed to persuade PC manufacturer Gateway to pull out of producing machines using AMD Athlon processors by offering a large rebate scheme to the company. Details have now emerged about just how much that scheme was worth, and why Gateway, as we reported yesterday, now intends to use …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 09:49
Intel missing from 1394 patent pool, believed lost

Surprise, surprise

The IEEE 1394 patent pool has finally got its act together and set up a body to oversee the licensing of the intellectual property central to the connectivity standard. And while 1394's usual suspects can now get on growing support for the technology among PC vendors and consumer electronics manufacturers, they'll be doing so …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 12:31
Chinese pledge £75m to turn Shanghai into Silicon Valley

Hi-tech zone to focus on on Net, e-commerce

The Chinese are to spend £75 million on re-creating Silicon Valley in their own back yard. Yesterday, China set up the venture capital fund to make Shanghai its IT hub. The cash will be used to assist Internet and IT start-ups. It was thought to have the support of Jiang Mianheng, oldest son of president Jiang Zemin and head of …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 12:37
AMD patents chip design…

Patents ...and dabbles with Unix

Boffins working away in the AMD labs have just patented a couple of interesting pieces of technology. The first, which is a superscalar microprocessor including a high speed alignment unit, describes a way of transferring a fixed number of instructions from the instruction cache to each of a plurality of decode units. The full …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 13:05
Novell number up as Schmidt prepares recovery phase three

Aims to be broadest supplier of Web infrastructure products

Novell has turned in revenue of $345 million in its fourth quarter, up from $298 million in the year-earlier quarter, and $327 million in Q3. Net income was $74 million compared with $43 million a year earlier, and $49 million in Q3. Novell's FY ends on 31 October. For the fiscal year, Novell made $1.155 billion (up 30 per cent …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 13:51
Suit trails $30 billion tab for MS Windows ‘over-charging’

But it'll take a lot more work to make that one stick...

Telephone numbers far too long to remember are beginning to be tacked onto the class action lawsuits being launched against Microsoft, on behalf of lucky American consumers - the latest, filed in Ohio yesterday by attorney Stanley Chesley, is based on the premise that the Beast of Redmond has contrived to extract $10 billion in …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 13:56
Your daily PC horoscope

The twelve signs of the PC zodiac

AMD You will meet a tall, elderly gentleman who so closely resembles the man from KFC that you buy a bucket of chicken before you remember you just wanted chips. Intel You will meet a tall, young gentleman who works in the spin paramedic department and attempts to give you the kiss of life even though you aren't gasping for …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 14:06
Intel Cape Cod mobo stinks

Performance a bit fishy

Yeah, we know you're all bored to death with Caminogate® stories, but this one will really get up Chipzilla's nose. The much-delayed, blah, blah, blah, i820 chipset finally saw the light of day in cut-down form, both the Rambus Vancouver (VC820) and SDRAM Cape Cod being restricted to a maximum of 512MB of RAM. There are still …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 14:52
Net user leap on leaked ISP freefone number

Only costs company 254 quid -- just a cheap publicity stunt, then?

An undisclosed number of Net users managed to gain unauthorised freephone access to the Net last night following the leak of confidential information yesterday. Although not the most auspicious start to a new venture, Tom Defty, MD of new kid on the block ISP City Connections, said that last night's assault only cost the company …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 14:52
Police to investigate hack attack on Tory bank accounts

Funding fiasco causes paranoid politicians to rant incoherently

The Tory party has called in the cops to investigate whether its bank accounts have been hacked. The move follows the Times' investigation into the party's treasurer, Michael Ashcroft, who it accused of laundering drug money through his interests in Belize. The newspaper based its story on Ashcroft's confidential bank statements …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 14:56
Motorola to demo 780MHz PowerPC G4+

Outlines participation at February's International Solid-state Circuits conference

Motorola is set to discuss its second-generation PowerPC G4 line next February at the IEEE International Solid-state Circuits conference, to be held in San Francisco. The chip, the PowerPC G4+, was announced last month at Microprocessor Forum, and is the product of a major attempt by Motorola to catch up with the x86 world's …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 15:37
HP to intro non-i840 workstations on 13 December

Oh, and did you know there's Copperhide and Coppermine?

The Intel i840 chipset seems to be dogged by the shadow of Caminogate, if the latest information from HP is anything to go by. A representative from HP US today confirmed that his company will introduce single and dual workstations based on the RCC (Reliance) chipset on the 13th of December, rather than on the i840 Intel chipset …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 15:52
Intel to demo 1GHz IA-32 chip Feb 2000

As hot as fire, or as cold as ice?

Chip giant Intel will demonstrate a 1GHz IA32 processor at a semiconductor conference early next year, it has emerged. The company will use 2000 IEEE International Solid State Circuits conference, which starts on the 7th of February in San Franciso, to outline the features of the processor, which is likely to be the long-awaited …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 16:03
Free! CDs, PCs, books, cars, chairs, whatever…

But you can only have them for a week, says UK ecommerce minister

UK ecommerce minister Kim Howells has unveiled government proposals that will see Internet traders sent to jail if they fail to make consumers aware of their rights. And for good reason since the proposals will also give purchasers the right to change their mind within seven days. Called the Distance Selling Directive, the paper …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 17:29
Y2K more important to MS than DoJ case, says exec

Of course, this is the exec who said he'd lose his job if Win2k didn't ship in Q3...

John Leftwich, Microsoft marketing vp for EMEA, has been reported as saying in Dubai yesterday that "We are more worried about Y2K" than the antitrust action at present being tried in Washington. Leftwich was in Dubai for talks about Dubai Internet City. Dubai wishes to become the Middle East technology capital, and the DUBAI. …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 17:37
Compaq to take $250m hit against next half-year's profits

Details once hidden deep in obscure SEC filing, now exposed

Compaq is already clocking up expenses against profits for the next six months, with plans to take up to $250 million in charges. The US vendor tucked the one-time charges -- a $50-100 million sum against Q4 earnings, and an additional $100-150 million charge against Q1 charges for 2000 -- deep into the bowels of a financial …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 17:37
Net monitor exposes users' online actions

Big Brother is watching you surf

A French Internet company reckons it's devised the ultimate research tool to find out what people are really doing online. NetValue has teamed up with information provider Taylor Nelson Sofres to develop a monitoring system that is completely invisible to ordinary users. Once the software is installed it monitors every single …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 17:45
Dell site dragged back up after unplanned downtime

Could have lost the company up to $30m

Dell's Web site was resurrected today after a networking glitch caused hours of lost Internet sales. According to the direct seller, the site was inaccessible from the early hours of yesterday morning and was only believed to have affected the US. And the problems happened during Thanksgiving week, traditionally the time the …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 17:53
Fujitsu Siemens launches first post-merger notebooks

But it was still mostly a Fujitsu show

Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC) today launched its contributions to the European mobile computer market. FSC is shipping three lines under the LifeBook brand, its first notebook products since the company cemented its union on 1 October. The LifeBook S series is based on the Pentium III 450MHz, with a 6GB hard drive, 64MB memory …

Business 24 Nov 1999, 17:58