13th December 1999 Archive

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Day traders get stiff warning

FSA cautions over get rich quick dreams

Online investors looking for a quick buck have been told to take care or risk losing their shirt. The warning was delivered by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the wake of a massive increase in the volume of share dealing by private investors. It's the second warning the FSA has dished out about online trading and …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 07:29
Students become millionaires in their spare time

You can buy a lot of Pot Noodles with that sort of moolah

Dozens of students have become millionaires after being given shares in lieu of wages for their summer job. The mathematics and IT students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took jobs at Internet start up Akamai Technologies last year. They were paid in stock options for part-time and holiday job work at the …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 07:37
Time, Carphone Warehouse, others get slapped wrists

Dodgy claims and broken promises - yes it's the ASA round-up

The Carphone Warehouse found itself in trouble with the Advertising Standards Authority this month for promoting hands free phone kits in cars. One advertisement in the national press showed a red warning triangle with the words "Hands free be safe" written on it. "If you use a phone when driving, please make safety your …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 08:02
Lebanon bans Intel Inside

AMD, Via set to prosper

Customs officers stopped fifteen containers of Intel processor products from entering Lebanon at the end of last week. The reason? Lebanon is still technically at war with Israel, and Intel has fabrication facilities in Israel. Under a law passed during the height of the Lebanese troubles, anyone collaborating with Israel is …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 08:48
SCO crosses Microsoft's Maginot line

Claims Redmond was looking the other way...

If you can't get them round the front - try round the back. Following on from Novell's reverse engineered NDS-for-NT, the Santa Cruz Operation has become the latest intrepid to pop behind Microsoft's Maginot line. Intriguingly, on this occasion it seems the work has been done with some degree of connivance from Redmond - but …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 09:03
Intel confirms Coppermine price change details

But they ain't much, ain't much at all

We now have details of the changes in prices of Intel's .18 Coppermine processors, which the company notified to its PC vendors and channel partners late yesterday, and which we predicted many weeks ago. As we thought, the price adjustments are not massive, and that's because Intel is holding its horses for a mammoth cut in …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 09:39
Washington tech summit urges Net education

Tom blows his stack over the impending Digital Utopia

US Commerce Secretary William Daley served as moderator during a Thursday roundtable discussion of America's so-called digital divide, a growing disparity in technology access and computer "literacy" among populations according to income, location and race. Internet evangelist Bill Clinton launched the festivities from the …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 09:58
MS Anytime, Anywhere scheme promotes class warfare

State school demands pupils buy £1300 laptops

A Microsoft free education project could break the piggy bank for parents at Tudor Grange School, Solihull. They are being asked to stump up £1,300 each for laptops supplied by the school to enable their children to take part in Microsoft's Anytime, Anywhere learning scheme. The laptop purchase is not compulsory, but children …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 11:38
Apple culls UK marketing team

Operations to be centralised in Paris

Apple appears to have embarked on a plan to centralise and amalgamate its numerous European offshoots into a single operation based in Paris. In October, the Mac maker pulled out of the UK's AppleExpo 2000 in favour of the show's French equivalent. AppleExpo 2000's organiser recently admitted the event had now been cancelled, …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 12:02
TurboLinux, NEC sign technology partnership

Team up on customer support, server hardware optimisation

Asia-oriented Linux distributor TurboLinux has signed a "technical co-operation" alliance with Japan's leading PC vendor, NEC. The TurboLinux/NEC deal appears to be similar to agreements between other Linux distributors and hardware companies, such as Red Hat's alliances with IBM and Dell. Indeed, the TurboLinux deal follows a …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 12:33
Softbank to launch digital music operation

eS! Music will heavily undercut rivals on price

Japan's Softbank will be using its takings from the sale of publisher Ziff-Davis to break into the soon-to-be-highly-lucrative digital music market. Later this month, Softbank will launch eS! Music, which will, in turn, launch an Internet-based music sales and download service aimed at Japanese consumers in the summer. Between …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 12:54
Crunch time for 08004u

If it can't resolve its problems today, the game's up

Troubled ISP 08004u is facing an eleventh hour struggle to avoid closing down for good. Last week, The Register reported that 08004u was to make a Phoenix-like recovery on Friday, but the ISP instead appears to have come to the end of the line following months of turmoil which have seen the promise of unmetered Net access come …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 12:57
Compaq, API announce Alpha cash-plunge

A tale of two chippies -- IA-64 and Alpha

Alternative 64-bit chip supplier Compaq will announce further investments worth $500 million in its Alpha technology today, The Register has learned. Some weeks ago, we revealed that The Big Q is to plunge something like $100 million in advertising into the 64-bit Alpha technology early next year. The total amount of investment …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 13:00
Iridium wins $20m investment

To tide it over to Craig McCaw saves it, presumably...

Troubled satellite telecomms company Iridium found itself the recipient of a cheque for $20 million on Friday courtesy of Motorola and a bunch of the company's other investors. Of course, that's a tiny drop compared to Iridium's ocean of debt - $4bn and counting - so it's clearly funding intended to keep the company going while …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 13:19
Bill Gates domain ‘for sale’ at £2m

The hell it is...

According to the weekend UK press, Bill Gates is trying to stop an anonymous "entrepreneur" auctioning www.billgates.co.uk for something in the region of £2 million. But seriously folks, it's extremely doubtful either that the domain is really for sale at this price tag or that Gates and his merry men have the slightest …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 13:24
ZD poison pill blocks dismemberment opportunities

Updated (again) ZDPaper will revive under new leadership, insider reckons...

So Ziff-Davis has got shot of its print publications (bar Computer Shopper and a minority stake in Red Herring) at last. And a very sweet deal it seems to have cooked up too. Investment bank Willis Stein & Partners is to pay $780 million for the ZDPaper portfolio - A-brand titles operating in a mature to over-ripe market At the …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 13:29
BT to ‘freshen image’ with logo revamp

Who pays the piper

British Telecom is to revamp its £50 million piper logo in an attempt to make the telecoms giant more friendly and less remote. Actually, for 'revamp' read 'repaint'. According to the Daily Mail, the new logo will look exactly the same but sport a "warmer and deeper" blue and a "brighter" red. Meanwhile, says the blue-rinse set …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 13:35
Coppermine notebooks: trickle starts

But it won't be a treat for a while

Intel announced that it would introduce a whole family of mobile Coppermine processors on October 25th last, and lulled a lot of manufacturers into a false sense of security. Compaq announced it would introduce machines using the mobile Coppermine technology that day but most of the big names did not follow suit. Now, Dell has …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 13:53
Wanted: MS spin-doctors to spin Linux to press, OEMs

At last, MS is developing a Linux strategy. But it's just a marketing one...

Microsoft has been spotted advertising suspicious jobs again, reports LinuxToday, and currently has no less than four positions mentioning Linux in the job descriptions currently posted on its site. But regrettably, although the more dynamic-sounding jobs involve "developing and executing Microsoft's Linux strategy," it's pretty …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 14:34
Aureal defeats Creative patent infringement case

Appeals and countersuits should keep the pair at each other's throats for a while...

Aureal has won its legal battle with arch-rival Creative technology when a US jury threw out Creative's claim that Aureal Vortex sound processor chip violated Creative intellectual property. The suit in question launched back in February 1998 and is one of many the two companies have been throwing at each other in recent years …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 15:34
Telewest to offer unlimited Net access

Only £10 per month, but you must be an existing customer

The UK's number two cable operator, Telewest, has announced it will offer unlimited Net access from just £10 per month. Only existing Telewest phone customers will be able to take advantage of the offer, the company said today. The new offering is scheduled to kick off on 14 February and will be called SurfUnlimited. Newswire …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 15:41
China on Taiwan's mind

Analysis And Taiwan still very much on China's mind

China's recent moves to attract Taiwanese investors have drawn a favorable reaction from the island's technology sector, but many say they do not expect to see significant effects, because companies have already found ways around investment barriers. New regulations, announced yesterday (Dec 12), offer Taiwan's investors better …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 16:20
US Web/CKS buy makes $14bn monster

You can make money designing websites

See, there's still money in designing websites. US Web/CKS Corp is selling itself to Whittman-Hart, a Chicago-based e-business consultancy, for $5.88bn, a hefty 35 per cent premium on Friday's closing price. The merged entity will command a market cap of $14bn and will employ more than 8000 professionals in 70+ offices in 13 …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 16:40
Compaq avoids IA-64 question in Alpha push

Analysis A tale of two chips

The insiders at Digital, some of whom still remain after it was acquired by Compaq, are still asking long and hard questions about the future of Merced in the newly re-structured organisation. Although Jesse Lipcon, VP of Alpha strategy, who is in London today, took time out to remind people that, for example, the …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 16:54
Q exex fail to rock at Rock Circus

Corporate fancy dress do only produces six fancy dresses

Sources close to swanky and hip London venue The Rock Circus told us today that the corporate gig that Compaq held there last week was a bit of a washout. Apparently, Q executives, as well as their corporate customers, were supposed to tip up in fancy dress. And while a lot of people tipped up, only six wore fancy dress. Those …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 17:12
Transmeta Crusoe 'cool hardware and software for mobile applications'

Gentle readers: spell it out next time

OK readers. Thanks to everyone who alerted us to yesterday's "big" announcement from Transmeta. Don't find out more at the Transmeta Web site. But if you check it out you may note a step or two forward in the design of Transmeta's famously minimalist Web site. That's right, they've added a couple of email contacts: one for job- …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 17:44
IT majors address viruses in email – to us

The Register's viruses received per day count soars...

Although the virus threat is omnipresent, The Register is fortunate enough to have a sufficiently IT-savvy readership for it not to be much of a problem. Not. The site's corporate deflector shields have recently identified a regrettable Melissa-style outbreak of 'thanks for your email, I'll attend it immediately, in the …

Business 13 Dec 1999, 17:48