18th January 2000 Archive

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Gates lacks golden touch with $5bn investment portfolio

He's been losing money on many of his private investments

Bill Gates has around $5 billion in private investments outside his $100 billion Microsoft holding, but he seems to have been losing on many of the quoted stocks in his portfolio over the past few months. That's quite hard to do in a bull market. He doesn't seem to possess any magic touch so far as his investments go, and has …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 09:51
HP a go-go on AMD Athlon

Stealth approach resembles Gateway's route to market

Chip upstart AMD has had yet another boost in its fortunes as it emerged it had another design win, this time with big PC player Hewlett Packard. And, like Gateway only a few weeks ago, the news has broken on the Web, rather than through official PR channels. Dell is now increasingly isolated as the only major PC vendor still …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 11:24
Mobile phone sales triple Motorola Q4 profit

Iridium still dragging it down, though

Motorola yesterday cited cellphone sales as the foundation for the income growth of over 300 per cent it experienced during its fourth quarter. But for a one-off charge to cover the company's exposure to the much-troubled satellite mobile phone operation Iridium, the figure would have been much higher. So, after $740 million had …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 12:32
John McCain weighs in on AOL--Time Warner deal

Presidential hopeful flexes Senatorial muscle

US Senator John McCain (Republican, Arizona) will convene a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to investigate the proposed AOL--Time Warner merger, he revealed on NBC's "Meet the Press". McCain is the Committee's co-Chairman, and also, incidentally, a candidate for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, though we at The …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 12:33
Fujitsu and Siemens split down Intel-AMD seams

Which is the better box? Is it Bill or is it Ben?

The arrangement between Fujitsu and Siemens to merge their PC operations at the end of last year is already showing creakiness, after it emerged that the two divisions are selling similar machines but split along Intel-AMD lines. At the end of last year, we reported that Siemens was being forced to source AMD parts because of a …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 13:43
Calluna suspends shares

End game approaches for disk drive maker

Calluna, the troubled mini-disk drive vendor, has asked the London Stock Exchange to suspend its listing "pending an announcement" by the company. In November, Calluna issued a shock profit warning in which it revealed it was "urgently considering a range of options including entering into trade partnerships and seeking …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 13:43
Furniture website slammed for cheap prices

Supplier takes umbrage at competitive edge technology

A north London furniture company has been boycotted by one of its suppliers because it is undercutting high street furniture stores. Lordship Furniture says it wants to "shake up the furniture industry" and that it is merely responding to demands by customers for better service and prices in an industry where average mark-ups …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 13:46
Nokia drops monitors

Offloads display business to focus on Net

Nokia is selling its Display Products branded business to ViewSonic and pulling out of the monitor manufacture market. The agreement, due to be signed this month, will give the US company access to Nokia's high-end display products worldwide, a bigger European sales force, as well as its customer base - in Europe and the …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 13:48
Viglen unveils e-biz division

Looking for a whizz kid to lead new acquisition unit

Viglen is to set up a new division to buy Internet companies as it steps up its search for a dissatisfied Net guru to join its ranks. The London-based PC builder today revealed its intention to form a subsidiary "to make strategic investments in a series of ecommerce and Internet related ventures". According to Sir Alan Sugar, …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 13:56
Why MS needs to break itself up in order to survive – IDC

An IDC customer bulletin suggests radical breakup would be good for customers and MS. You might not like that...

In among last week's flurry over a claimed DoJ proposal to accept breakup of Microsoft as part of a settlement, an IDC bulletin got a couple of name-checks. The bulletin had been circulated to IDC customers last month, but by happy coincidence had been leaked, apparently by several of those customers, to the press just in time …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 13:58
Nude Overclockers takes Web by storm

Whatever next?

Our thanks to Register spotter David Thorarinsson for alerting us to Nude Overclockers. This site purports to be run by four women who, yes, overclock in the nude. The females are virtual renditions, not real. This is a Weird Science for the Internet generation, which is why we think teenage/young adult males are behind this …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 14:13
Be to offer BeOS 5.0 for free

Well, sort of...

Alternative OS vendor Be will release the next major rev. of the BeOS, version 5.0, free of charge. A leaf out of Linux's book? Not quite. In fact, a closer look at the company's announcement shows what it's giving away is the 'Trojan Horse' release company CEO Jean-Louis Gassee touted last year, and not the full OS release. It' …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 15:03
Unannounced chipsets get Intel airing – again

Updated It's a wonderful thing, the Web

We asked Intel at the SpeedStep press launch about the unannounced products and the URLs in our original story (see below) and almost as soon as we asked, the URLs seemed to become the disappeared. However, your Reg, undaunted, still has the publicly available knowledge in the bag. There are two updated URLs we have, which we …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 15:35
MS and friends plan London City of Future on Dome site

Consortium plans to take punters for biggest ride in Europe

Microsoft is involved in one of the bids to find a role for the UK's world-famous Millennium Dome - but not, apparently, with Microsoft money. The UK government is planning to get itself shot of structure, built to celebrate the Millennium and now shaping up to be something of a Big Flop, at the end of this year, and has …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 15:46
Hate site man charged by US authorities

Site pulled as first federal case of its kind begins

US Federal authorities have charged a man who labelled a human relations counsellor a "race traitor" and made death threats towards her. This is thought to be the first federal case against a website. Ryan Wilson's site, Alpha HQ, carried photographs and animated pictures of victim Bonnie Johuri's office being blown up. …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 16:49
Ingram wins GE Cap supply contract

Buys ITS division as part of the deal

Ingram Micro has won the contract to distribute IT kit to GE Capital's VAR arm in the UK. As part of the deal, Ingram has also agreed to buy GE's Information Technology Services (ITS) warehouse and configuration centre in Rossendale, Lancashire, sources told The Register. A representative of GE Capital confirmed the contract was …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 16:49
Computer system tells cops to arrest innocent people

Rhode Island police forced to ask suspects if they're really guilty

Providence, Rhode Island police were forced to stop arresting people because their shiny new law enforcement network system was telling them to grab innocent people. According to the Providence Journal when the new system went operational police found it had caused them to arrest eight people by mistake. The Journal puts it …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 17:35
Athlon 500MHz to get chop RSN

550MHz part price cut as it takes over as entry-level

All good things must come to an end - a sentiment close to the heart of many a multi-billion dollar chip maker. And none more so than AMD which is poised to send its 500MHz Athlon part packing once January has bid us farewell. In preparation for the 500's demise, AMD is to cut the price of its 550MHz Athlon part on 23 January, …

Business 18 Jan 2000, 18:01