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14th February 2000 Archive

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  • Pirate plays Third World card in MS court case

    ...and Kenya judge agrees

    Microsoft has lost the first software piracy case in Kenya because of an extraordinary dismissal decision by the Commercial Court in Nairobi last week, according to the newspaper The East African. Microsoft had been seeking the imprisonment of Mohamed Suleiman, managing director of local PC OEM Microskills, whom it accused of …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 01:08

  • Washington saddles up in Quixotic pursuit of on-line privacy

    The war on cookies, and other exploits

    It was an entertaining week on Capitol Hill. Inspired to action by opinion polls which cite privacy fears as America's chief gripe with the Internet and the Information Revolution, Congress responded with a flurry of hastily run-up proposals to preserve the Netizen's false sense of on-line security. To begin, Senator Robert …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 05:52

  • MS, Bandai designing Power Ranger talking toy

    Windows Everywhere? There? Grief...

    Microsoft has teamed up with Bandai America to produce a talking Power Ranger toy with a download capability. Or so Japanese paper Nihon Keizai Shumbun tells us. The paper isn't particularly free with details, but although on the face of it the joint project seems relatively modest, if you think about the convergence …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 09:06

  • NT 4.0 and Millennium win MSDN reprieve

    Now you don't see them, now you do...

    The one interest group that seems to have a hotline to god when it comes to changing Microsoft's mind has apparently done it again. A week after Paul Thurrott revealed that Microsoft Developer Network subscribers weren't automatically getting NT 4.0 CDs any more, and would be getting Millennium later in the year, the entire …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 09:09

  • Bugs, Gartner and Dell rain on Win2k's parade

    But really, it's all been overblown...

    In the past few days Microsoft has suffered from some unfortunate coincidences. First, Gartner Group VP Michael Gartenberg knocked 6 per cent off the stock price by predicting that 25 per cent of companies would have trouble switching to Win2k. Then the usually trustworthy Michael Dell said he expected uptake of Win2k to be slow …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 09:15

  • Piracy gets political as MS loses Kenya case

    Perpetrator hails 'victory for morality' against 'greedy multinational'

    Microsoft has lost the first software piracy case in Kenya because of an extraordinary dismissal decision by the Commercial Court in Nairobi last week, according to the newspaper The East African. Microsoft had been seeking the imprisonment of Mohamed Suleiman, managing director of local PC OEM Microskills, whom it accused of …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 09:35

  • Gates was big Mac fan, ex-girlfriend reveals

    And he was jealous of Steve Jobs' speaking skills. And she thought Steve Ballmer was a big jerk

    "We all bought Macs. Bill bought a Mac. Bill was using a Mac. Bill was using a Macintosh. Not a PC." Well, that's what Gates' old girlfriend, the venture capitalist Ann Winblad, apparently said to Michael Gross in an interview for a book to appear next month (My Generation, published by Cliff Street/HarperCollins). But it wasn't …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 09:38

  • MS roadmaps Blackcomb, plans mid-year beta of next Win2k rev

    Old one-two returns - Blackcomb's hard, Whistler's a lot easier, and shippable

    When Microsoft let it be known that it would merge development of the Win2k-based Odyssey and Neptune projects into one single development effort, Whistler, we predicted that there would be more news on the evolution of the MS development roadmap RSN. And were we right? A few weeks later, news has started to leak of a Whistler …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 09:40

  • Deutsche Telekom parades Net flat fees

    AOL Europe gets the DTs

    Blimey, that didn't take long: Deutsche Telekom announced plans Friday to introduce unmetered Net access, just one day after it was told to by AOL Europe (see AOL demands flat fees for Germany). Ron Sommer, DT CEO, said ISP subsidiary T-Online would introduce unmetered Net access before summer for DM100 (£30) or less per month, …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 11:14

  • Desktop Lawyer offers bargain basement prenuptial service

    Forms for swinging lovers

    The man behind a new lovers' legal service has denied he is trying to mislead anyone even though pre-nuptial agreements aren't legally recognised in Britain. Desktop Lawyer -- the outfit that also offers online divorces -- claims the service is good news for cautious lovers who plan to pop the question on Valentines Day. The pre …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 11:59

  • Cabletron shares jump as company splits

    Cleaves in four for 'focus and agility'

    Cabletron's shares rose five per cent on Friday after the networking vendor revealed plans to split into four. The new units -- to be called Riverstone Networks, Enterasys Networks, Global Network Technology Services and Aprisma Management Technologies -- will do business in the service provider, e-business, services and …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 12:37

  • Durlacher slams metered prices

    Interesting report, BT says

    High telco charges and per minute billing are holding back the development of the Internet and e-commerce in Britain, according to hard-hitting report from Durlacher Research. Net use among domestic users would increase by 46 per cent if these two issues were addressed, Durlacher claims. Users would more than double the time …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 12:44

  • Proto-Itaniums reach proto-Forum

    Eight PC vendors a go-go

    The Intel Developer Forum starts tomorrow but the chip company has already announced that there will be eight Itanium (Merced) systems being displayed at the bi-annual jamboree. Compaq, Bull, Dell, Siemens Fujitsu, HP, IBM, NEC and Silicon Graphics as was will all show prototype server and workstation prototypes. Just in case we …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 14:24

  • William Plague defaces No.10 Web site

    Racist, homophobes and pranksters invade discussion forums

    The Tories were seeing red at the weekend after personal attacks and racial abuse appeared on the new Number 10 Web site. The Downing Street site, which went live on Friday, includes interactive forums for Joe Public to email opinions and views to our glorious leader. But people have been taking advantage of the freedom of the …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 14:41

  • DDos degrades the Net

    Keynote Address

    Whether pesky kids, or the CIA, are to blame for last week's high profile distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, it seems all Net users were affected by the online mischief-making. According to Keynote, which monitors such things, the Net's performance suffered across the board as a direct result of the attacks on Amazon …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 15:11

  • Freeserve ADSL trial springs into action

    ...three months late

    Monster ISP Freeserve officially launched its ADSL trial today -- almost three months later than planned. The trial was due to go live in November, but it had to be delayed due to the lack of pricing information from BT. The result, is that Freeserve's full rollout of its broadband service will not begin until the summer. BT is …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 15:19

  • AMD profits from PIII famine

    Usually weak Q1 sales to match strong holiday quarter

    AMD is clearly doing rather nicely out of The Great Coppermine Shortage. The company announced on Friday it expects chip sales for the current quarter (due to end next month) to at least match, if not exceed, those of the previous three-month period. That quarter included Christmas and all the extra spending on new PC kit that …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 15:23

  • Cannabis e-retailer claims moral righteousness

    Put that in your pipe and smoke it

    A Californian man charged with selling marijuana online was acting on "moral righteousness", his lawyer claimed last week. Michael Aronov, who ran a Web site supplying marijuana for medical purposes, was indicted on Friday for illegally distributing the drug in Louisiana, the Nando Times reported. Aronov stands charged on seven …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 15:27

  • British hack savages hand that feeds him

    Bribe not big enough, then?

    The Register tips its hat to IT hack, John Sabine, who took offence at being given his very own domain by ItsBob.co.uk as part of the Webco's launch last week. So outraged was John at this alleged act of bribery, not only did he bite the hand that fed him, he chewed it up and spat it out. "Don't try to bribe journalists unless …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 16:06

  • Is another MS antitrust case brewing in Japan?

    It does rather look like somebody's getting their retaliation in early...

    A strange article in the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal today tries to make the case that "criticisms of Microsoft are no more warranted in Japan than in the US". The opinion piece is by Shigeki Kusunoki, currently at the School of Law at Kyoto University, but also an associate of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 16:24

  • Porn sites undermine Paris brothels

    Net start-ups invade the red light district and scare off punters

    The world's oldest profession is being threatened by online erotica, Paris brothel workers are claiming. According to Jean-Claude, doorman at the Pussy Club 187 on the city's Rue Saint Denis, the Internet has been "bad news for us, with all its pornography sites". "I have lost at least ten of my best customers – guys who used to …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 16:47

  • AMD to axe Athlon prices Feb 28

    Updated The war that megahurtz continues

    We know from an Intel document that it will chop prices on its chips on February 28th. And now we learn that AMD will also slash its prices across members of its Athlon range, and on the same day. These will be the AMD prices on its premier Athlon K7 line of processors in a fortnight, as well as reductions on the K6-2s. The …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 18:36

  • Developers urged to port apps to Willamette

    Goodbye Screaming Sindie, hello Screaming William

    Intel will this week begin to outline to software developers the reasons why they should start to take advantage of the additional multimedia/internet extensions in the next generation of its IA-32 processor, Willamette. At the same time, the company will provide software developers with a number of tools and algorithms to …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 18:51

  • Internet security firm RSA's Web site hacked

    We feel safer already

    RSA Security has suffered the embarrassment of having its home page "defaced" by an intruder. The original defaced page can be found http://www.2600.com/hacked_pages/2000/02/www.rsa.com Now it get's complicated: there is a second defaced RSA home page, in which the company's site appears to be "owned" by the an intruder. This is …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 19:37

  • Intel: Memory strategy unchanged (cough)

    Intel Developer Forum Except it sort of has

    Pat Gelsinger, vice president of Intel's desktop products group, said today that Rambus memory is still the company's top choice for the desktop and mobile markets. But, at the same time, he acknowledged that Intel will use DDR (double data rate) memory for its server platform, and that unavailability and high pricing of Rambus …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 22:00

  • Solaris for Itanium looking dead flakey

    Intel Developer Forum Another OS drops off the Merced coil?

    Reliable sources at the Intel Developer Forum say that Sun's support for Intel's 64-bit Itanium processor with the Solaris operating system is weakening to the point of non-existence. Solaris is now likely to be dropped for the Itanium platform, according to the same sources. The reports, which could not be confirmed with Sun …

    Business 14 Feb 2000, 23:42