7th March 2000 Archive

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Intel's little 1GHz mysteries…

Every dog has its day in the chip world

Some signs of a Dell page advertising 866MHz and 850MHz Pentium IIIs appeared and disappeared this morning even before we could tuck into our hot, piping, Ready Brek. Every dog has its day, and while yesterday was AMD's, we are now of the strong opinion that tomorrow will be Intel's, as it retaliates against the coverage that …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 07:03
Blair hails NTL Free Everything ISP plans

Goes live 17 April

NTL boss Barclay Knapp will today announce a subscription-free, unmetered access Internet service for everyone. And - get this - Tony Blair will hail the service as a "significant announcement". Hats off to NTL, Britain's biggest cable telephony company, for squirrelling an endorsement out of the Prime Minister. But what will …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 07:19
US allies are spying with bugged software

A "national outrage" one expert calls it

America's allies, like France, and her adversaries, like China, are selling flawed software and hardware which can divert sensitive data from US corporations and government bureaus back to the country of origin, security outfit iDefense CEO James Adams claims. "If you buy a piece of hardware or software from several countries, …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 08:34
Is MS heading for a share price meltdown?

Sooner or later, the juggling's surely going to fail...

Just when Microsoft is being investigated by the SEC, a little forensic analysis of Microsoft's share price and of events over the last few days suggests the company could just possibly be trying to give a little upward nudge to its sluggish share price. The SEC is of course very sensitive to any attempt at manipulation of the …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 10:00
Motorola aims high end Linux servers at telcos

Watch out Sun...

Motorola is to ship a high availability version of Linux aimed at carrier grade networking from May. The company's HA Linux will be available on Motorola Intel and PowerPC hardware, and promises 99.999 per cent (five nines) availability. HA Linux uses hot swap to achieve near-constant uptime, allowing CPUs, controllers, power …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 11:27
Slate veteran to build high spec, cheap ‘air limos’

Private jet travel for the masses. Well, the rich masses...

Remember Vern Raburn? A Lotus and Microsoft exec way back in the days when Bill Gates wasn't ruler of the world, and founder of Slate Corp, the pen-based computing venture that flopped in the 80s. Since then he's been combining advising Paul Allen on investments with various aircraft restoration bodies and projects. We're not …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 11:28
Motorola slammed with PPC G4 supply limitation allegations

Preventing IBM from shipping faster chips than it can, claim sources

Motorola is acting like a spoiled brat by using contractual obligations to prevent IBM selling fast PowerPC 7400 (aka G4) to Apple just because it can't produce enough of them itself. That's the claim made by "contacts throughout the Apple-IBM-Motorola PowerPC alliance", according to MacOS Rumors - though by the sounds of it ' …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 11:44
Bumper year ahead for DRAM

But makers must find new markets, survey warns

The global DRAM market looks set to grow 25 per cent this year, according to a survey by Nikkei Market Access. Sales are likely to top $27 billion in 2000, the second highest level since 1995 when the sector saw a record year. But memory manufacturers will need to find fresh avenues for their products, or growth may start to …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 11:51
Intel to give away 70,000 PCs to staff

But who is the vendor, that's what we wanna know

Chip giant Intel said today it is to give "state of the art" PCs, Internet access and services to its 70,000 employees for nothing. The scheme, called the Home PC programme, will utilise the latest (1GHz?) technology from Intel, but this morning the company declined to say who was the supplier. The machines will start to be …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 12:01
Iridium steels itself to decomission satellites

Gains $3m for 11 more days' operation, but the outlook is grim

Iridium has managed to stumble away from complete collapse once again, this time with a $3 million cash injection from its lenders. That's enough money to keep the moribund cellphones-by-satellite venture in orbit for just eleven more days. If no buyer is found, Iridium will prepare to bring its satellites back to Earth - a …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 12:10
Channel furious about Xeon support, i840 glitches

Support for Xeons, what support?

Problems with the i840 chip set have led to decline in revenues for distributors and dealers having stock of chips with no motherboard support, it has emerged. A US dealer, who bought 40 Xeon processors on the 10th of January, told us today that his distributor has now received instructions from Intel to honour any dealer …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 12:34
Connectix ships PlayStation emulator for Windows

Release follows overthrow of Sony's injunction

Mac software developer Connectix began shipping the Windows version of its Virtual Game Station (VGS) PlayStation emulator today through its own online store and retail outlets. The Windows release comes almost a month after the US Court of Appeal overturned a preliminary injunction against VGS granted to Sony last April by the …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 12:46
Freeserve in NTL's sights

We're gonna get you, suckers...

NTL is planning to be the largest ISP in the UK, knocking Freeserve off its perch. One NTL source The Register spoke to this morning was almost giddy with excitement and bullish anticipation. "We're going to be bigger than Freeserve," he said. "NTL probably has the best cable network in Europe, if not the world," he chirped. …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 13:32
Profit puts spring in Tulip's step

Celebrates with an acquisition

After clawing its way back from the brink of disaster, Dutch PC vendor Tulip has recorded a profit and is buying a notebook manufacturer. Tulip saw profit after tax rise to £100,000, compared to last year's £14 million loss. Sales were largely static at £68 million, compared to the previous year's £67 million. The company said …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 13:43
Intel's server strategy rolls on

Sun Solaris, EDI, XML, SMP et al

Every month, Intel UK organises an informal breakfast dubbed Views at Ten, with a different topic each month. Today's episode was about enterprise servers, with Alan Priestley, product marketing manager of Intel EMEA, talking about what Intel sees as the third generation of the Internet. Priestley said that business Web sites …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 14:11
Freeserve strikes back with unmetered service

Details thin on the ground as UK's leading ISP responds to NTL

Freeserve will launch a "low cost" unmetered Net access service to compete with other ISPs, but it won't say when or how much it will cost. Responding to today's news that NTL is offering flat-fee access to the Net a spokesman for the monster ISP said that it was considering several options. One of them is BT's wholesale flat- …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 14:28
Friendly DDoS takes out NTL site

Update Popularity -- it's a double-edged sword

NTL's Web site fell over earlier this afternoon but appears to be up and running again. NTL.co.uk went belly-up no doubt from friendly distributed denial of service (DDoS) fire from Net users eager to find out more about its new unmetered Net access package. Users trying to access the site are faced with the message: "HTTP/1.1 …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 14:33
Blair the e-vangelist gives boost to wired Britain

Read his speech while humming Land of Hope and Glory to get full effect

Britain's E-Prime Minister, Tone-e e-Blair, wants everyone in Britain connected to the Net within the next five years. In a speech today he said: "Today I want to announce a new goal. I want Britain to aim for universal access to the Internet by 2005. "Making sure everyone has access to the Internet will both improve our …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 15:51
Top MS analyst upbeat on deal with DoJ

Is this a hint that Ballmer and his merry men want to fold?

Clear signs that Microsoft is edging closer to a settlement with the Department of Justice emerged today, via comments by influential Goldman Sachs analyst Rick Sherlund. Fresh from a meeting with Microsoft CFO John Connors, Sherlund said that the company management "appears very focused on settling the lawsuit." It remains …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 16:23
Freeserve shares tumble

Market reacts to unmetered hysteria

The share price of Britain's favourite monster ISP, Freeserve, plummeted almost 20 per cent today. Before trading closed Freeserve stock was down 170.50p to 709.00p, wiping loadsamoney off the value of the company. BT's share price fell almost ten per cent, down 118.00p, during the day's trading. Today, NTL announced it was to …

Business 7 Mar 2000, 16:40
Chipzilla Cartoon Number 2

Cartoon

Business 7 Mar 2000, 23:40