21st March 2000 Archive
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Corel Q1 disappoints
Hopes still riding on Linux growth
There was disappointment yesterday at Corel's Q1 results, probably because the company is still perceived to be mainly a hard-pressed Microsoft-competitor with WordPerfect and some graphics products, rather than as a Linux distributor merging with a tools developer as a result of the Inprise/Borland acquisition. The loss for the …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 08:40
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MS volte face embraces next generation Internet
After six months of silence, are we going into IPv6 overdrive?
Yesterday Microsoft released a preview version of IPv6 - the Internet Protocol version 6, sometimes known as IPng. or next generation. But why Microsoft has suddenly decided to do this, in view of negative remarks it was making six months ago? Last June, Microsoft was a founder the IPV6 Forum - along with mostly network …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 08:43
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Action steals finance director from MFI
How do you like it sofa?
UK reseller Action Computer Supplies has named Sue Murphy its finance director. Murphy was formerly FD with MFI Furniture Group, and replaces Ian Wakelin, who resigned in January. Murphy has also worked in accounting and business analysis positions with Overseas Containers and Rank Xerox. Henry Lewis, Action chairman, said: "I …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 08:50
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Tubehell webcasts London mayor wannabes quiz
We are not sardines, we are human beings
London's beleaguered commuters are being given the chance to quiz online four London mayoral candidates in a bid to discover their policies on the Underground. tubehell.com - the Web site for tube users to vent their anger at the state of public transport in the capital - is Webcasting live the interviews with the candidates for …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 09:16
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Time for a Coppermine – or is it April Fool?
System builder launches 850MHz and 866MHz beasts, 1 April
Time Computers is to bring out PCs using Coppermine 850MHz and 866MHz chips on 1 April. The UK systems builder is hoping to make its first deliveries of machines based on the two Intel PIII processors 10-14 days later. That's providing it can get enough components from Intel. Priced at £1996 for the 850-3 CDR-TV Ultimate Time …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 09:24
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Big dealer flogs cheapo car imports on the Net
Rip-Off Britain under threat
A leading British car dealer is to flog cut-price imports over the Net. DC Cook, operator of more than 100 dealer showrooms in Britain, will work with Totalise, which already has an established car import business, to bring cars to the UK from Europe, where prices can be up to 40 per cent cheaper. This is another nail in the …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 10:48
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3Com to ditch products and up to 3000 jobs
Post-Palm drive to profitability powered by broadband, wireless, ISP markets
3Com is bailing out of the high-end router and the low-end modem markets in a reorganisation aimed at trading jobs for profits. Not that the company is doing too badly. Alongside the restructure announcement, 3Com posted Q3 profits and revenues up just a little on the same period last year. The reorganisation is a …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 10:58
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The easy way to be a Net Millionaire – win a BT raffle
Not especially good odds, though
BT is going to make one lucky Net user in Britain an instant millionaire as part of a major promotion to get more people online. The monster telco will give away a massive £1 million in May as part of its "BT Internet A Million" promo. It's open to all Net users in Britain. Simply answer a question from one of four categories at …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 10:58
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MPs get 1000 anti-RIP faxes
It's time to make a Stand
Anti-RIP campaign group Stand is claiming a small but significant victory in its fight to block UK Government's attempts to put its so-called Big Brother legislation on the Stature book. The organisation's Web site runs a 'fax your MP' service which has sent more than 1000 faxes to MPs within just one week of launch. According …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 11:09
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Second, Scots Hyundai fab in sell-off talks
Another mothball set to hatch Intel brood?
Just a week after Intel confirmed it was talking to Hyundai about the possibility of buying its mothballed LG Semicon fab in Wales, it appears that another mothballed fab is up for sale. A report on US wire Electronic Buyers News quoted a Hyundai official as saying that it was "only weeks ago" from striking a deal on the memory …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 11:41
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ePublisher claims it can save Iridium, turn a profit
Updated Comedy Rescue Plan of the Week?
Las Vegas-based software developer and vanity ePublisher Merit Studios reckons it has come up with a rescue plan to save Iridium's 66 satellites and take the company to profitability. A now a second potential Iridium buyer has emerged following the closure of the ailing satellite-by-cellphone company on Friday. According to a …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 11:46
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Staffordshire town wires schools to giant Intranet
Safe learning environment
A Staffordshire town has become the first in the UK to get all its schools wired via an intranet. Seventeen schools in the market town of Rugeley are connected through schoolmaster.net, a free education Web system with more than 100,000 users in the UK. The online community, which also includes Rugeley Town Hall, is aimed at …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 11:51
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Big Blue boffins make big storage breakthrough
Self-arranging magnetic particles appear in lab
Boffins at Big Blue said at the end of last week that they have devised a method that may, one day, produce data storage systems with 100 times the capacity of today's drives. The method uses a combination of nanotechnology and chemistry which produces what the scientists describe as a "radically new class of magnetic materials …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 11:57
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Netware 3.x hits end of the road
But supported until 2002
Novell said today that it will finally stop selling versions of Netware 3.x on the 31st October this year.* The company has already alerted its channel and other partners, including IBM,of the move. The firm will continue to support the products until the year 2002. Netware 3.x was first introduced at the end of the 1980s, and …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 12:09
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Demon ‘uncensored Internet’ harms child porn clampdown – Observer
Internet Watch Foundation also slammed, in a scare story which goes too far
Demon Internet has come under fire for allegedly not doing enough to prevent child pornography from appearing in newsgroups and on its news servers. In a story entitled "Exposed: where child porn lurks on the Net", The Observer claimed that Demon's bias towards "an uncensored Internet" was at the expense of curtailing child …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 12:11
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Nvidia NV15 to clock to 200MHz
Creative first out of the gate
As we reported earlier this year, Nvidia's NV15 chip is speeding towards completion. The chip is likely to be called the GeForce 2 and will clock to between 180 and 200 MHz, according to reliable sources. And, as reported earlier, the chip will support between 32MB and 64MB of double data rate (DDR) memory, and may also be able …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 12:12
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Gateway research reveals truth about UK techno dummies
Launches idiot-proof PC at bargain basement price
Too poor and too stupid to own a PC? Well, not any more. Gateway - the world's favourite bovinesque PC maker - has launched a range of PCs with you hard-up techno-dummies in mind. The Astro will take the fear out of owning a PC, Gateway says. What's more, it will take the fear out of handing over the dosh for said piece of kit. …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 12:49
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Via scotches AMD merger rumours
Updated And the state of Intel's ITC complaint?
Via Technologies is likely to spin out its microprocessor business, made up of technology from the old IDT-Centaur and Cyrix chip operations, this year, CEO We-chi Chen told the Taiwanese press yesterday. The news is already prompting widespread speculation that AMD and Via could tie up their businesses, in a bid to give chip …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 13:29
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Virgincars.com suffers Grand eTheft Auto
Brrm, Brrm, Branson
If Virgin's car sales site, virgincars.com, wants to take a lead in the emerging market for cheap motors imported into the UK from the Continent, it had better... er... start offering some cars for sale. A visit to the site today found a marked lack of autos. Instead we found Windows NT 4.0's auto-installed Web front end. Not …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 13:48
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98lite IE removal system for Win2k under development
And a 15-20 meg Win98 install is also promised
Version 3.0 of 98lite, the software designed to allow Windows 98 to run without the integrated Internet Explorer, has reached RC1 stage and according to developer Shane Brooks final code should be ready in a few weeks time. Brooks also promises a quick follow up for Windows 2000, and dangles the prospect of an "embedded" version …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 14:12
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What the hell is… IPv6?
Why it's happening, what it means, who's doing it
There are just 4 billion possible IP addresses if we do not move from version 4 of the Internet Protocol to version 6. After the move, there would be 340 trillion trillion trillion (3.4 x 10**36) possible addresses under v6, because of the 128-bit address space. Scalability is just one reason to make the move, but the new levels …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 14:41
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Severed finger found in PC
And other tales from The PC World HellDesk
From the bizarre to the ridiculous - severed fingers, dead mice and love-letters are all items to be found lurking in the innards of PCs, a report claims. Dixons, Britain's biggest computer retailer, assembled the list after quizzing its technicians on the weirdest objects uncovered in customers' computers over the past six …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 14:59
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Consumers told to watch out for Intel samples
Why is the channel awash with clockable engineers' chips?
Intel insisted today that it has told its channel that it may only ship production samples of its microprocessors. That follows a number of reports from savvy end users who have discovered machines containing engineering samples, which do not have overclockability removed, and also from one reader who was sold an overclockable …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 15:54
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UK Budget gives IT shot in arm
Budget 2000 Update Chancellor moves to help hi-tech sector
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has moved to boost the growth of hi-tech start-ups in the UK. Here, in brief, is a run down of some of the Chancellor's announcements to boost the UK online economy. Singling out IT and the Internet as critical areas for the UK, the Chancellor said: "We must master technological …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 15:59
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Intel performs another networking legover
This time it's only half a billion bucks
Only a few days after it spent $1.27 billion buying the Lego-like building blocks which will make it a major player in the Internet revolution, Intel (ticker: INTC) is at it again. The company has just announced it will pay $450 million in cash for Basis, a firm involved in Internet access systems, and which has a particular …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 16:02
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Birmingham IT entrepreneur to launch bid for Rover
...If he can assemble a consortium
A prospective buyer for stricken car firm Rover has stepped forward from the IT industry. The carmaker's knight in shining armour is Birmingham millionaire John Hemming. Hemming owns several businesses in the Midlands, including Web portal marketnet, which is expected to float on AIM. The entrepreneur, who is also a Liberal …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 16:33
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Dotcoms deny they are running out of cash
Barron's Report article puts cat among pigeons
Dotcoms have rushed to refute claims made by a respected financial magazine that at least 51 Net firms are on the verge of running out of cash. Research carried out by Pegasus Research International for Barron's, the Dow Jones & Company's business and financial weekly magazine, claimed that time was running out for some dotcoms …
Business 21 Mar 2000, 16:39
