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14th April 2000 Archive

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  • Who's afraid of the big bad dotcom?

    New wave of e-firms won't rattle old economy after all

    Dotcoms don't pose the threat to traditional businesses as was once feared, according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Instead, traditional businesses which embrace the Net and e-commerce are seen as the next major movers and shakers in the business world. This reverses previous scaremongering which warned that traditional …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 07:46

  • Sun shines as toothsome McNealy uses bottom word

    Scaling the heights

    As widely expected, at least here at The Register, Scott McNealy's firm Sun Microsystems (ticker SUNW) had a storming quarter, managing to show a 94 per cent net profit on vastly increased sales of its non-Intel servers. The figures, which buck quite a few server trends, caused McNealy to utter the immortal words: "We kicked …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 07:48

  • Nvidia outlines Euro board sales strategy

    It's sort of Nvidia Inside...

    Roy Taylor, sales director of Nvidia Europe, today outlined the firm's strategy to ensure PC mind share for its graphics chips. In some respects, Nvidia is following the route taken by Intel to develop its business model, he says. The graphics chip vendor has only three major chip customers in Europe -- Elsa, Guillemot and 3D …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 08:33

  • WAP phone virus threat

    Trust us, we're antivirus experts

    Sellers of antivirus products are caring, sharing folks - why else would they constantly remind us that viruses are nasty, dangerous things? And it would appear that when it comes to WAP phones, viruses will also pose a major threat, says the boss of a company which by some strange freak of nature just happens to offer WAP virus …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 08:34

  • Tiny gets bigger in US showroom push

    Tiny story (actually, a story about Tiny -it's average length)

    One of the UK's biggest PC manufacturers, Tiny, has stepped up its State-side operations with the opening of 32 West Coast showrooms. It plans another 65 by the end of the year. US customers will also be able to order online or by phone. Tiny has built its reputation on in-store help - customers can try out the range of …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 08:57

  • Disaster hits Intel Coppermine supply

    The Dell domino has supplies assured

    PC manufacturers and distributors have learned from Intel that there will be a massive shortage of Coppermine processors until June. The problem is at its acutest on the Pentium III desktop range, but is particularly bad for chips running at speeds over 700MHz, sources says. However, The Register understands that Dell, a premier …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 08:59

  • PR gaffe of the week: Gates gives $10m to Capitol Hill

    MS on Trial. Not Foundation spends money on making founder look bad. Right.

    Just the week after Bill Gates toured Washington in the wake of Judge Jackson's guilty verdict, it's been revealed that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to donate $10 million towards the construction of a visitors' centre on Capitol Hill. As the Foundation is nothing to do with Microsoft (no, really...) then the donation …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 09:40

  • Intel still semiconductor Bigzilla

    It's top of the pops

    Intel has kept its number one place in the chip pecking order in 1999, with a worldwide market share of 15.9 per cent. Sales of semiconductors amounted to $168.7 billion last year, a rise from the previous year of over 21 per cent, a Dataquest survey reveals. But while Intel stayed worldwide top dog, other players shuffled …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 10:00

  • Grauniad bang up to date on CeBIT

    How to keep up with technology. Not.

    Every week, typo-filled British national newspaper The Grauniad produces a supplement called The Editor, which summarises important and interesting stories of the week. And just to show the hacks over in Farringdon have got their fingers on the pulse, they've just produced a report on massive trade show CeBIT, held each year in …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 10:19

  • VNU closes in on ZD Europe

    Leaks could force early disclosure

    It's kind of official. Stein & Co, new owner of the Ziff-Davis paper empire, is to dispose of its European operations. And word on several streets is Dutch publishing giant VNU is the buyer. News of the deal has not been confirmed - but that's the hot rumour doing the rounds of both VNU and ZD UK. An internal memo circulated to …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 10:44

  • Metallica sues Napster

    So I dub thee Unforgiven...

    Corporate thrash rockers Metallica yesterday accused Napster of effectively trading in stolen goods when it filed a copyright infringement suit against the digital music seek, locate and download software company. Worse, the suit, filed with the US District Court for the Central District of California, claims Napster is a " …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 11:04

  • Tags for your fags (and perfume and PC parts)

    Tune into high-quality goods

    Ever bought extra components for your computer, plugged them in and decided that the quality is somewhat suspect? [No, I just buy my PCs from mail-order companies - Ed]. Remember that Chanel No.5 you bought from a reputable salesman standing on Oxford Street - she never forgave you for that did she? (Rash: 3 days; Smell: 3 baths …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 11:15

  • Caminogate: Will the horror never end?

    Soldering irons at dawn for lucky Intel 820 owners

    Intel's chipset from hell, the i820, has projectile vomited in Chipzilla's face yet again. The cursed Cape Cod mobo hit the headlines again this week, this time Intel blaming memory manufacturers for problems with the Serial Presence Detect (SPD) chip included on new SDRAM DIMMS. The SPD holds information about the speed and …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 11:26

  • Sony to add hard drive, modem to US PlayStation 2

    Firing shots across X-Box, Dreamcast bows

    Sony will ship the US version of the PlayStation 2 with an 8GB hard drive and a modem, an unnamed company insider told Bloomberg today, a month ahead of Sony's official announcement. Bloomberg's deep-throat didn't say whether Sony's hand was forced by Microsoft, which announced its hard drive-equipped X-Box console last month, …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 11:36

  • Sony to launch wireless data network 1 July

    Business-oriented service to cover six Japanese cities

    Sony is putting the final touches to its Bit-Drive business-oriented broadband communications service ahead of its 1 July launch. According to a Nikkei report, Bit-Drive is based on a wireless network capable of shifting data around at a rate of 1.5Mbps - not quite up to Ethernet standards, perhaps, but rather better than …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 12:22

  • Reader of the decade (until next week)

    Ooh you make us live - you're our best friend (dah dah dah dah)

    And so today we award the (perhaps premature) Reader of the Decade award to one Ed Ross (stand up, Ed). Ed has had the good sense to set up a webring for Register readers and welcomes you all to join here. After the initial buzz had worn off though, concern grew. Aren't webrings a little disturbing? (What do they do? What do Reg …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 12:55

  • UK overclockers turn up the heat

    Hybrid geek/reseller Stokes up a fire

    Overclocking – that strange hobby of (mostly) US-based geeks and propeller-heads. The preserve of people who can't resist fiddling with stuff but who aren't really to be taken seriously. Maybe once, but that's all changing. If you want proof that the overclocking sector in the UK is coming of age, look no further than Stoke- …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 12:58

  • BBC publishes site-gaggers guide

    Good story, but...

    The Register tips its beak to the BBC for publishing a step-by-step guide on how to get a Web site gagged - and at worst, land some poor sod in court. Gagging the Net in Three Easy Steps sets out in plain English exactly how to use and abuse the current legal flux which suggests that ISPs in Britain are liable for what is …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 13:33

  • Weenie jibe in FrontPage leaves MS web servers wide open

    Unauthorised, employee-written back doors - whatever will they think of next?

    Web servers running Microsoft Internet Information Server with FrontPage 98 extensions have a built-in back door, thanks to some code with abusive comments about Netscape that was inserted in the software by a Microsoft coder. Microsoft has acknowledged that the code can act as a back door password, making it a lot easier for …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 14:46

  • VA Linux Systems disputes IDC server market findings

    We are a top-five Linux server vendor, VA insists

    Linux hardware specialist VA Linux Systems claims IDC's latest survey of the Linux server market is wrong - at least as far as its own position in the chart goes. IDC's survey put Compaq at the head of the top five Linux server vendors, followed by IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and, perhaps surprisingly, Fujitsu Siemens. VA, along …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 15:04

  • OS/2 lives! IBM turns life support back on

    Analysis Graham celebrates with a long piece we weren't expecting

    OS/2 lives - albeit somewhat belatedly. After years of neglect and silence IBM has promised annual refreshes of client and server versions, and consolidations of fix packs on CD. It's not exactly what you'd call a huge vote of confidence, but it's quite a jump for a company that for years has given every impression of wanting to …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 16:09

  • NSI Serbian ‘hack’ is simple email spoof

    Victim of old-fashioned fraud and deception

    Network Solutions has denied reports that 2,000 dotcom Web sites were hacked by cyberterrorists giving them access to personal and financial information. A senior spokeswoman for Network Solutions in the US told The Register: "Network Solutions seems to have been identified as the villain here -- but we're the victims as well. " …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 16:18

  • Spiked WSJ story lives on at ZDNet UK

    Get out of the pub, suckers - you're in trouble...

    Remember that Wall Street Journal story that disappeared suddenly earlier this week? The one that said the US government side intended to ask for Microsoft to be forced to grant free licences to the source code for Internet Explorer? Well, you can still read it if you want to. Actually, there was a clue to where you could still …

    Business 14 Apr 2000, 17:18