26th April 2001 Archive

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No Joy from P2P vets for Sun's Jxta

Let's kill P2P - NYT

Sun wheeled out its Mount Rushmore of cerebral greats - Gage, Joy, Gosling - to herald the unveiling of its Jxta peer-to-peer project today. Announced by Bill Joy at the O'Reilly P2P conference in February, Jxta (pronounced "Juxta") is now live and we're awash with positioning papers, technical documentation and real …

Software 26 Apr 2001, 00:53
Vallance quits BT

Updated Replaced by Bland BBC man

BT's battered chairman, Sir Iain Vallance, has resigned after months of pressure from shareholders to step down. The man with his roots firmly in the good old GPO (General Posts Office) days said he would have jumped sooner had BT been able to find a suitable replacement. Sir Ian will be replaced by Sir Christopher Bland, the …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 07:53
Oracle ad hints at evil IBM/Informix scheme

'Error: this product requires DB2'

Oracle has answered IBM's announced $1 billion purchase of database management outfit Informix with a migration program for Informix users "who are searching for performance, scalability and database innovation not available with IBM DB2." For a limited time only, Oracle says, special financial incentives will be awarded to the …

Software 26 Apr 2001, 08:47
Tiscali buys LineOne

Waited six months and saved £340 million

Tiscali has bought British ISP, LineOne, for E100 million (£62.3 million) in paper and a small amount of cash. The deal was completed this morning - some six months after it was reported that joint-owners, BT and United News and Media, were looking for a buyer. At the time some said LineOne was worth E642.5 million (£400 …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 10:20
Roll up for the System Builders Summit – in Monaco (hurrah!)

Channel Flannel

The fourth annual Integrators Forum (now called System Builders Summit Europe) takes place on May 16-19 in Monte Carlo. This will gather the top 200 system builders in Europe from 26 countries, representing more than 30 per cent of the European market. Microsoft, AMD, Seagate, Pioneer, ATI, Hitachi Avenet, and Nvidia have …

Channel 26 Apr 2001, 10:31
Sun and HP to close

Relax - it's only for a week

Sun Microsystems will 'close' for a week beginning July 1, as part of a retrenchment plan. Employees will be asked to take mandatory leave, unpaid if they've already used up their holiday allocation. According to CBS Marketwatch, the move applies to all of Sun's US staff, and may possibly include overseas staff too. Hewlett …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 10:57
Home Office computer system slammed by report

'Waste of money'

The Home Office's computer system for the probation service has been savaged by an official report from the National Audit Office. Almost every aspect of the system - which was supposed to provide a national infrastructure for the probation service - has been criticised by the watchdog, adding another abject government IT …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 11:01
Space station computers crash

Updated In space no-one can hear you scream (at your Thinkpad)

NASA technicians have managed to restore communications with the International Space Station (ISS) after the failure of three command and control computers on board the craft. One machine is now fixed and ground controllers hope the mission can now carry on as normal. Life support systems and other automatic functions are not …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 11:17
Caldera announces layoffs

17 per cent to go

In a brief SEC filing Linux distributor has announced that it will lay off 32 of its 188 staff ahead of closing its acquisition of SCO's Server and Services businesses. Caldera will take a one-time charge of $450,000, about half of its quarterly income. Caldera wouldn't elaborate on whether the cuts were merger related, or …

Software 26 Apr 2001, 11:23
DiData buys yet another reseller

US no.6

Dimension Data has bought Matrix, Networking Group a networking reseller in North Carolina, for £16m in cash. Matrix is DiData's second acquisition in North Carolina and its six US reseller buy in 18 months. Matrix will fold into Premier, DiData's other NC dealership, which takes on the Dimension Data brand on May 1. London- …

Channel 26 Apr 2001, 11:25
Goodbye MS IE? AOL revs up for browser wars two

Maybe...

AOL, Microsoft’s biggest customer for Internet Explorer by a long chalk, finally seems on the brink of kissing the software goodbye - or alternatively, it’s just playing a little hard-ball. According to AOL documentation obtained by BetaNews, AOL staff have been busily compiling a list of IE-related sins committed by Microsoft, …

Software 26 Apr 2001, 11:31
Sega seeks profits

Will be back in the black this year, company claims

Sega will be back in the black this year, the company promised today after four years of losses. The company said it expects to post a full-year loss of ¥58.3 billion ($477.5 million) on sales of ¥260 billion ($2.13 billion). Central to Sega's financial turnaround is its shift toward software and away from hardware. Certainly …

Games Industry 26 Apr 2001, 11:37
Action grabs GlobalServe supply deal from SCH

Updated £15m over 3 years

Action Computer Supplies, currently enjoying a return to the black, has grabbed the UK supply contract for GlobalServe, a US company that specialises in IT management for multinationals. Action has grabbed the business from Compelsource, the former desktop services business of Compel. Compelsource lost the contract after it was …

Channel 26 Apr 2001, 11:37
Dixons' PC builder talks to The Reg

On the bridge of the Starship Centerprise

The Register has been given a quick tour of the Centerprise factory - the place where Dixon's Advent PCs get built. Here's what we found out. Around 20 per cent of Advents being built are P4 systems at the moment. The Centerprise factory in Basingstoke can churn out a maximum of 800 PCs in an eight-hour day if they've got 60- …

Channel 26 Apr 2001, 11:37
More Time shops shut

Is that 35 or 41 this year?

Time Computers is shutting more of its TimeTalk mobile phone shops this week. The company says the announcement is part of its strategy, clearly outlined during several press briefings and statements, for handling the consumer PC sales downturn. It is adding TimeTalk branded sections to its Time Computers, rather than having …

Channel 26 Apr 2001, 11:37
Shake some Action results

Flat sales, Web business grows

Action, the catalogue and online computer reseller, is crowing about a return to profit. For the six months to 28 February the company made pre-tax profits of £384,000 on sales of £137 million. But sales haven't grown - its turnover was £137 million for the six months to 29 February 2000, and it was recording a pre-tax profit …

Channel 26 Apr 2001, 11:37
ICANN gets its own cartoon

You'll like this

If you ever thought that the political shenanigans of the self-appointed guardians of the Internet, the ICANN "directors", should be made into a play or sitcom, you'll be delighted to see this cartoon that a Reg reader has just pointed us to. It's a bit low-tech and obviously a first try but still worth a peek if you know about …

Music and Media 26 Apr 2001, 11:42
The UK census computer: genius or disaster waiting to happen?

Well, we'll know soon enough

The deadline for the UK's census is Sunday and from that point it's down to 1,200 people stuck in a giant warehouse in Cheshire. The team are looking for a fast turnaround in processing the 33 million forms and so what have they done? Why, gone and spent £58 million on a computer of course. This is no ordinary computer though. …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 12:26
Hynix offers TFT LCD business to LG Philips

Including 3.5-generation TFT production lines

Hynix Semiconductor is offering to sell its TFT LCD production lines to LG Philips LCD. According to Digitimes the business is priced at one trillion won ($760 million). The deal would include Hynix's "three 3.5 generation TFT production lines". Hynix's TFT LCD operation specialises in making 14.1-inch panels for notebooks and …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 14:23
Amazon refuses to pull Bill Gates' review of Linux 7.0

Updated Because it's not offensive

Amazon.co.uk has refused to pull reviews of Red Hat Linux 7.0 Deluxe edition by Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds off its site because they are not offensive. Surprisingly, Bill Gates gave the software five out of five and was so impressed that he vowed not to use Windows again. Linus Torvalds, bizarrely, thinks very little of Red …

Music and Media 26 Apr 2001, 14:54
Intel's still got $11.7bn for capital spending/R&D

Not skimping this year

Chipzilla chief Craig Barrett has said the company plans to trouser-up $7.5 billion in capital spending, and $4.2 billion on R&D this year. Market watchers had expected the company to cut back on these investment areas because of the sluggish PC market, and the suffering US economy. Barrett was addressing reporters at a …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 14:57
‘Hijacked’ domain saga continues

Now up for sale on eBay

The domain of PR company Portfolio Metrica that mysteriously disappeared on Monday to be replaced by an American free ISP is now up for sale on eBay. We reported on Tuesday that according to the whois, the site www.portfoliocomms.com is now owned by one M. Duane from Wisconsin. The PR company was confused by the sudden …

Music and Media 26 Apr 2001, 15:11
GeForce3 price cuts kick in

Board makers start slashing

Elsa has responded to Nvidia’s GeForce3 price cuts and chopped the price of its Gladiac 920 board from £459.99 to £349.99. This is Elsa's suggested retail price, and it looks as though you'll be able to buy it £50 cheaper than this, but not just yet. Jungle.com has got it priced at £299.99 but you can't buy it for 34 days. Dabs …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 15:34
Talking Back To Happiness – how voice calls can save 3G

Content Not King

Europe's 3G disaster could be mitigated by getting phone users to spend a little longer each day on the phone talking. That's the opinion of AT&T Labs researcher says Andrew Odlyzko, author of the justifiably celebrated research paper Content Is Not King. Odlyzko's proposition is simple: historically more money has been spent …

Software 26 Apr 2001, 15:52
Vodafone faces profit warning

Admits 12 per cent of its customers don't exist

Vodafone is facing the prospect of another set of profit warnings after it admitted 12 per cent of its customers are "inactive" and haven't used their phones for three months. It also said that those still using their phones are spending less. Worldwide, eight million of its 83 million customers are "ghost" users. The blame of …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 16:24
Want to know about the technology on the space station?

NASA engineer writes to the Reg

Steve Husty, a senior software engineer who works for NASA on the portable computer systems used on the International Space Station, has written to correct us on aspects of our story about the failure of computers aboard the International Space Station. In the process he's provided us with an interesting explanation of the …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 16:31
WinXP product activation: is MS only kidding?

We're only going to go for you if you're very naughty indeed, says source...

Product Activation is probably the major doubt hanging over Windows XP, and it's therefore to be expected that people from within Microsoft will attempt to defend it. This week, HardOCP has an email which presumably emanates from a Microserf, and which seems to have sufficient background information about product activation for …

Software 26 Apr 2001, 20:30
3Com jilts Audrey

Refunds in Linen, Slate, Ocean, Meadow and Sunshine

3Com is to give customers who bought its Audrey Internet appliances a full refund after deciding to ditch the product. The $499 refund only applies to customers who bought one of the Audrey gadgets directly from 3Com, and not from one of its retailers. "We would continue to believe in its [Audrey's] potential, but the market …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 21:20
AMD the guerilla becomes virtual gorilla

Sanders looks for very graceful exit

After once again describing 2000 as "the most successful year in AMD's history" (sales grew 63 per cent), Sanders took questions from the floor today at a shareholder's meeting in New York. Topics ranged from 0.13 micron technology, his forthcoming resignation, flash memory, and Intel advertising. Sanders said AMD will start 0. …

Channel 26 Apr 2001, 21:26
EB defaced in porn hack

Not nice

Hackers posted some deeply unpleasant porn last night on the web site of a leading games retailer. Electronics Boutique (EB) took down its Web site, built on the IIS Web server platform, for repairs But surfers visiting its UK site early this morning were exposed to a full screen Windows popup of a Web site featuring …

Games Industry 26 Apr 2001, 21:45
NEC in Wham Bam to DRAM

But yes please to PCs

NEC Corp today reported profit up five-fold for the year, but said it would axe most of its DRAM production. Group net income grew to $463m on sales up 8.4 per cent to around $44bn for the year to March 31. But the company had a hard time in the second half of the year in the chip, PC and LCD markets. NEC said it had decided …

Business 26 Apr 2001, 21:49