23rd May 2001 Archive
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Investors mis-interpret McAfee/MS .NET deal
It's not what they think
A mass delusion about the significance of a press release swept through Wall Street Tuesday, driving shares of anti-virus outfit McAfee up more than fifty-four percent on news that the company would integrate Microsoft .NET technologies into its ASP (Application Service Provider) services. The 'strategic partnership' announced …
Software 23 May 2001, 03:52
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VA Linux revenues crash – 41% down
Demand goes South
The fortunes of Wall Street's Linux poster children, Red Hat and VA Linux Systems, continue to diverge. While Red Hat boasted of bullish figures, VA yesterday reported a drop in sales of 41 per cent on last year's equivalent period. Revenue for the most recent quarter was $20.3 million, down from $34.6 million in the …
Software 23 May 2001, 09:47
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Datatec directors pay up on insider trading charges
And other channel action
Two Datatec directors have paid fines of 1 million rand (think 10 rand to the pound) to square insider trading allegations levelled at them by South Africa regulators. The pair, executive chairman and founder Jens Montanana and finance director Robin Rindel deny the charges but say it was easier to settle. Datatec, a …
Channel 23 May 2001, 10:16
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Euro politician spams fellow MEPs
Oops
European politician and anti-spam campaigner, Elly Plooij, has been left somewhat red-faced after admitting that she spammed 1,000 mail boxes at the European Parliament with a massive 3MB file. Ms Plooij, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Holland, sent an invitation advertising a search engine product on behalf of …
Music and Media 23 May 2001, 10:50
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Acequote promises instant distie price comparisons
Webpilot lands in UK
Acequote.com has announced an addition to its online B2B marketplace for the channel. Instead of resellers ploughing through every distributor's site via Acequote in order to compare quotes for orders, they are now being promised a system that will flash all the distie prices up on screen in the form of a table. The aim, …
Channel 23 May 2001, 10:56
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Nvidia Q1 revenues continue upwards
Earnings would have too but for 3dfx purchase
Nvidia seems to have handsomely beaten the chip industry's downturn: last night it announced much-increased revenues and earnings for its first quarter, which ended 29 April. So, revenues were up 62.2 per cent year-on-year and 10.4 per cent up on the previous quarter. Nvidia reported Q1 2002 sales of $240.9 million - it posted …
Business 23 May 2001, 10:58
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DDR chipset prices slump
Vendor rivalry, poor demand, Intel to blame
Taiwan's chipset makers are slashing prices on their DDR SDRAM chipsets in response to cool demand for DDR systems, intense rivalry between them, and the imminent arrival of Intel's SDRAM-based chipset, the 845 aka Brookdale. So say the major mobo makers, according to a DigiTimes report. The board builders say DDR chipsets from …
Channel 23 May 2001, 11:32
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Dell's first Itanium server is mainly for development
It's the Quarrymen not the Beatles
Dell said Intel's Itanium processor will largely be a development platform when it detailed its plans to release high-end servers based on the chip. The lack of applications that can exploit the processors 64-bit architecture, and users natural desire to test the waters before putting systems into production mean that the …
Business 23 May 2001, 11:32
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CMG builds anti ‘wireless virus’ alliance
Brightmail tries to nip problem in the bud
CMG has signed up with filtering company Brightmail to build spam and virus filtering software into its wireless systems. In much the same way as email has attracted numerous damaging or irritating proponents, the forthcoming boom in wireless communications is expected to produce its own variants. CMG offers a large array of …
Security 23 May 2001, 11:33
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Political cybersquatting: who owns what
Updated It's a right old mess
Following on from the story of the LibDems owning and pulling the site named after Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru, here is a rundown of other party sites owned by people other than themselves. We'll update it as more turn up. Incidentally, the parties' real sites can be found using the .org.uk endings. Labour Newlabour. …
Business 23 May 2001, 11:35
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Panrix boss starts plugging new Panrix business
He's nearly bought the old one out of administration
The former MD of insolvent system builder Panrix is advertising his new business on the website of his old company. And he's promising all his creditors will be paid. Gulberg Panesar's latest venture is called Panrix Technologies - which is not a major leap away from his old business. The statement on Panrix's website says: " …
Channel 23 May 2001, 11:38
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Oracle sullied by political shenanigans
Rules is rules
Oracle - that most conservative of IT companies - has been dragged into the rather messy and sleazy world of politics. According to the FT an Oracle "advert" that appears on the Labour Party Web site is now subject to an investigation by the Electoral Commission - the body that oversees fair play during elections. New rules …
Business 23 May 2001, 11:48
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Sony, Fujitsu, NEC pledge support for AMD
They're not all backing Athlon 4, though
Sony, Fujitsu and NEC have joined Compaq and Hewlett-Packard (just about) to pledge their support for AMD's Mobile Athlon 4 processor. Or are they? You might well think so from a cursory look at AMD's release announcing the three Japanese vendors' support. A closer look shows that only NEC is actually planning to release an …
Channel 23 May 2001, 12:17
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Storage margins to shrink predicts Dell
Vendors push SANs as NAS becomes commodity
A senior Dell executive is predicting the Network Attached Storage (NAS) market is becoming commoditised in much the same way as the low-end server market. Michael Lambert, senior vice president of Dell's Enterprise Systems Group, said that the capacity of storage devices had doubled over the course of the last year and with …
Business 23 May 2001, 12:18
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Students swap beer for the Net
Web addiction messing up young minds
Students have swapped beer for the Net, with up to fifteen per cent claiming Internet addiction is hurting their studies. A survey, carried out on students at Rutgers University in New Jersey, found first years were most likely to see their work suffer due to uncontrollable Net use. Of the 570 students quizzed, between ten and …
Music and Media 23 May 2001, 12:27
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Multiple flaws in Cisco router software exposed
History repeating - or time for the next update?
Cisco Systems has warned that multiple vulnerability with the operating system used by its 600 series routers leave its vulnerable to a barrage of attacks. Last night, Cisco issued an alert which admitted that 600 series routers was subject to not one, not two, not three but four potentially serious flaws. It advised users to …
Data Networking 23 May 2001, 13:32
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250 ADSL exchanges go tits up
Still, nice weather we're having at the moment
Almost a third of BT's ADSL-enabled exchanges went tits up yesterday leaving hundreds of users without access to the Web. Around 250 exchanges (out of 839 exchanges)suffered the outage which occurred at around 3.00pm (BST) yesterday afternoon. Most were back up by late evening. However, two exchanges were still flat on their …
Music and Media 23 May 2001, 14:16
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Palm processor to incorporate Sony Memory Stick
Motorola licences MS for future DragonBalls
Motorola has licensed Sony's Memory Stick solid-state storage system and will support the technology directly through its PDA-oriented DragonBall processor. Essentially, that means building MS slot control circuitry onto the processor. For PDA developers, Motorola's move makes it much easier to add a MS slot to their devices. …
Channel 23 May 2001, 14:19
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Tiny to undercut Dixons through in-store online sales
Upgrades the route from PC doldrums
Tiny Computers is planning to ride out the PC market downturn by heavily pushing accessories and peripherals to its customers. It is putting touch-screen order consoles in each of its shops. Customers then place their order, print off a receipt and return home. Delivery will be in the next three to four days. Why would a …
Channel 23 May 2001, 14:21
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FBI cybersleuths incompetent – Congress
Keystone Cops ride again
The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) has been shamed in a US Congress General Accounting Office (GAO) report which characterizes the federal cybersleuths as un-original players preoccupied with trivial matters, and unable to articulate timely warnings. The whopping 108-page critique finds the NIPC …
Security 23 May 2001, 14:53
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BSA snitch pockets £4,000
Grasses on Scottish pirates
An industry snitch has pocketed £4,000 after grassing on a Scottish IT company for using pirated software. Dumfries-based outfit Frazier International Group agreed to pay the Business Software Alliance (BSA) £40,000 after being caught using "a number of items" of software it either didn't have a license for, or for which it had …
Business 23 May 2001, 14:57
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Acer licenses Palm OS
Swapping Palm for Windows CE?
Taiwan's Acer has licensed the Palm OS for a new line of PDAs. Acer already offers a PDA, based on Windows CE. It's not yet clear whether the Palm-based machines will replace the CE devices or be offered alongside them. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but an Acer spokesman has said that the arrangement will …
Business 23 May 2001, 15:27
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VAT = Violent Arcade-game Tax?
Threat to public good
Germany has a somewhat unenviable reputation as the most trigger-happy nation in Europe when it comes to censorship of violent games, with many having to be edited for release in the country or getting banned altogether. Unreal Tournament, for example, had all of its human characters replaced by robots who "bleed" oil, while …
Games Industry 23 May 2001, 15:28
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Reg WinXP beta system virus defences breached
WinXP diaries The good news - they can't get out. The bad news - we can't kill them either...
How safe is Microsoft's new approach to viruses? Sort of safe, but not entirely helpful, it would appear. Not one virus but two seem to have slid through the deflector shields of my Office XP installation, and while they're under control, catching them and killing them is a bit of a puzzle right now. For experimental reasons I' …
Software 23 May 2001, 15:37
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Aimster to appeal against AOL domain decision
Will justice prevail?
Aimster is to appeal against the National Arbitration Forum's decision that it has to hand over its aimster.com, aimstertv.com and aimstertv.net domains because they allegedly infringe on AOL's Instant Messenger trademark. "I'm going to appeal this decision. It's prejudiced and causes us irreparable damage," said Aimster's CEO …
Music and Media 23 May 2001, 15:44
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Westcoast loses MD Paul Cook
Updated More Bermuda Triangle goings on in channel
UK reseller Westcoast has lost its MD Paul Cook after just two years. Andy Dow, Westcoast commercial director, confirmed Cook left the Reading outfit today. According to Dow, the departure was "totally amicable and totally mutual". The reseller has not found a replacement for Cook, and has no plans to appoint one. His MD job …
Channel 23 May 2001, 15:46
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Emailing banker bonks his Korean chickies
Claire Swires - swallow your heart out
A City financier from London has resigned after a sexually explicit email charting his sexpolits in Korea was forwarded around the world. Mirroring events that turned "yummy" Claire Swires into a household name overnight, Peter Chung's email was so entertaining his friends forwarded it on their friends...and so on. That was a …
Music and Media 23 May 2001, 15:49
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Mandrake refocuses on Linux business
Newsforge interview
Here's a NewsForge exclusive email interview with MandrakeSoft CEO Jacques Le Marois about what has been going on in the company recently, and where Mandrake hopes to go in the future. The format is loose; Jacques wrote his own answers without help from PR people. He is speaking straight from the heart here, with the passion and …
Software 23 May 2001, 16:13
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Sharp Linux PDA to debut at Java One
Launch to rally Java coders' support
Sharp's upcoming Linux-based Zaurus PDA will be given its first public outing next month at Sun's Java One conference, the Japanese giant has said. Java is the device's main programming language. Sharp hopes the thousands of Java coders out there will rush to the device, write software for it and allow the company to make good …
Business 23 May 2001, 16:28
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More woe over Easy CD Creator
It's just keeps coming
We're getting exhausted covering all the problems associated with Roxio's Easy CD Creator. To recap: if you download and install version five of the software on Win2K, you may find yourself without a computer. Or version four come to that. To escape the blue screen of death and a complete rebuild, you will need to custom- …
Software 23 May 2001, 16:33
