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3rd July 2001 Archive

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  • Component price collapse takes toll on Bell Micro

    Q2 loss, cost-cutting underway

    Lower than expected sales "in all geographies" has propelled Bell Microproducts into a second quarter loss. In a preliminary report, the US-owned distie said it made an operating loss of $1.8m on sales of approximately$450 million. Sales were up 18 per cent on Q2 last year, but down 16 per cent on Q1's $534 million. The …

    Channel 3 Jul 2001, 09:33

  • Sony pulls PlayStation 2 production from Taiwan

    Gives in to US, Japanese govt demands

    The US and Japanese governments have demanded that Sony abandon its plan to outsource PlayStation 2 production to Taiwan. The reason? The console could be used for military purposes. So say sources cited by Taiwanese Web site DigiTimes, which also claims Sony has complied the with requests, halting contracts with local …

    Personal 3 Jul 2001, 09:59

  • DiData waves profit warning flag

    What took it so long?

    The only question is: what took it so long? Dimension Data, the giant networking equipment reseller, issued a profit warning today, citing tough market conditions in the US, the UK and Germany - where it is "predominantly product-led". The company says it will speed up the transition from being a mostly product reseller, to …

    Channel 3 Jul 2001, 10:18

  • State nixes GPS highway robbery

    Sic semper tyrannis

    A lucrative scam run by a greedy auto rental agency called Acme Rent-a-Car of New Haven, Connecticut, whereby drivers were "fined" for exceeding speed limits in cars equipped with global positioning system (GPS) receivers, has been shut down by the state Department of Consumer Protection. The enterprising Acme included in …

    Data Networking 3 Jul 2001, 10:18

  • Intel to launch first Xscale in September

    Palm lined up as a customer?

    Intel will unveil a new processor based on its ARM-derived XScale architecture in September. And the chip giant may have signed up Palm among its first major customers. The chip will ultimately take the chip's speed up to 1GHz, the chip giant's Taiwan subsidiary said yesterday. However, the version that's expected to be launch …

    Channel 3 Jul 2001, 10:31

  • Tiny Computers ditches AMD

    Tiny loves Intel 4ever

    Tiny Computers has ditched AMD to become a 100 per cent Intel-based system vendor once again. The company made the decision on 28 May and has since sold off all its remaining AMD Athlon based boxes. Tiny introduced Athlon and Duron machines in September 2000. Colin Greene, Tiny UK's marketing director, said the decision was …

    Personal 3 Jul 2001, 10:32

  • IBM Global Services lays off 1,000

    Still hiring people with the right skills

    IBM's Global Services group is laying off 1,000 people who don't have the necessary skills to develop its business. Despite the involuntary redundancies, IBM will continue to hire people and a spokesman for the firm told the Wall Street Journal that the layoffs are no indication of the current health of its business. Last year …

    Business 3 Jul 2001, 10:49

  • Chris Gent's generosity continues – for himself

    How d'you fancy £800,000 Chris? I do, Chris

    Chris Gent's generosity knows no bounds. Having announced a massive share option scheme for Vodafone staff yesterday, he promptly treated himself to the same. And just to deflect claims he was going soft, this immodest man awarded himself a disproportionate amount of shares. Eight million of them. Which, at the price of 157.5p …

    Business 3 Jul 2001, 11:01

  • Hynix warns it may cut chip production

    That'll bump up memory prices

    Korean chipmaker Hynix Semiconductor has warned that the current downturn in the IT industry may force it to reduce manufacturing. "As the situation is bad we could consider (cutting production)", a Hynix spokeswoman told Bloomberg. "We understand other companies are also considering cuts," she added. Korean semiconductor …

    Channel 3 Jul 2001, 11:06

  • Systems Union touts reverse profits warning

    Better than expected

    Systems Union Group, the UK supplier of mid-range accountancy software systems, is doing better than analyst forecasts. In a trading statement issued today, the owner of the SunSystems and Pegasus brands, said half-year profits before EBITDA will be "well in excess of £1 million". It has also banked a £1.5m profit from the sale …

    Business 3 Jul 2001, 11:07

  • Napster still down

    Blames database fixes

    Napster's music sharing service remained unavailable this morning as the company struggles to implement the latest version of its software. Napster shut its service down yesterday. It said the suspension was temporary pending upgrades to the company's music databases. The shutdown follows the release of new Napster client code …

    Music and Media 3 Jul 2001, 11:12

  • UMC to put chip plants in stasis

    Production suspended pending market upturn

    UMC is preparing to suspend production at two 8in fabs while demand remains depressed. However, the company told employees that none of them will lose their jobs as a result of the move. And in a letter to the workforce, UMC chairman Robert Tsao encouraged staff to remain confident in the company's ability to cope with the …

    Channel 3 Jul 2001, 11:34

  • AMD makes up with Alcatel

    Friends again

    AMD has settled its legal dispute Alcatel over the latter's attempt to pull out of a Flash memory supply contract. AMD had claimed that Alcatel's move was a breach of contract and having failed to reach a compromise sued the French company on those grounds in April. The two-year supply contract was signed last year. The terms …

    Channel 3 Jul 2001, 12:06

  • Agfa ePhoto CL34

    Review Digital camera

    The popularity of digital cameras appears to know no bounds at the moment, with many PC owners trading in their film cameras for digital models. The latest film-free snapper vying for your custom is Agfa's ePhoto CL34, a 1.3Mp (megapixel) unit with a top resolution of 1280x960 pixels. What's more, it can capture short bursts of …

    Personal 3 Jul 2001, 12:27

  • Dotcoms still falling like flies

    53 drop dead in June

    Dotcoms are still falling like flies, with 53 dropping dead in June. This figure, which brought the total so far this year to 330, compares to 17 shutdowns in June 2000. A total of 36 Net outfits shut their doors in the first six months of last year. There has been a steady stream of major dotcom closures this year, with …

    e-Business 3 Jul 2001, 12:41

  • RIP Lotus

    We had some good times

    Despite IBM's water-tight-lipped approach to queries regarding Lotus, we have fairly conclusive proof that Lotus has finally succumbed to Big Blue's paternal protection and from July will be little more than name. What proof? Well reader Ben Rose has pointed out that all the people he knows at Lotus have started dishing out new …

    Software 3 Jul 2001, 12:43

  • Sir Stanley Kalms' Desert Island Discs

    He did it 'My Way'

    Sir Stanley Kalms, executive chairman of the Dixons Group, appeared on the Radio 4 institution Desert Island Discs on Sunday morning. Kalms is preparing to stand down and take a non-executive position with the company at its AGM in September 2002. He'll then be two months short of his 71st birthday and he's spent all his …

    Channel 3 Jul 2001, 12:47

  • GMTV Mac competition site excludes Mac users

    PC owners only

    British breakfast time TV channel GMTV has five Apple iBooks up for grabs in a competition hosted by its Web site. The only snag: Mac users who fancy one of the new portables and want to enter online are excluded from doing so. Actually, the compo isn't too friendly to PC users either. Clicking on the appropriate button causes …

    Mac Channel 3 Jul 2001, 13:14

  • Red Hat guns for MS database space

    With a little help from IBM friends

    Red Hat European VP Colin Tenwick called in to the IT-Analysis HQ to fill the company in on the impending launch of Red Hat Database. It seems that the firm is gunning for Microsoft. I understand you've got a database coming out, can you tell us a bit about it? The database will be shipping on July 10th. In essence it is …

    Software 3 Jul 2001, 13:20

  • Unicode bug restyled as DoS tool

    Big Poop drops a big one on IIS

    The infamous Unicode IIS Web server exploit can also be used as a denial of service attack tool. Gray hat hacker Big Poop has published a site on the Internet explaining how the Unicode bug, which permits the execution of commands on a Web server, can be used to tie up system resources so that legitimate users can't access a …

    Security 3 Jul 2001, 14:01

  • Web proves New Labour has turned back on socialism

    Social theory non grata

    Here's a new use for the Internet and Web sites - an efficient lie-detector for politicians. You won't have failed to notice that the Labour party, sorry New Labour party has become a little more right wing than it used to be. Hence the word "new". Of course, it has never been daft enough to say it is turning its back on Marx …

    Bootnotes 3 Jul 2001, 14:30

  • Checkpoint Software misses sales expectations

    Competition too tough?

    Check Point Software has announced its Q2 sales have missed expectations. The firewall firm said revenue for the period ending 30 June was $140 million to $142 million, below the predicted $149.5 million. Sales for the period a year earlier were $90.7 million. The full results will be posted on 23 July. Maybe its sales were …

    Business 3 Jul 2001, 14:38

  • Intel ships 1.8GHz P4, 900MHz Celeron

    Fills out P4 line

    Intel released 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz Pentium 4 processors yesterday as we'd been expecting for a while and the company broadly signalled last week. The chip giant also shipped a 900MHz desktop Celeron and an 850MHz Mobile Celeron. The two P4s are priced at $294 and $562, respectively, in 1000-unit batches. The 1.8GHz price point …

    Channel 3 Jul 2001, 14:50

  • Broadband Britain: the inside truth

    Has the govt got the stomach to deliver it?

    Who would want to be in Peter Radley's shoes today? In the FT yesterday the Government advisor and head of Alcatel UK aired his views about the future provision of broadband services in Britain. He said nothing new in his suggestion that broadband infrastructures - be it DSL, satellite, cable or wireless - could be run by just …

    Telecoms 3 Jul 2001, 15:11

  • Steve Gibson picks a fight with Microsoft and The Register

    Loud and security-ignorant the pair of us

    Security consultant Steve Gibson - whose claims that Microsoft's latest OS, Windows XP, will destabilise the Internet we have covered extensively - has posted another DDoS diatribe following a conference call with the Beast of Redmond's security team. In an extremely rare occurrence, however, The Register has been clumped with …

    Security 3 Jul 2001, 15:18

  • More Easy riders on the domain name storm

    Stelios' policy finds some unhappy punters

    Well, it would seem that the Easy Group's attempt to take over domains beginning with "easy" has not found favour with a number of readers who have taken it upon themselves to register "easy" URLs and then email us with the details. As such, we have Matthew Blades saying he has registered www.easylitigation.com (and noting that …

    Music and Media 3 Jul 2001, 15:25

  • Cellphone giants launch mobile gaming initiative

    Once more, this time with Nokia

    Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens and now Nokia have launched their joint programme to develop a standard format for cellphone-based multiplayer games. The first three partners announced last March their intention to announce that that they were going to develop such a standard last. Desperate to drive interest in 2.5G and 3G …

    Data Networking 3 Jul 2001, 16:07

  • BBC publicly mulls idea of charging for Internet programmes

    A classic piece of anti-news for you

    The BBC has reported on itself suggesting that it may adopt a pay-per-view approach to future Internet content. In a classic piece of testing the water, Auntie has written various stories on the idea, sparking the rest of us idiotic press to follow suit. Hence this story. Basically, the BBC has said it may have to charge in the …

    Music and Media 3 Jul 2001, 16:20

  • Gameplay sells subsidiary for $1

    A new record

    Gameplay has sold off its subsidiary, which developed multi-player/multi-platform technology, for $1. This represents a new record for Gameplay. It managed to sell its UK-based boxed games business for £1 in May. An Israeli investor group is buying the Toga Holdings unit, which contains the gaming technology developer Gameplay …

    Games Industry 3 Jul 2001, 16:35

  • BT to target gamers

    Sssshhh! It's a secret

    BT is looking to target online gamers with two Net access services, according to internal documents seen by El Reg. The telco is looking to offer BT Together Gaming, which is believed to be an unmetered narrowband offering specifically targeted at gamers. It is also looking at a faster 128Kbps service dubbed "Project Pistachio …

    Games Industry 3 Jul 2001, 16:37

  • Caldera offers licence olive branch

    Free beer for all!

    Caldera has further loosened its pay-to-play policy. Non-commercial users won't need to pay the $59 per seat license, at all, as free ISO images of OpenLinux 3.1 will be made available on Caldera's FTP site. Caldera introduced per-seat licensing with the introduction of its latest distro last week. The situation was never as …

    Software 3 Jul 2001, 19:24

  • Apple clubs Cube

    Ends production indefinitely... maybe

    Apple has canned the Power Mac Cube, the company finally admitted today. The 8in square computer was launched less than a year ago. In a terse statement, Apple certainly said it has decided to "suspend production of the Power Mac G4 Cube indefinitely". But the company also said that there is a "small chance" that it will ship …

    Mac Channel 3 Jul 2001, 22:14