9th August 2001 Archive
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Gateway pulls out of UK and Ireland
Heaven's Gateway
Gateway, the US PC maker, is shutting down UK and Irish operations, with the loss of 1,200 jobs. The company has confirmed its intention to cease manufacturing in Ireland and also to close down its European headquarters in Dublin. It is to repay in full IR£20m in grants made by the Irish government. The company has seen sales …
Business 9 Aug 2001, 09:00
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Shooting Rampage disrupts Reg ops
Watching the Detectives
Vulture Central is closed this morning, while police investigate a shoooting. Maddox Street, in London's West End, where our offices are based, is taped off while police await the forensics team. In the meantime, most Reg journos are milling about nearby coffee shops. Normal service should be resumed later today - that's if …
Bootnotes 9 Aug 2001, 09:18
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Compaq accuses brokers of $20m rebate fraud
Court action
Compaq is sueing three dealer principals for the recovery of $20m in rebates allegedly defrauded from the company. Compaq accuses Harry Martin and Shafiq Ahhmed of Millenium Technology Group, a Virginia-based computer broker, and Stephen Pridemore, of South Carolina Creative Resources Group Inc, of conspiring to "defraud Compaq …
Channel 9 Aug 2001, 10:14
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NTL and Telewest get close, real close
Only a matter of time before two becomes one
NTL and Telewest are preparing to snuggle-up closer together ahead of long-term plans to a create a monster cable operator, the FT reported today. The two cablecos are already jumping to bed together with a joint marketing campaign to push broadband services. It's just one of a number of initiatives being explored that will …
Business 9 Aug 2001, 10:16
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Germans out-sauce Brits in porn hunt
Something about manual workers
One in four UK home Net users visited porn sites in June, according to the latest stats from Internet monitoring company, NetValue. It found that 3.8 million home Net users spent more than 45 minutes sniffing round XXX sites. However, the UK was out-sauced by Net users in Germany. There, 5.3 million home Net users spent more …
Music and Media 9 Aug 2001, 10:55
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Sun to resell Hitachi storage
Distie disk deal
As rumoured, Sun has struck a deal to resell Hitachi Data Systems storage kit. HDS already provides hardware for Hewlett Packard, but Sun is more reliant on its Japanese storage partner than HP, as the deal covers software too. Sun will sell HDS Lightning 9900 series rebadged as the Sun StorEdge 9000, and will jointly man three …
Hardware 9 Aug 2001, 10:59
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Viking for sale
Retaining Bank
Life in the DRAM business is getting tougher, and the latest to feel the squeeze is Viking Components. The Californian memory assembler is exploring its "strategic alternatives"with a little help from an investment bank, The Orange County Business Journal reports. In other words the company is up for sale. Citing an unnamed …
Channel 9 Aug 2001, 11:25
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Corel buys SoftQuad, acquires XML brains trust
Back on the acquisition trail
Corel is looking more perky than peaky these days, and after a long illness has regained its appetite for gobbling up small software companies. Corel has agreed to acquire SoftQuad, best known as the author of the venerable validating HTML editor HotMetalPro, in a stock deal worth $36m. SoftQuad actually made its first SGML …
Software 9 Aug 2001, 11:32
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Dixons boss blasts ‘absurd’ EU and UK laws
Costing the consumer
Dixons' boss Sir Stanley Kalms has vented his anger at the government and EU legislation in his company's annual report. He is not happy about European waste recycling rules, UK Sunday trading laws, the UK Consumer Credit Act, and the Town and Country Planning Act. Sir Stan feels his retail group is hamstrung by "unworkable" …
Channel 9 Aug 2001, 11:37
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Ex-BT man to head Level 3 in Europe
How could he Rafuse?
Brady Rafuse has been named president of Level 3 Communications in Europe, the company confirmed today. Rafuse joined Level 3 as senior VP, European sales and marketing, in December 2000 having held a senior position with Concert. Previously, Rafuse was with BT, which he joined in 1986. In a statement Rafuse said: "Having …
Business 9 Aug 2001, 12:05
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Natwest loan cut floors EMH
Materially impaired
European Micro Holdings, the broker of top brand computer hardware, borrows money from Natwest to buy its stock. But last week the bank reduced its exposure to the distie: in future it will lend only 25 per cent of the value of the inventory bought by EMH, unlike the past where it lent the entire amount. On Friday, August 3, …
Channel 9 Aug 2001, 12:35
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Robots learn greed is good
Computers 1: Traders 0
Wall Street traders have been forced to eat humble pie after computers wiped the floor with them in an experiment. In a trading simulation which pitted the wits of half a dozen of New York's sharpest operators against six robots, the machines came out clear winners. By close of trade the machines had made seven per cent more …
Software 9 Aug 2001, 12:39
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Police smash world's biggest child porn site
100 arrests
US cops have arrested more than 100 people for subscribing to a child porn Internet site, and expect more arrests to follow. The authorities have called it the biggest ever child porn ring, with more than 250,000 subscribed to the site. The site was run from Texas but hosted in Russia and Indonesia. After a two-year …
Music and Media 9 Aug 2001, 12:43
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ATI R200, R300 roadmap spied
R200 to replace Radeon and much, much more
ATI's roadmap has leaked out of the company and onto the Web, bringing details of the upcoming R200 chip, likely to ship as the Radeon 2, and its successor, the R300. As expected, the R200 is due to ship in September alongside a lesser version, the RV200. The R200 will be fabbed at 0.15 micron, support DirectX 8.1 and provide …
Channel 9 Aug 2001, 12:49
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How XP WPA will squeeze more money out of businesses
It's the people who don't have to deal with it who'll get screwed...
Microsoft has published a "technical" bulletin on Windows Product Activation technology, but it's essentially a piece of PR fluff that doesn't tell us anything new, and that's light years away from the detailed expose Fully Licensed published a while back. Microsoft's effort was promised after that, and turns out to be just an …
Software 9 Aug 2001, 13:14
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Welsh politician resigns over newsgroup rantings
Internet claims another scalp
A senior politician in Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru, Gwilym ad Ioan, has been forced to resign following racist remarks posted on two Welsh newsgroups. Mr ab Ioan, vice-president and a member of Plaid Cymru's National Executive, had to step down when his comments - including that Wales had become a "dumping ground for …
Music and Media 9 Aug 2001, 13:34
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The Code Red hype Hall of Shame
Experts achieve 'exponential growth' of idiocy
Lemme tell ya 'bout The snakes, the fakes, The lies, the highs.... --Tribe We've had no end of entertainment these past weeks with the Code Red and Code Red Junior IIS worms. Vast battalions of 'security experts' paraded themselves eagerly before the press, trotting out their finest doomsday quotes for a shot at fifteen …
Security 9 Aug 2001, 13:48
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API winds down Alpha ops
Staff cutbacks
API Networks, the Alpha processor design firm, pink-slipped 30 per cent of its staff yesterday. The company retains 55 people, just 10 of whom - "for now" - will handle Alpha support. No more Alpha products from the company are planned. Instead it will concentrate on developing the firm's network silicon business; this centres …
Hardware 9 Aug 2001, 14:28
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Journalists to be replaced by robots
You mean they weren't already?
A new fancy robot, called Author, is to take the place of human journalists within several years. At least according to some boffins from North Carolina. Yabbering on about the robot in New Scientist magazine this month, they reckon they have designed an intelligent being which can take stories from news wires and turn them …
Bootnotes 9 Aug 2001, 14:32
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Stelios ads slam AOL
Tear up your AOL account
easyEverything is turning up the heat on AOL UK, urging people to "tear up their AOL accounts" and opt for unlimited use of its Internet cafe chain instead. On Monday, easyEverything is expected to run with more ads urging people to ditch AOL. These are expected to feature a picture of Easy Group boss, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, …
e-Business 9 Aug 2001, 14:49
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Moody's Blues knacker Marconi shares
Lowest ever
Marconi is back to its lowest ever share price, currently sitting on 86.75p (down 2 per cent today), courtesy a second downgrade on credit status this week from Moody's Investors Service. The downgrade from Moody's on the £2.2 billion of Marconi debt is a bad blow for the former giant and will mean significantly higher interest …
Business 9 Aug 2001, 15:01
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Code Red worms into Hotmail servers
User accounts 'remain secure'
Microsoft has admitted that some of its Hotmail servers have been infected with the Code Red worm. But no user email accounts or personal data have been compromised by the attack, Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said, according to reports. Nevertheless, he promised that Microsoft would conduct an audit of its Hotmail systems to …
Malware 9 Aug 2001, 15:08
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Rogue WLANS – the next security battlefield?
Gartner thinks so
Indadequate security measures will leave 30 per cent of enterprise exposed to security risks from wireless LANS by the end of next year. That's the conclusion of a Gartner study of wireless networking security. The analyst firm advises users to formulate a security policy for WLAN deployment now, even if they have no immediate …
Security 9 Aug 2001, 15:25
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How Microsoft's file system caper could wrongfoot the DoJ
And annoy Larry very much indeed
A wag last year suggested to us that since Oracle was the only competition Microsoft had left, its next step would be to bundle SQL Server with the operating system. If current briefings are correct - and Microsoft has evidently been briefing pretty heavily - then that's exactly what the company intends to do, and then some. It …
Software 9 Aug 2001, 20:38
