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9th October 2001 Archive

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  • Insight completes Action takeover

    About time too

    In the end, it happened quickly: Insight Enterprises yesterday completed the takeover of Action Computer Supplies two years after it first agreed to buy the direct mail reseller. As of last night, Insight has received valid acceptances of 84 per cent of Action's share capital; the offer to buy the company's £27m is now wholly …

    Channel 9 Oct 2001, 05:43

  • Gartner CEO gets Darwinian

    Shrinking IT biz gene pool

    If it's an IT company and your mum's heard of it, chances are it won't exist "in its current form in three years". That's what Michael Fleisher, chairman and CEO of Gartner, the IT analyst firm, reckons. The HP-Compaq combo is simply the first of many mega-mergers that will be seen in the next few years, he predicts. Speaking …

    Business 9 Oct 2001, 06:09

  • Logitek in administration

    Vitec keeps going

    UK distributor Logitek has gone into administration. The Manchester office of insolvency firm PKF has been appointed to handle the situation. PKF went into Logitek's offices yesterday afternoon to take control. Three parts of the Logitek group are affected - Logitek Distribution, Logitek Telecommunications, and Langtree …

    Channel 9 Oct 2001, 09:34

  • Punters still suffering BTOpenwoe Anytime misery

    Surely not

    The row over whether BTopenworld is offering an inferior service to some 34,000 Anytime punters continues to trundle on. It's almost three weeks since a TV programme alleged that BTopenworld had migrated these customers to a poorer service because they were heavy users. BTopenworld denied - and continues to deny - that it is …

    Music and Media 9 Oct 2001, 09:37

  • Carrier backbones: bandwidth glut or gap?

    Overcapacity row breaks out

    A fierce industry debate has been sparked off by claims by industry analysts Gartner that carrier backbones are running at just 10 per cent utilisation. The assessment by Ian Keene, a chief analyst at Gartner Group, pointed to the need for telcos to drive end-user bandwidth needs, for example by building out Gigabit Ethernet …

    Data Networking 9 Oct 2001, 09:56

  • Dot Com boom was ‘fraud’ or pyramid marketing – HP exec

    Bankers carry blame

    A senior Hewlett-Packard executive has accused the financial community of malpractice in taking advantage of the naivety of the IT industry during the dot com boom. Brice Clarke, director of strategic planning at Hewlett-Packard, said banks and finance houses carry the majority of blame for the recessionary effects of fall out …

    e-Business 9 Oct 2001, 10:02

  • Transmeta slashes Q3 sales forecast

    $5m instead of $10.5m

    Transmeta has said it's been hit by a sales slowdown and now expects Q3 revenues of $5 million. It had originally estimated in July that revenues for the period would be between $8.9 million and $10.5 million. Its major customers, most of them based in Japan, have slashed orders for its power saving notebook chips. The company …

    Business 9 Oct 2001, 10:23

  • Rocky road to wireless networking nirvana

    Incompatibility between 802.11b and 802.11a standards

    The migration to faster wireless networking technology, due to reach widespread availability in the middle of next year, is likely to be fraught with more difficulties than vendors would have us believe. That's the conclusion we take away from a debate on the move from 802.11b to 802.11a wireless LAN standards, which promises …

    Data Networking 9 Oct 2001, 10:33

  • Did terrorists use keyboard as biological weapon?

    Updated FBI finds anthrax on sick man's PC

    FBI investigators in Florida are looking at the possibility of a double case of anthrax being the result of an act of terrorism. Traces of the disease have been found on one of the men's computer keyboards at work. The US government is on a high state of alert following the plane attacks last month and the current bombing of …

    Assault on America 9 Oct 2001, 10:55

  • UK Govt pledges £30m to broadband

    That'll be the same £30m it pledged earlier this year then

    It seems elusive e-minister - Douglas Alexander - will do anything to up his profile at the moment. Yesterday, he announced that the Government would spend £30 million to "boost the delivery of fast Internet services through broadband technology to all parts of the UK". The money is to be used to set up pilot projects and …

    Telecoms 9 Oct 2001, 10:56

  • Jedi Knights achieve official recognition as a religion

    Updated National Statistics office gets in touch

    Jedi Knights have gained official recognition as a religion in the UK Census 2001. Coming very near the bottom of an official list of religions put out by the Statistics Office, Jedi Knight is known by the code 896. Heathen comes in at 897. Followed by Atheist at 898 and lastly None with 899. It's not exactly a ringing …

    Bootnotes 9 Oct 2001, 11:05

  • Samsung makes 576Mb RDRAM

    It's there if you want it

    Samsung Electronics has completed development of the world's first 576Mb RDRAM. Mass production is set to begin in the second quarter of next year. The 576Mb memory device operates at 1,066MHz and is targeted for use in high-performance PCs, workstations and servers. This DRAM processes data about eight times faster than the …

    Channel 9 Oct 2001, 11:35

  • KaZaA the Virus Desktop

    Filter Schmilter

    KaZaA the media desktop has been one of the most successful replacements for file sharing after U.S. courts ordered Napster to shut down. KaZaA offers its users a way of sharing music, video, documents, images, and software. But six per cent of all music downloaded from KaZaA is not music at all, but a virus. Currently, there …

    Security 9 Oct 2001, 12:03

  • Labour spin doctor on rack over 11 September email

    Hypocrites go on attack

    A leading spin doctor for the Labour party is apparently fighting for her job after a leaked email saw her suggest that the US terrorist attacks would make useful news cover for embarrassing or controversy UK government decisions. Jo Moore - a key political advisor to transport secretary Stephen Byers - sent the email to the …

    Assault on America 9 Oct 2001, 12:12

  • Atlantic Telecom jettisons 250 jobs

    Oh dear

    Half the jobs at Atlantic Telecom are to be axed following the appointment of administrators at the debt-ridden telecoms outfit. Around 250 jobs are to go in Scotland, Manchester and London as PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) attempts to clear around £300 million owed to creditors. A number of offers have been received for the …

    Business 9 Oct 2001, 12:17

  • MS bends volume licensing rules

    But damage already done

    "The thing about comedy," explains the Alan Alda character in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, "Is that if it bends, it's funny, but if it breaks, it isn't funny." Good advice indeed, and Microsoft has decided to bend a little with its Volume Licensing Program, Redmond announced yesterday. The announcement sees the grace …

    Software 9 Oct 2001, 12:25

  • SiS SoCs it out

    Chipset set to - The Reg takes a look

    Taiwanese chipset maker SiS has begun its assault on the information appliance (IA) market. To do so, it has developed a line of System on Chip (SoC) products, its 550-series family, that it hopes to flog to its customers (players like Asus, Acer and MSI, among others) who in turn will evolve them into flashy consumer appliances …

    Personal 9 Oct 2001, 13:06

  • NatWest ‘glitch’ sees thousands overcharged

    But it should all be back to normal by tonight

    A "technical glitch" has seen hundreds, perhaps thousands, of NatWest customers charged double for any cash withdrawn from the bank's ATM machines. NatWest has told us the problem occurred on Monday night and was identified first thing on Tuesday morning, however we have several reports of people being charged double for …

    Software 9 Oct 2001, 14:30

  • Reg hack, Infoseek founder debate brain scans

    Public safety boon, or Kafkaesque nightmare?

    We have here an e-mail debate on the virtues and risks of 'brain fingerprinting' as a public safety measure, following our story Brain-scans can defeat terrorism, InfoSeek founder [Steve Kirsch] claims, by yours truly. Kirsch insists that extraordinary threats demand extraordinary measures, while I try to illustrate the …

    Assault on America 9 Oct 2001, 15:08

  • AMD waves the WinXP flag

    XP with chips

    AMD is teaming up with Microsoft to promote Windows XP to system builder and disties. The duo also plan "select retail and small business programs" for the iconic operating system, which launches... October 25. There's a press release but details are sketchy and US-centric. What we want to know is: how much are the two …

    Channel 9 Oct 2001, 15:11

  • BT ditches plans to split business

    Oh well

    BT has ditched plans to break-up its business - for the time being at least. In November last year the monster telco announced it was looking to split its networking and retail business in a bid to overcome increased regulatory pressure from telecoms regulator, Oftel. Partial sell-offs would also help generate much needed cash …

    Business 9 Oct 2001, 15:18

  • EMC isn't major competition anymore – IBM

    'Losing traction, losing ground'

    Dietmar Wendt, IBM's Vice President of Storage Solutions in EMEA, came to the IT-Analysis.com offices to tell us how IBM storage is back in business. The story is one of hard work and new strategies. But have the old problems disappeared - and is EMC really no competition? Can you tell us how IBM is doing in the storage …

    Hardware 9 Oct 2001, 15:27

  • IBM+EMC = win-win or dog's dinner?

    Analysts say yay, Reg says nay

    A merger between IBM and EMC would be an occasion for rejoicing for customers, according to industry analysts Aberdeen Group - but not us. Aberdeen reasons that IBM server customers turn to EMC for network storage because of EMC's "advanced storage management functionality and world-class service and support". That's not to say …

    Hardware 9 Oct 2001, 15:37

  • Athlon XP results out

    HWRoundup Performance rocks. Marketing sucks

    Reports from the hardwarwe sites on AMD's Athlon XP processors mostly agree that its performance is great, while its marketing definitely needs work. AnandTech places the Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz) processor in the top spot, edging out even the Pentium 4 2GHz in many tests, including Internet content creation performance and …

    Channel 9 Oct 2001, 15:44

  • FoTW Poser: Are binary executables eligible?

    GNOME extremists target Our Andrew

    The Register's Flame of the Week Adjudication Committee was deep in closed-door discussions today after receiving a bold challenge to the FoTW eligibility rules. GNOME-compatible Usenet client software pan (that's for Pimp-Ass Newsreader) has named its latest release - version 0.10.0.92 "Andrew Orlowski Can Kiss My Ass". …

    Letters 9 Oct 2001, 17:02

  • Argogroup halves workforce as recession bites

    Leading WAP company turns to OEMs

    One of the UK's leading WAP companies, Argogroup, has made its entire direct sales staff redundant as it switches to selling to OEMs to survive the recession and the still-limited demand for mobiles with data capabilities. Argogroup produces middleware to improve the services that can be communicated between WAP phones and …

    e-Business 9 Oct 2001, 17:04

  • IBM dolls up desktops

    This season's look

    Big Blue spewed out a whole raft of product updates today on its ThinkPad and NetVista product lines. On its desktop PCs, the NetVista range, there is a new high performance M-series, as well as an upgraded A- and X-series. It also released a PCI-based wireless LAN card available for NetVistas. On the ThinkPad side, the …

    Personal 9 Oct 2001, 17:16

  • Dubai hacker loses appeal

    Double jeopardy for 22-year old Brit

    The appeal of a 22 year-old Briton against his hacking sentence has backfired. A court in Dubai has not only upheld his conviction, but also found him guilty of a charge that was dismissed at his original trial. Lee Alan Ashurst, from Oldham near Manchester, was found guilty of opening the private emails destined for staff of …

    Security 9 Oct 2001, 17:26

  • Supremes turn down MS gig – Redmond appeals to Four Tops?

    Nothing much happening really, but it's a comfort that MS is still guilty...

    The US Supreme Court has turned down Microsoft's bid to have it review the DC Court of Appeal's 'mainly guilty but take another shot at the sentence' ruling of 28th June. Although the Supremes didn't say anything much apart from nope, we can reasonably infer that like the Appeals Court they accept that Judge Jackson's decision …

    Software 9 Oct 2001, 17:28

  • Can IIS flourish post-Gartner?

    Hint: can your OFH secure Solaris any better?

    As the cashier at my local Safeway handed over the receipt for my groceries, she smiled and said "Thank you! You saved six dollars with your card!" Though I said "Thank you" back, I was really thinking "Yeah... Saved six bucks, and it only cost me $175." Gartner Research, in their recommendation for corporations to dump IIS, …

    Software 9 Oct 2001, 19:32