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28th March 2002 Archive

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  • China and Taiwan best of enemies in business

    Hands across the water

    China has become Taiwan's biggest export market, replacing the Island Republic's longtime ally, the US. The countries' armed forces may be glaring at each other across the Taiwan Straits, but according to figures released by the Taiwanese government, and reported by Chinese news agency Xinhua, exports to mainland China …

    Business 28 Mar 2002, 07:45

  • Microsoft Judge considers post-PC evidence

    Upping the ante?

    Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is open to the possibility that an antitrust remedy against Microsoft Corp may extend beyond the PC to handheld devices and the like, according to reports coming out of the District of Columbia courtroom. The judge told attorneys late Tuesday she "need[s] more factual information" about post-PC …

    Business 28 Mar 2002, 07:45

  • Vodafone expected to revamp Vizzavi

    Faces i-mode challenge

    Vodafone Group Plc is planning to revamp its Vizzavi wireless internet service provider (WISP) service in an effort to head off competition from KPN NV's i-mode services which were launched in Germany two weeks ago. According to reports, Vizzavi will be given a significant overhaul, with increased emphasis on visual …

    Mobile 28 Mar 2002, 07:45

  • IE 6.0 is burying Netscape

    But AOL could spark revival

    The release of Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer 6.0 web browser signaled a "precipitous" decline in the usage of AOL Time Warner Inc's Netscape, according to the latest numbers out from WebSideStory Inc. The tally, extrapolated from the web logs of the 125,000 sites WebSideStory surveys, has Netscape usage at an all-time …

    Mobile 28 Mar 2002, 07:45

  • Tiscali sales, losses balloon

    Management is happy

    Tiscali today reported sharply higher losses and much higher costs on much bigger sales in 2001. The company also wrote down acquisitions paid for by shares to the tune of EUR815m. This saw net equity at the end of 2001 reduced to EUR 1.150bn, against EUR 2.24bn in 2000. Add on some other exceptional items and operating losses …

    Business 28 Mar 2002, 08:35

  • ATI goes a bundle on the Mac

    We haven't forgotten you

    OK, Mac fans, some of you have been complaining lately about the lack of Apple coverage on the site - or to be more specific - on our Mac channel, which was completely bare for a couple of weeks. We're sorry, there aren't as many as we used to be - and the Mac channel has not had the care and attention that it undoubtedly …

    Mac Channel 28 Mar 2002, 08:51

  • MS scarier than the CIA, Gateway exec says

    OEMs in terror of arbitrary contract enforcement

    One of the more controversial items in the Microsoft v. Stubborn States hearing is the uniform licensing agreement with OEMs, which, depending on who you talk to, is either a triumph of egalitarianism, or a Trojan horse designed to rein in the most successful OEMs by lowering their contract terms to the level of the small fry. …

    Software 28 Mar 2002, 09:52

  • Broadband sales surge ahead of DSL price cuts

    Up from 3,000 to 8,000 a week. Yipee!

    BT Wholesale is reporting sales of ADSL connections have soared from 3,000 to 8,000 a week since the telco reduced the wholesale price of DSL connections. From next Monday (April 1), BT Wholesale will reduce the entry-level wholesale price of broadband connections to its ISP customers by £10 to under £15 a month. In response to …

    Telecoms 28 Mar 2002, 13:06

  • Microsoft aims ‘shared source’ spoiler at Java

    Look, don't touch

    "We're code sharing capitalists!" beamed Microsoft's John Montgomery in an interview with C|NUT radio* yesterday, as Redmond released 11MB of source code - almost two million lines of Hungarian notationally-correct sweatwork - for its .NET infrastructure. This made good a promise by Microsoft punchbag Craig Mundie to make code …

    Software 28 Mar 2002, 13:12

  • BSA makes a spectacle of Bausch and Lomb

    'Caught using illegal software'

    Another day, another "illegal software" settlement, another company humiliated by Business Software Alliance press release. In the spotlight today is the Scottish offices of Bausch and Lomb, the posh purveyor of eyeglasses. The company had not bought enough licences to cover the software it was using, the BSA says. Worse, "the …

    Business 28 Mar 2002, 13:58

  • Barclays BACS system crashes

    250,000 Brits get paid five days late

    Oh dear. Up to 250,000 people in Britain will be paid five days late following 'processing problems" with Barclay's BACS automated payments system. In a message to users of the systems, the bank said it had experienced overnight processing problems on Tuesday, March 26. Consequently, any three day collection and payments due to …

    Business 28 Mar 2002, 14:11

  • Viglen wins Northern Ireland megadeal

    Europe's biggest schools contract

    Viglen has scooped the contract to run IT for Northern Ireland's primary schools. The deal runs for three years and is worth £26.2m, and is the fourth that Viglen has won from the Northern Irish education system, worth £50m in total. Under these contracts, the system builder-cum-education reseller will supply Northern Irish …

    Business 28 Mar 2002, 14:38

  • Xbox: ‘Microsoft has its teeth kicked in’

    EA gives it straight

    Leave it to EA's ever-controversial president John Riccitiello to put the boot. According to El Ricco, by way of Blooomberg, "Microsoft has had its teeth kicked in, in both Europe and Japan". Ouch. This may help explain why EA has been quietly shuffling all of their European Xbox releases further back into the summer for the …

    Personal 28 Mar 2002, 14:50

  • Power line networking firm suffers brownout

    Skeleton Inari

    One of the three companies participating in developing a standard for sending high speed Internet traffic over a home's existing AC wiring is operating on a skeleton staff as it struggles to find addition sources of funding. Inari, which was formed in January 1997 when Novell spun-off the power line technology business, has …

    Data Networking 28 Mar 2002, 14:54

  • Bloody hard to run a forum in Sweden – Lawyer speaks

    Legal unrealities

    (Mikael Pawlo is Associate, Advokatfirman Lindahl, working with Internet law issues for Aftonbladet Nya Medier. In a recent ruling by the district court of Stockholm, the publisher of the Swedish daily Aftonbladet was found guilty of hate speech and sentenced to a conditional sentence and fines. An anonymous user in a moderated …

    Music and Media 28 Mar 2002, 16:00

  • Last chance to win a Space Invaders arcade console

    competition Final deadline tomorrow - get to it

    Just a quick reminder for anyone who may not know (hardly likely, granted, given the 16,000,000 ads which have run over the last two weeks) that Rackspace's Win a Space Invaders Arcade Console competition ends tomorrow, 29 March at 5.00pm GMT. So, if you'd like to get a last-minute entry in, rush right now to the to the …

    Site News 28 Mar 2002, 16:00

  • MS smartphone partner Sendo signs Java deal

    Knows where its Tao's at

    UK mobile phone company and noted Microsoft partner has Sendo has struck a licensing deal with Tao Group, producer of the intent Java platform and a company in deep with The Other Side." Tao is friends with Sun, Psion, numerous other usual suspects and - oh yes - Amiga, and intent is an application runtime environment compliant …

    Software 28 Mar 2002, 16:11

  • WinXP Pro with .NET Server performance? Forget it…

    Seems it's not as good as it sounds once you've got there

    In response to our piece on NTSwitch earlier this week, reader David Bazile was sufficiently fired up to try the routine. NTSwitch purports to demonstrate that there are relatively minimal differences between Microsoft server and workstation operating systems by allowing you to switch between, say Win2k workstation and server, …

    Software 28 Mar 2002, 16:20

  • Win a Space Invaders arcade console

    Competition Save the world courtesy of Rackspace Managed Hosting

    There's very little that will reduce the battle-hardened Vulture Central hacks to teary-eyed nostalgia. One thing guaranteed, however, to provoke an outburst of "when I was a lad" is the original 70s Space Invaders. So, when we heard that Reg advertiser Rackspace Managed Hosting were willing to give one lucky Reg reader a …

    Site News 28 Mar 2002, 16:22

  • IBM pushes Linux kit into telcos

    Cheap iron

    IBM has pulled out the stops again to dive into one of its favourite verticals - telcos. Yesterday the company began touting the latest iteration of its e-Series, the x383, bundled with Linux to give a low cost, powerful box - ideal for a capacity booster in the hosting hotels. The hardware is just what you might expect for …

    Hardware 28 Mar 2002, 17:29

  • Online gambling tops Internet card fraud league

    Punters and banks caned by crooks

    Online gambling has become the number one Internet-related card fraud problem in Europe. That's according to Europay, Mastercard's European partner, which reckons that 20 per cent of online fraud is related to gambling. Online fraud accounts for five per cent of all UK credit and debit card fraud, which APACS (the Association …

    e-Business 28 Mar 2002, 17:31

  • Walter Jr sues HP over merger vote tactics

    Deutsche Bank swayed

    Walter Hewlett, the dissident Hewlett Packard director, has filed a complaint in a Delaware court protesting against methods used by Hewlett-Packard to solicit votes for its proposed merger with Compaq. Hewlett objects to the way HP obtained support for the merger from institutional shareholders, in particular from Deutsche …

    Business 28 Mar 2002, 18:14