The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

3rd May 2002 Archive

Browse by publication date, or search the site.

  • Trading Standards raids Rombyte

    Newbury Distie

    West Berkshire Trading Standards carried out a raid on the premises of Newbury memory distributor Rombyte yesterday. Thames Valley Police and West Berkshire Council Trading Standards confirmed that the raid, which we're informed concerned allegedly counterfeit memory, had taken place. Rombyte continues to trade but declined to …

    Channel 3 May 2002, 09:13

  • NTL pushes ahead with debt swap

    Green light given thumbs-up

    Bankers have given NTL the thumbs-up to go ahead with plans designed to rescue the indebted cableco. Around $10.6 billion in debt will be transferred into equity and the company split in two. Plans for the rescue were released earlier this month but needed the green light from the company's banks. That approval has now been …

    Business 3 May 2002, 09:15

  • HP, Compaq to trade under “SRCAM” ticker

    Unity at last

    Hewlett Packard (HWP) and Compaq (CPQ) discarded sixty years of cumulative stock market history with a bold gesture that signifies their unity, the companies announced today. From now on, the merged entity will be known as "SRCAM", obsoleting the old ticker symbols. The change is effective from Monday - so please update your …

    Business 3 May 2002, 09:17

  • Don Capellas articulates HPaq's vision thing

    Come again, Mike?

    Compaq CEO Don Capellas took the stage on the final day of Merrill Lynch's "Hardware Heaven" financial analyst conference in San Francisco yesterday, eight months after he dispatched the Alpha chip to the afterlife. The two souls didn't meet, and as we'll see, last year's Alphacide hasn't just been forgotten, it's undergone a …

    Business 3 May 2002, 10:11

  • Level 3 buys Software Spectrum

    Weird one

    Level 3, a very big co-lo business, is to buy Software Spectrum, a very big software reseller for $37 per share in cash. Post-transaction, Level 3 will combine Software Spectrum with Corporate Software, the venerable $1bn t/o sofware reseller which Level 3 bought in March for $89m cash and $50m in assumed debt. That purchase …

    Channel 3 May 2002, 10:11

  • Vodafone in Line for SFR Bid

    As Vivendi Struggles

    French media and utilities conglomerate Vivendi Universal SA is struggling with an over-extended business after its $27bn acquisition of the bulk of US media company USA Networks Inc last year. The company now faces angry investors, a massive 17bn euro ($15bn) write-off in its accounts, and a fractured management, split …

    Mobile 3 May 2002, 10:23

  • Sorenson hopes for speedy settlement of Apple suit

    The quickening time

    Sorenson Media Inc is hoping it can quickly settle out of court a lawsuit filed by partner Apple Computer Inc in which the video software firm is accused of breaking a longstanding contract between the two companies. Apple sued Sorenson in San Jose last Friday, alleging the company is breaching the exclusivity clauses of a …

    Mac Channel 3 May 2002, 10:24

  • Adobe wins patent infringement suit against Macromedia

    Balance of power

    The web design software market suffered a change in the balance of power, probably temporary, yesterday, after a jury found Macromedia Inc software infringes upon a US patent held by rival Adobe Inc. Adobe was awarded damages of about $2.8m, and said it expects to be awarded an injunction against further infringement. …

    Mac Channel 3 May 2002, 10:24

  • VIA April sales down

    'Exceeds expectations'

    VIA's sales in April were US$59m, 12 per cent down on March and 36.57 per cent down on April ($92.698m)last year. For the first four months of this year, sales were US $270.355m, 31 per cent down on the same period in 2001 ($391.259m). According to VIA, the April sales figures 'largely exceeded' market expectations. But that's …

    Channel 3 May 2002, 11:19

  • ‘Zero conflict’ in BT over broadband

    All about choice

    The head of BT Retail, Pierre Danon, today dismissed reports that the introduction of a "no frills" broadband service would lead to internal conflict within BT. A newspaper report at the weekend claimed that BT faced "civil war" because the introduction of the access-only product, BT Broadband, was in conflict with the telco's …

    Broadband 3 May 2002, 11:36

  • 3DLabs claims ‘breakthrough’ graphics chip

    Sorry, Visual Processor Unit

    3DLabs is to launch a new graphics accelerator chip, code-named the P10, and board-level products should be shipping in Q3. The target markets are the workstations and games markets - and pre-production units, and beta DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.0 drivers already seeded with apps developers. Digital photographers and video editors …

    Channel 3 May 2002, 12:24

  • BTopenworld cuts prices for the wireless home

    DSL + 802.11b for less bucks

    BTopenworld has cut the price of its wireless LAN bundle by 10 per cent-ish for residential and small office broadband subscribers. The Linksys/BTopenworld co-branded wireless offerings consist of a wireless network laptop card, wireless network USB desktop adapter and a wireless network access point. The products are offered …

    Mobile 3 May 2002, 12:58

  • Linux networks much cheaper than Windows – report

    It's a TCO thing

    Total cost of ownership (TCO) for medium-sized companies is up to a third lower for Linux than for Windows based systems. That's according to Australian IT services firm Cybersource which reckons a Linux-based system is between 34 per cent and 25 percent less expensive to run than a Windows network, with users deploying open …

    Data Networking 3 May 2002, 13:05

  • Tulip wins access to Dell exec emails

    Patent suit development

    Dell has been ordered by a US federal court to hand over the email records of 14 execs, after it was accused of failing to co-operate in a patent infringement case. The flea on Dell's back is Dutch-owned Tulip Computers, once a multinational PC player - tiny subsidiaries in a couple of dozen countries - now much smaller. In …

    Personal 3 May 2002, 13:38

  • Knitters knocked by Slipknot fans

    Good yarn

    Fans of contemporary US music combo Slipknot have sent threatening emails to the polite British ladies of The Knitting & Crochet Guild. Supporters of the "nu metal" outfit were horrified that the Guild's newsletter shares the name as the band, best known for wearing unpleasant masks and sometimes pooing and vomiting - allegedly …

    Media 3 May 2002, 13:52

  • MS disappears claim that Windows is legal requirement

    But characteristically, misses a bit...

    Microsoft has backed away from its bizarre claim that it is a legal requirement that preinstalled operating systems remain with a machine for the life of the machine - but only slightly. The Register drew attention to this on Tuesday, and the Microsoft site spreading this disinformation was mysteriously updated on Wednesday. We …

    Software 3 May 2002, 14:23

  • Those VIA Eden™ competition results in full

    A bumper crop of ingenuity

    It's taken us a while to sort through the hundreds of entries to our VIA Eden competition, in which we gave readers the opportunity to win one of three VIA Eden™ EPIA Mini-ITX boards. To recap, all you had to do was outline an ingenious use for this small and silent piece of kit. As is traditional with Reg competitions, some …

    Personal 3 May 2002, 15:39

  • The Bastard gets flustered

    Episode 9 Marketing Dept

    BOFH 2002: Episode 9 "I am so tired," the contract marketing consultant dweeb simpers as he plops down the large box of backup tapes he's been poring over and helps himself to a hot chocolate from the Operator's espresso machine. When I say hot chocolate, I mean used coffee grounds laced with crushed chocolate laxative …

    BOFH 3 May 2002, 15:40

  • Jail for mobile phone thieves

    Govt talks tough

    Anyone caught re-programming a mobile phone could be jailed for up to five years and face unlimited fines, according to a new Government Bill unveiled today. The proposed legislation is being introduced in a bid to tackle mobile phone theft making the devices less attractive to would-be thieves. If passed the Mobile Telephones …

    Mobile 3 May 2002, 16:17

  • Solaris wall shows cracks

    CERT warns on format string bug

    Sun Microsystems is working on a patch to correct a format string vulnerability in a utility within its Solaris operating system. According to a notice issued by security clearing house CERT earlier this week, the format string bug within the rwall daemon (rpc.rwalld) may permit an intruder to execute code (which could be …

    Security 3 May 2002, 16:22

  • Hell hath no fury

    Updated again Spurned spouse lets rip on Friends Reunited

    They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You'd better believe it. Here's a posting from FriendsReunited, the "simple to use website that allows you to find out what your old friends are doing now." The posting has been pulled from Friends Reunited, but we've been sent a copy of the page, which is now doing the …

    Bootnotes 3 May 2002, 16:50