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17th June 2002 Archive

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  • My name's too rude for MS Passport

    Letter French vultures also blacklisted

    A letter from James Woodcock in the UK: I thought your organ might be interested in this: I have just found (another) subtle flaw in Microsoft's Passport system. Some of us are in the unfortunate position of having the surname "Woodcock". This may (and I would expect it to) raise a giggle. In fact, I thought there was no …

    Letters 17 Jun 2002, 05:51

  • Microsoft's Mac Hebrew snub prompts Israeli AntiTrust complaint

    The fix wouldn't cost a shekel

    Microsoft's refusal to provide Hebrew support in its Macintosh Internet Explorer browser or Office suite has prompted a complaint to Israel's antitrust department. It's a fascinating story which raises as many cultural questions as does it does political - all the more so, as we discovered last week, since neither Apple nor …

    Mac Channel 17 Jun 2002, 07:21

  • Moody's cuts HP ratings

    More creditworthy than Japan

    Credit agency Moody's Investor Services cut its ratings on Hewlett Packard Co's debt by a notch on Friday citing the "challenges and uncertainties" the company faces in integrating Compaq Computer Corp, which it acquired in May. HP's senior unsecured debt was cut from A2 to A3, its long-term subordinated debt from A3 to …

    Business 17 Jun 2002, 07:29

  • EU hints at central takeover of radio spectrum licensing

    Air Grab

    The European Union may be planning to take over spectrum licensing from the individual European government agencies, according to a report from the European Commission published last week. The report is an update to the state of the market for third-generation mobile technology and services, prepared under the guidance of …

    Mobile 17 Jun 2002, 07:32

  • Vendors jockey for Mobile Java position

    Land grab

    The battle to become the dominant mobile Java provisioning vendor hotted up last week with a slew of reseller and operator tie ups intended to reinforce the leading players' credentials. But the posturing hides the fact that the mobile content infrastructure market is changing, if the CEO of UK-based Elata Ltd is to be …

    Mobile 17 Jun 2002, 07:32

  • Forum Systems aims At XML security space

    Intel appliance

    One-year-old Utah startup Forum Systems Inc this week becomes one of the first entrants into the emerging XML security space, when it launches its Forum Sentry appliance. The company is taking aim at government, financial services and healthcare, the traditional early adopters of security products. The Sentry appliance …

    Security 17 Jun 2002, 07:32

  • Jeeves serves CRM game

    Many tentacles

    Ask Jeeves Inc's Jeeves Solutions division is further moving from its search roots into the customer relationship management market, with the announcement today of an upgraded JeevesOne product that allows structured data to be queried for the first time. The enhancements, which come as a part of its $155,000 JeevesOne …

    e-Business 17 Jun 2002, 07:36

  • NSA gets Linux secure

    From codebreaker to codemaker

    Security is one of the highest profile issues in IT and there has been constant baiting between the Microsoft and Linux camps over who has the more secure operating system. At the start of the year we saw Bill Gates wake up to the fact that security is a good thing and now there is news that the US National Security Agency has …

    Software 17 Jun 2002, 08:44

  • Beijing cyber cafe fire kills 24

    Authorities clamp down on Net

    The mayor of Beijing has ordered the closure of all Internet cafes in the city following a fire in which 24 people were killed and 13 injured. The blaze broke out on Sunday morning at the Lanjisu Cyber Cafe in the outskirts of the city. Witnesses said that there were bars on the windows and the only door into the cyber cafe …

    Music and Media 17 Jun 2002, 09:29

  • dabs.com boasts record sales, orders

    Staking e-tail powerhouse claim

    dabs.com, the UK online IT reseller, posted record profits and sales for the year to 31 March, 2002. The privately-held firm posted profit before tax (PBT) of £2.54m, up 237 per cent on 2001's £755,000 on sales advancing 11 per cent to £116.5m (2001: £104.4m). The profits boost has worked out nicely for David Atherton, dabs.com …

    Channel 17 Jun 2002, 10:21

  • Monday night at the Single's Club? Apple's Real People

    Theatre of Cruelty

    A week ago Apple launched a new advertising campaign, and there's widespread relief in the Mac community that the pious and self-satisfied "Think Different" advertisements (beautifully parodied by Momus here*) have been put out to pasture. And replaced by successors which get low and dirty, and try to explain exactly why the Mac …

    Letters 17 Jun 2002, 11:31

  • Tele2 axes jobs

    Won't take on new punters

    There are concerns about the future of wireless broadband operator Tele2 following news that it has made "drastic" job cuts following restructuring at the company. Sources claim that the sales force has been given the elbow with one insider describing the cuts as "drastic". It's not known how many people have lost their jobs …

    Telecoms 17 Jun 2002, 11:34

  • Telewest intros 1Mb broadband service

    'Viagra for your PC' - apparently

    Telewest is to offer a 1Mb broadband service to its punters across the UK at a price that undercuts a similar product from cableco NTL. The new service - introduced after a trial involving 1,500 people - costs £35 per month (when taken with other Telewest Broadband services) or £39.99 on its own. NTL's 1Mb service - which was …

    Telecoms 17 Jun 2002, 11:56

  • Small MS class action to go ahead, unbound joy in Iowa

    Well, maybe not quite...

    What you might call a bijou class action lawsuitette is to go ahead in Iowa, following a ruling by the state Supreme Court that Microsoft could, after all, be sued for overcharging consumers in the state. The suit does not however amount to very many beans, judging by the plaintiff lawyers' estimate of the extent of devastation …

    Software 17 Jun 2002, 11:58

  • Sun's low-end server fight with Intel

    Server briefing Can it win?

    Who'd be Scott McNealy, Sun's CEO? True, his company's fourth fiscal quarter, due to end on 30 June, is expected to show a return to profitability - a single cent per share, reckons Wall Street - but the collapse of all those server-hungry dotcoms and reduced spending by almost everyone else has taken a heavy toll. During the …

    Servers 17 Jun 2002, 13:13

  • Logica opens SMS to landlines

    It's a fix

    The race to deliver SMS services over landlines is hotting up, with Logica throwing its hat into the ring. Today it launched a new service called the Fixed Line Short Message Service (FSMC), which will - through landline telco customers - offer punters the ability to send and receive text messages to other fixed line and mobile …

    Mobile 17 Jun 2002, 13:38

  • bomb.com for sale

    What a blast

    The owners of bomb.com are selling their domain to save their family from financial ruin. Bryan and Lisa Carter registered the domain in 1994. Eight years on and they're reluctantly auctioning it off on e-bay to pay off a "mountain of debt" after Lisa became ill and Bryan lost his job. The bidding for bomb.com starts at $15, …

    Music and Media 17 Jun 2002, 14:06

  • Proxim sails up Agere's Orinoco

    Buys WLAN brand, gets funding

    Proxim is to buy the ORiNOCO-branded WLAN equipment business from Agere Systems for $65m in cash. Following the acquisition, Proxim claims it will have market leadership in the 802.11 sector. The acquisition is funded by Warburg Pincus and Broadview Capital Partners which are investing $75m in return for approx. 28 per cent of …

    Mobile 17 Jun 2002, 14:32

  • Europe data laws to cover media player ‘spyware’

    And cookies, JavaScript, banner ads...

    Over the past few days it has been reported in various places that the European Union is extending its privacy investigations to include music players, meaning that Microsoft is in the frame again, this time alongside Real. The reports, however, are not strictly true (we accept that headline-hungry sub-editors will have had …

    Software 17 Jun 2002, 14:59

  • EDS tightens grip on UK gov with Loudcloud buy

    Big savings

    EDS is buying the web services business of Loudcloud for $63.5m. It's also paying $52.5m in license fees in its data centres over three years for use of Loudcloud's Opsware. In return it gains maybe $75m in revenues and 50 clients, of which the most prominent, certainly on these shores, is the UK government. EDS currently has …

    e-Business 17 Jun 2002, 15:26

  • Intel breaks out Xeon server ‘building blocks’

    Hyper inflation

    Intel today launched a dozen new server boards, some server chassis, RAID controllers and server management software for system builders. The kit is mostly Xeon-based, in single, dual and 4-way flavours, but there's a P4 entry level board too. Most of the mobos incorporate Intel's new E75000 chipset, but old server chipset …

    Servers 17 Jun 2002, 16:59