3rd July 2002 Archive

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Two London PC refurb charity appeals

Tomorrow, the rest of the world

BLITZ (Blackwall IT Zone) has been set up to enable the local community to have access to IT and the internet, Chris Pearman writes. Although on the doorstep of the Canary Wharf Complex, this is one of the poorest areas of London, with the 7th highest unemployment rate in the UK. We aim to provide second user systems and advice …

Personal 3 Jul 2002, 08:18
Pre-paid users to fuel m-commerce

Critical to success

Pre-paid mobile phone users will be critical to the success of the emerging m-commerce mobile data market, according to a new report by Analysys, Ciaran Buckley writes. The report, "Enabling Prepaid Mobile Content and Data Services: Strategies for Operators and Vendors," argues that the 170 million customers currently on pre- …

Mobile 3 Jul 2002, 08:24
Directories in the news

IBM, Critical Path

After years in the wilderness, it seems that the time is ripe for an interest in directory technology. There is no doubt that the rise of Internet and web services technologies is contributing to this. Now it seems to be the 'must have' infrastructure, and IBM and Critical Path are pushing out new initiatives. The …

e-Business 3 Jul 2002, 09:07
EDS-WorldCom deal highlights outsourcing risks

Revenue smoothing

EDS Corp yesterday outlined the current state of its relationship with embattled communications provider WorldCom Inc, amid growing scrutiny over the risks and accounting practices involved in large, long-term deals. Meanwhile, the world's second largest services firm also announced that it had pulled out of the bidding …

Business 3 Jul 2002, 09:07
Help us make it through the night – Worldcom CEO

The Mutual Self Preservation Society

WorldCom Inc believes its pivotal role in the US's communications infrastructure and its bankers' self interest will help it to stave off the threat of bankruptcy. At least that was the impression created by CEO John Sidgmore yesterday at the company's first full scale press conference since the company last week revealed …

Business 3 Jul 2002, 09:07
US tax payers shovel $10m into Cray R&D

Bargain

Cray Inc, the Seattle, Washington supercomputing maker, announced this week that the U.S government has ponied up $10m to fund half of the development costs of future supercomputers based on the SV design, Timothy Prickett Morgan writes. As part of the agreement, Cray has agreed to set aside an equal $10m for the research …

Servers 3 Jul 2002, 09:11
Public WLAN in Europe – $1.8bn in 2007

Yankee slide rule

Europe will be home to 7.7 million public access wireless local area network (PWLAN) service subscribers by 2007, when service revenue will reach $1.8bn, according to Yankee Group Europe. In its new report "Public Access WLAN in Europe: A Technology in Search of a Business Case?" Yankee group said WLAN technology is now " …

Mobile 3 Jul 2002, 09:12
AltaVista upgrades search engine

Bit late, isn't it?

AltaVista Co yesterday unveiled a handful of upgrades to its web search engine to compete in an increasingly competitive market where it has lost much of its early lead. The company, a CMGI Inc subsidiary, introduced Prisma, a feature that allows users to drill down into related terms to refine their search queries. The …

Music and Media 3 Jul 2002, 09:12
IBM sells off more storage biz (to LSI Logic)

RAIDing Party

IBM is continuing its flight from the storage component business by selling its Mylex business unit, which makes RAID controllers, to chipmaker LSI Logic Corp. The move marks an expansion for LSI downmarket into the market for NT RAID storage. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter were not …

Hardware 3 Jul 2002, 09:12
Deitel duo tame enormous Python

Sink your fangs into 30 per cent off from IT.minds.com

Yes, it's herpetological puns all the way this week from Reg associate IT-minds.com. This week's featured creature, sunning itself lazily on the discount rock is the Deitels' Complete Python Training Course The beast measures up thus: There's never been a more powerful, effective way to master Python programming. This hands-on …

Business 3 Jul 2002, 09:13
Motorola axes (another) 7,000

Back to 1995

Motorola Inc is to cut its workforce by a further 7,000 in a move that it hopes will complete the restructuring of a company desperate to claw its way back to profitability after badly losing its way. The short-term effect however will be to plunge it deeper into the red as it expects to record a special charge of $3.5bn, …

e-Business 3 Jul 2002, 09:26
IBM gains UK server share

Most fall

It has certainly been a tough 12 months for server companies in the UK. Between the start of Q2 2000 and the end of Q1 2001, some $3.55 billion worth of servers were sold in the UK, according to IDC research. For the same period just a year later, ending Q1 2002, that figure had fallen to $2.49 billion, a decline of 29.5 per …

Servers 3 Jul 2002, 09:52
Orange network gone titsup

Hello, hello, any body there?

Orange's mobile phone network went on the blink this morning, leaving the trendy operator clutching straws for excuses. Readers who've called Vulture Central say that the outage appears to be country-wide and that it only appears to be hitting contract mobile phone users. However, Orange wouldn't comment on the scope or scale …

Mobile 3 Jul 2002, 09:55
AMD issues sales warning

Short and not so sweet

AMD today warned that it will miss Q2 sales forecasts of $620m to $700m, its second downward revision in a fortnight. It now says it will pull in approx. $600m for the quarter ended June 30, 2002. Which means that its earlier warning of hefty operating loss for the quarter has just got a lot heftier. AMD's warning is bad news …

Channel 3 Jul 2002, 10:00
Time's Continental Edison deal collapses

Creditors won't buy in

Time Computers' proposed takeover of Continental Edison, the leading French PC maker, has collapsed. According to Time, creditors of CE were unwilling to agree takeover terms, necessary to take the deal forward. The UK's biggest system builder expressed "great disappointment - but there are plenty of opportunities we're looking …

Channel 3 Jul 2002, 10:45
1901 Census site still down after six months

Qinuseless

The farce surrounding the UK's 1901 Census site hit a new milestone this week - it's six months since the site was launch and it still doesn't work. So far the Public Record Office (PRO) has spent £1.2 million of public money on the site but won't commit to say when it will be up and running. When it was launched at the …

Music and Media 3 Jul 2002, 12:22
Mandrake shuns UnitedLinux

Doing it our way

Mandrake won't be joining the UnitedLinux initiative, inspired by Caldera and involving SuSE, and it's said why. In a statement, Mandrake rejects the idea that Linux is 'fragmented' in the way that UNIX failed to achieve common standards in the 1980s. Quite rightly too - the Linux Standards Base project has got further, faster …

Software 3 Jul 2002, 12:27
Orange gets its punters talking again

Network returning to normal

As many as 635,000 people were hit by the outage that downed the network of colourful mobile phone operator Orange earlier today. Services are returning to normal and full coverage is expected to be restored "in the next couple of hours", so we're told. Orange won't say what the problem was but it claims that at its peak "less …

Mobile 3 Jul 2002, 12:30
Nvidia hunts for Euro disties

Go NADs!

Nvidia wants to appoint its first disties in Europe - it's waving marketing development funds, training and collateral for companies willing to become Nvidia Authorised Distributors (NADs). The catch is that NADs must commit to sourcing Nvidia product from Europe Nvidia Certified Partners only, 14 board manufacturers in toto, …

Channel 3 Jul 2002, 12:58
BT cuffed for broadband ad fib

Naughty. Don't do it again

The Advertising watchdog has mauled BT for a misleading broadband ad. The monster telco claimed that its domestic broadband service was 40 times faster than a traditional dial-up service. This was disputed by Telewest which claimed BT's domestic broadband service was only ten times faster than bog standard Net access. The …

Telecoms 3 Jul 2002, 15:05
Now we are 3 – Hutchison unwraps 3G brand

Not three, 3

Hutchison today outted the worldwide name for its 3G mobile phone service - 3. The announcement follows press reports, so there's no logo, or branding statement for philistines like us to sneer at . And there's to be no messing, at the back. "The name should always appear as '3', with the exception of website addresses, where …

Mobile 3 Jul 2002, 15:15
HP axes 5,900 jobs in Europe

On the cards

Hewlett-Packard is to axe 5,900 jobs in Europe as part of a plan to reduce its global workforce by ten per cent over the next 18 months. In total, the company will shed some 15,000 jobs out of a total workforce of 150,000. It did not disclose any further details about the restructuring. In a statement HP said that those …

Business 3 Jul 2002, 15:26
Lloyd Webber web hoaxer unmasked

Phantom of the Opera.com

The identity of the literary hoaxer who made the pages of The New York Times last year can finally be revealed. The prankster posted reviews under the name of "Andrew Lloyd-Webber" - Britain's best-loved composer - on Amazon.com. The publishing giant rapidly removed the reviews. Regular readers can probably already guess the …

Bootnotes 3 Jul 2002, 15:28
Fujitsu Siemens, Dell win Inland Revenue 30,000 PC gig

Computacenter does the donkey work

Fujitsu Siemens and Dell have won multi-million pound deals to supply the Inland Revenue with replacement desktop PCs. The agreements are part of the Inland Revenue's ongoing desktop refreshment programme to replace around 30,000 of its desktops over the next 14 months. Fujitsu Siemens Computers and Dell have been chosen to …

Channel 3 Jul 2002, 16:19
Lights go off at eBone

RIP

KPNQwest's European network - eBone - is to be shut down as of 17:00 BST today. The closure follows the collapse of a deal to buy the high-speed data network. Engineers starting closing down the network yesterday. Some experts claim that the closure of eBone could slow traffic throughout Europe while the problem settles down …

Music and Media 3 Jul 2002, 16:34
Extended warranties: are they a con or what?

Competition Commission aims to find out

Dixons is Europe's most profitable computer retailer, and its success in selling extended warranties on computers plays a big part in its success. But extended warranties for electronics goods, touted by all the big retailers, are not popular with consumer rights groups. What is the point of shelling out £200 or more for a five …

Personal 3 Jul 2002, 16:55
British ID cards to revolutionise crime

But not in the way the gov wants...

Home Secretary David Blunkett announced the start of a six month consultation in Parliament today on plans by the government to introduce "entitlement cards" (that's ID cards to you and me). Lobby group Privacy International reckons the proposal for a national identity card has little to do with the government's stated …

Security 3 Jul 2002, 17:02
Zimmermann calls for NAI to free PGP

Open source salvation?

Phil Zimmermann is calling on Network Associates to open source portions of the PGP encryption program he sold to the security giant in 1997. The suggestion from the author of PGP comes as NAI continues to search for a buyer for the popular desktop encryption program, having decided to cease development work on the product as …

Security 3 Jul 2002, 17:13
Musos mull post-Emagic sequencer options

Letters There's no business like chau-business

Re: Apple drops Emagic bombshell One thing I noticed reading the Cubase and Logic forums yesterday was how generous the users were with each other. Barely a hint of platform chauvinism. Clearly musicians have the ability to empathize with fellow humans. Because they're using computers as a tool, not an end in itself, I wonder …

Letters 3 Jul 2002, 17:54