16th January 2003 Archive

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Dude, you've got selective amnesia!

Michael Dell coy on Linux Desktop putsch

Michael Dell is no fool, which makes his remarks in an interview with InfoWorld published this week a puzzling read. Dell is asked about one of the great mysteries of our time: why the No.1 PC company made strategic investments in Linux on the consumer desktop, only to axe them rather dramatically, after only a few weeks. All …

Personal 16 Jan 2003, 03:39
Intel rewrites Itanium roadmap

Rethink over Montecito

Intel Corp has dramatically rerouted its Itanium 2 roadmap, delaying the transition of the 64 bit architecture to 90 nanometer technology but pulling forward its plans for a dual core version of the product, writes Joe Fay. The vendor had originally planned to follow this summer's launch of the second generation Itanium 2 …

Servers 16 Jan 2003, 09:39
Separate dance cards for Web Services Choreography?

No MS, no IBM

The World Wide Web (W3C) consortium has begun work drafting a specification for a Web Services Choreography language, minus input from Microsoft Corp and IBM, writes Gavin Clarke. The Internet standards body has formally created a Web Services Choreography Working Group, whose existence in draft form was revealed by …

Hardware 16 Jan 2003, 09:39
J2EE 1.4 moves down the Enterprise ladder

Cutting APIs

The dark art of Java programming could be demystified in the next enterprise edition, as Sun Microsystems Inc and community members introduce features to help the platform gain wider acceptance, writes Gavin Clarke. Sun and the Java Community Process (JCP) members preparing the delayed Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4 …

Hardware 16 Jan 2003, 09:39
Register.com presented with buyout bid

Out of the blue

Register.com Inc has received an unsolicited offer of almost $200m to buy the company outright, but has yet to make a public decision on whether shareholders should accept the offer, it emerged yesterday. RCM Acquisition Co LLC, a consortium of several Register shareholders set up specifically to launch the bid and …

Business 16 Jan 2003, 09:39
Ariba restates more accounts

Confusion reigns

The financial confusion at e-business software developer Ariba Inc has deepened following the announcement that it will now have to restate its fiscal 2000 figures and 10 quarters of results. This follows an earlier announcement that it would have to restate its fiscal 2001 figures. The troubled started when an internal …

Business 16 Jan 2003, 09:39
Mandrakesoft goes tits up

Runs to bankruptcy court

On Monday, we revealed that Mandrakesoft was close to seeking bankruptcy protection under French law. Yesterday, the firm filed for the French equivalent of Chapter 11. Here is the company's statement. The move is designed to give it breathing space from creditors, while it re-organises its affairs. Question is: how many firms …

Software 16 Jan 2003, 10:04
Merrill outlines Euro 2003 IT spending outlook

Flatter than flat pancake

A quarterly poll of 100 European CIOs by investment bank Merrill Lynch sounds a muted outlook for the year ahead with average IT budget growth of just 0.8% against 2002 levels, although IT spending plans look more certain than in surveys carried out in previous quarters. A majority 43% slice of respondents anticipated that …

Business 16 Jan 2003, 10:06
IT spending dropped in Q4 2002- can 2003 be that gloomy?

Yes it can

Goldman Sach's survey of major US Corporations' IT spend in Q4 2002 showed a surprising drop in Corporate IT spending. It surprised everyone, not least Goldman Sachs itself, writes Bob McDowall. Leaving aside the fact that the lower IT spend will reflect flat or lower revenues for some of the major technology companies for 4th …

Business 16 Jan 2003, 10:07
Supremes back Disney and pigopolists vs science and culture

Dead men back the Mouse™ 7-2

In a decision marked by much internal dissent - bordering on outright cattiness - the United States' Supreme Court voted 7-2 to uphold the decision to give copyright holders a 20 year rights extension. It doesn't quite merit up there as a crime alongside book-burning, but it does isolate the public from a vast body of …

Music and Media 16 Jan 2003, 11:28
MS seeks malware, bust phones after SPV security crack

And won't we all be surprised when it doesn't find any?

A quite bizarre CNET report reveals that Microsoft's Security Response Center began investigations into the circumvention of security on the SPV smartphone on Tuesday, searching - so says CNET, anyway - for reports of rogue programs on the network and damaged phones. Furthermore, says an anonymous source "familiar with the …

Mobile 16 Jan 2003, 11:47
Yahoo! posts! profit!

Revs up

Yahoo! Inc's decision to cut costs and introduce new ways to generate money, such as charging for email, appears to be paying off. Revenue at the world's most visited portal network jumped 51 per cent to $285.8m in Q4 2002, up from $188.9 million in the same period in 2001. This increase helped deliver positive numbers for …

Business 16 Jan 2003, 11:48
Buster Gonads inspires unfeasibly large Itanic CPU

You'll need a wheelbarrow for this 9MB cache

Down in Intel's Frankenstein laboratories, the scientists are coming up with ever more surreal methods to disguise the comatose Itanium processor project as a living breathing thing. Drawing their inspiration from those weird genetic scientists who graft ears onto mice, the processor geniuses have come up with a cunning wheeze …

Channel 16 Jan 2003, 12:13
Girl suffers burns after laptop explodes

Cause of blast not yet known

A 15-year-old girl suffered second-degree burns to her hands and thighs after the laptop she was using exploded. Nikita Sooklal, the daughter of a foreign affairs official based in Pretoria, South Africa, is now in hospital being treated for her injuries. According to South Africa's Independent Online, there's still no news …

Personal 16 Jan 2003, 19:04
Time workers call for strike action

Ante upped

Workers at Time Computers are threatening to go on strike regarding ongoing concerns over pay and conditions. The "'Independent' Time Employee Forum" (ITEF) claims management has failed to budge on a number of issues. The ITEF claims talks between management and workers yesterday failed produce any progress. As a result, the …

Personal 16 Jan 2003, 19:06
Consumer laptop sales help PC market to modest growth

Acer, Dell do well in Europe as HP declines - Dataquest

The PC market in Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) recorded modest growth during the fourth quarter of 2002, of around six percent. Preliminary results from Gartner Dataquest suggest an estimated 13.1 million PCs were sold in the EMEA region last quarter, up 6.3 per cent from 12.277 million units in Q4 2001. The analysts …

Personal 16 Jan 2003, 19:06
Narrowband Net use declines in US

Broadband on the up

Fewer people in the US are accessing the Net using a narrowband connection, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Its latest figures show that 77.4m people in the US used a dial-up connection from home in December - down 10 per cent on the previous year. By comparison, 33.6m - an annual increase of almost 60 per cent - used a …

Music and Media 16 Jan 2003, 19:07
Yahoo! storms! Q4!

2003 is looking good

Dot-com survivor Yahoo! said this week that it beat expectations for the fourth quarter, as it raised estimates for 2003. For the last three months of 2002, the Internet giant said that revenue jumped 51 per cent from the same time a year ago, reaching $285.8m, at the high end of its previously stated guidance. This figure was …

Business 16 Jan 2003, 20:03
Where did that SMS go?

7.5% of messages 'lost' during US tests

One in twelve text messages, originated by email, are either tardy or lost on their way to US mobile subscribers. That's the surprising findings from a survey by Web performance monitoring outfit Keynote Systems which found 7.5 per cent of the messages sent during its tests were not received within 120 seconds during its two- …

Mobile 16 Jan 2003, 20:09