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29th July 2003 Archive

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  • Server market surges in Q2

    It's alive. It's alive.

    There are signs of life in the server industry as almost all major vendors enjoyed double-digit growth in the second quarter, according to preliminary numbers from Gartner. A total of 1.28 million servers were shipped worldwide in Q2. This marks a 17.6 percent gain over the same quarter a year ago and the largest rise in …

    Servers 29 Jul 2003, 02:43

  • Qualcomm lawyers defy Nokia's rabbit cull

    TI sued for 'confidentiality breach'

    Everyone agrees, competition is great - except when they're competing against you, of course. Qualcomm on Friday filed a suit against Texas Instruments, which in May said it would challenge Qualcomm's lucrative near-monopoly on CDMA chipsets. (See TI, Nokia gang up on Qualcomm). Qualcomm alleges that statements to financial …

    Mobile 29 Jul 2003, 08:41

  • BT confirms return to mass market mobile

    Family planning

    BT has well and truly thrown its hat back into the mobile telecoms ring confirming today that it has teamed up with T-Mobile to offer a new service aimed at families. BT Mobile Home Plan is the telco's first major step back into the mobile mass market since it flogged its mobile arm MMO2 almost two years ago. The company is …

    Mobile 29 Jul 2003, 08:43

  • EMC grabs another HP exec

    Thinning the Compaq herd

    EMC has plucked another storage executive from HP's leadership ranks, hiring Mark Sorenson to help its software push. It's no secret that EMC and HP are locked in a bitter battle, and Sorenson's shift in loyalties does little to help the situation. Last year, EMC hired its current CTO Mark Lewis away from HP, causing a minor …

    Storage 29 Jul 2003, 08:44

  • Kill a Middle East head of state, win prizes! – Pentagon shows how

    DARPA terror game under fire

    "Poor people aren't necessarily killers," the current President of the United States tells us. "Just because you happen not to be rich, doesn't mean you're willing to kill." Phew! However, the poor now have an additional incentive to take up arms, thanks to an extraordinary initiative from the Pentagon-funded research agency …

    Music and Media 29 Jul 2003, 08:46

  • Civil servants' families could test government websites

    We are all usability experts now

    Government web managers needing users to make their websites citizen-friendly should consider recruiting public sector staff or their families as a "cheap alternative" to usability consultancies. The advice is given in the Office of the e-Envoy's long-awaited 'Quality Framework for UK Government Website Design', which was …

    Music and Media 29 Jul 2003, 08:53

  • Hi-Fi meets Wi-Fi with Linksys

    Wireless chatter

    How many wireless networks do you have in your home? The last time I counted - writes Rob Bamforth of Bloor Research - I had six: Wi-Fi/802.11b for the wireless LAN, DECT for the fixed line phone; Bluetooth for the 'little things'; GSM/GPRS for the cell phones; an active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for a tagging …

    Wireless 29 Jul 2003, 09:01

  • Freeserve halves losses

    Progress

    Freeserve has halved its losses for the first half of the year as it controlled network costs and benefited from the increased the amount of dosh spent by its customers. The UK arm of French ISP Wanadoo notched up a loss of €25 million in H1 2003 - down from the €52 million run up in the first six months of 2002. In the three …

    Business 29 Jul 2003, 09:12

  • Nvidia lowers Q2 gross- margin forecast

    130nm chips costing more than expected

    Nvidia has lowered its gross-margin expectations for its current fiscal quarter, the company said yesterday, thanks to "higher than anticipated product costs attributed to the 0.13 micron semiconductor process technology". In announcing preliminary results for its second quarter, which ended on Sunday, Nvidia reiterated that it …

    Channel 29 Jul 2003, 09:14

  • Dell to ship Axim update tomorrow

    Windows Mobile 2003 fix almost here

    Dell will this Wednesday ship the long-awaited firmware patch that will allow its Axim x5 PDA to run Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PCs correctly, the PC maker said yesterday. The update, which will be posted on Dell's support site, is a ROM update and is intended for Axims that shipped with the new version of the Microsoft OS …

    Personal 29 Jul 2003, 09:14

  • Lawsuits In Motion files suit against Xerox

    Seeks protection from patent infringement claims

    Research In Motion (RIM) has filed a "defensive" lawsuit against Xerox just in case the two companies' negotiations over whether RIM's Blackberry product infringes Xerox-held patents break down. The lawsuit, filed in 17 July with the US District Court of Hartford, Connecticut, details the discussions between the two companies …

    Mobile 29 Jul 2003, 09:46

  • Westcon lines up $175m credit facility

    Working capital

    Westcon Group has close a $175m secured credit facility to support working capital requirements for its North American division. The multinational networking equipment distie says the facility, arranged with a syndicate of seven banks, was oversubscribed. This is a " testament to our strength and viability despite current …

    Channel 29 Jul 2003, 09:57

  • Easynet buys German ISP for £2.4m

    Infill

    Business broadband outfit Easynet has paid €3.34 million (£2.4 million) for German ISP talknet. Easynet paid €500,000 up front and will stump up the rest of the cash in installments until January 2006. For the year to June 30, talknet generated revenues of €14.4 million, notching up an operating profit of €2.1 million. …

    Business 29 Jul 2003, 10:01

  • Microsoft gets touchy feely with $26m Xbox pay-off

    Immersion Tanked

    Immersion has signed a $26m licensing deal with Microsoft, settling its lawsuit with the software giant and giving Microsoft a 10 percent stake in the firm. In February 2002, US-based Immersion filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and Sony for patent-infringement, for use of its haptic, or touch, technology. While litigation …

    Personal 29 Jul 2003, 10:12

  • ATI brings Radeon 9800, 9600 to FireGL line

    Workstation line filling out

    ATI introduced its latest workstation-oriented FireGL cards today, the X2-256 and the T2-128. The former is based on the Radeon 9800 Pro core - branded the FGL9800 in this case - and comes equipped with 256MB of DDR video memory and twin DVI-I interfaces. The card's graphics chip provides eight parallel rendering pipelines and …

    Channel 29 Jul 2003, 11:17

  • BT and friends pump £7m into Wiltshire broadband

    Rural roll-out

    BT and friends are pumping £7m into Wiltshire to accelerate broadband rollout in the county. Called Wiltshire and Swindon Smartplace, the project will over its lifetime see access to ADSL delivered to an 63,000 households and 6,000 businesses in the largely rural county. Within 15 months, around 80 per cent of Wiltshire …

    Small Biz 29 Jul 2003, 11:29

  • Jobs go as Claranet confirms Netscalibur buyout

    Insiders talk of job losses

    Claranet has confirmed that it has bought ISP Netscalibur UK for an undisclosed sum. In a statement Claranet claims that the combined group will have an annual turnover of more than £70 million and more than 40,000 business punters. The Register reported last week that the two parties were set to sign a deal although at the …

    Business 29 Jul 2003, 11:34

  • Cisco fixes Aironet vuln

    Firmware upgrade for IOS flavours

    Cisco Systems yesterday released a fix for a security vulnerability affecting its Aironet 1100, 1200 and 1400 series wireless access points. Vulnerable Cisco Aironet Access Points can be forced to crash and reboot on receipt of maliciously constructed traffic, security consulting firm VIGILANTe (which discovered the problem) …

    Wireless 29 Jul 2003, 11:41

  • US tech industry staff decimated in offshore stampede

    10% of jobs moved abroad in 2004

    One in ten jobs in US tech vendors and IT service providers will move offshore by the end of 2004. And one in 20 tech jobs in end-user enterprises will be shipped overseas to cheaper countries during that time, Gartner estimates. The tech analyst firm is a strong advocate of offshore relocation, and it has a heap of advice for …

    Business 29 Jul 2003, 14:00

  • MCI faces new fraud inquiry

    Call for Capellas to resign

    MCI - aka Worldcom and currently battling Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following its $11bn accounting scandal - is at the centre of a fresh round of allegations concerning its murky past. Rival telco AT&T Corp accused MCI of improperly rerouting long-distance calls in the US and Canada in order to avoid paying hundreds of …

    Data Networking 29 Jul 2003, 14:01

  • Symantec wins counterfeit CD case

    One spamming scam canned, thousands to go

    Symantec yesterday won a summary judgement against Oregon-based firm CD Micro for selling counterfeit Symantec security software at "too-good-to-be-true prices". The decision paves the way for a substantial damages payout against CD-Micro, which promoted the knock-off software using an aggressive spamming campaign. The order, …

    Channel 29 Jul 2003, 14:07

  • Secure Computing snags N2H2

    Filtration

    Secure Computing today announced plans to acquire content filtering company N2H2 in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $19.9 million. Secure Computing is probably best known for its Sidewinder G2 Firewall and VPN products, but it also has a smaller business selling content filtering technology. Joining forces with …

    Security 29 Jul 2003, 14:11

  • Fujifilm preps six-megapixel prosumer digicam

    Reg Kit Watch Plus: new Dell Centrino notebooks

    Digicams Fujifilm today unveiled three new FinePix digital cameras, the S7000 Zoom, S5000 Zoom and the A205S Zoom, all due for release in Europe in the autumn. The S7000 'prosumer' 6.3 megapixel camera offers full manual control of aperture, focusing shutter speed and flash, and a 6x optical zoom equivalent to 35-210mm on a …

    Personal 29 Jul 2003, 14:23

  • Wireless link for Sony PSP

    Portable networking

    Speaking to developers in Tokyo today, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi confirmed that the PlayStation Portable will come equipped with wireless networking functionality. According to a report on Bloomberg, Kutaragi-san told the meeting of developers and publishers that the device will be able to access the …

    Personal 29 Jul 2003, 14:44

  • AMD cuts Opteron prices by up to 35%

    Update Mobile prices too

    AMD quietly trimmed the prices of its top-two single-processor system Opteron 100 series and its dual-processor Opteron 200 series yesterday possibly paving the way for a new, faster version of the chips. The Opteron 144's price was cut from $669 to $438, a cut of around 35 per cent. The Opteron 142 fell from $438 to $292, down …

    Channel 29 Jul 2003, 14:46

  • Orange revs up in H1

    Figures going the right way

    A good performance in Orange's key French subsidiary helped lift first half revenues 7 per cent to €8.6bn. Additionally, the France Telecom-owned mobile network operator turned in a profit, before the bad stuff - interest payments, depreciation etc - for the first time in every territory. ARPU (average revenue per user) …

    Mobile 29 Jul 2003, 15:23

  • Bluetooth chip sales to hit $1.7bn in 2007

    Positive future thanks to PMGs

    Some 35.8 million Bluetooth chips were sold last year, up 245 per cent on 2001's figure, market researcher In-Stat/MDR reported today. Driving that growth was the increasing installation of Bluetooth into mobile phones. And the power behind that trend was falling chip costs, leading In-Stat to draw the startling conclusion that …

    Mobile 29 Jul 2003, 15:27

  • 5,500 IT jobs hang in the balance at Deutsche Bank

    It's mulling

    Deutsche Bank is mulling over outsourcing up to 5,500 IT jobs - half of its IT staff or shifting jobs abroad, the FT reports today. The paper cites unnamed bank insiders who say the idea is at an early stage but could take place over the next 18 months. Outsourcing and location-shifting are entirely different matters. With the …

    Business 29 Jul 2003, 15:43

  • Nortel leapfrogs Cisco in VoIP sales

    Renewed health

    Nortel Networks outpaced arch-rival Cisco to lead the market in IP (Internet Protocol) Telephony line shipments. According to Dell'Oro Group's 1Q03 IP Telephony Report, the number of worldwide enterprise VoIP lines shipped in the quarter exceeded one million for the first time. This overall sequential growth rate of 26 per cent …

    Data Networking 29 Jul 2003, 15:44

  • IBM wins $1.1bn ABB outsourcing gig

    On Demand savings

    IBM has won an IT outsourcing gig worth $1.1bn with ABB, the ailing Swiss-Swedish enginering group. The deal lasts for 10 years and covers management of the usual infrastructure - servers, operating systems, networks, PCs and help desks - in 14 countries. There's a modish pricing component too - with IBM introducing On Demand …

    Business 29 Jul 2003, 16:19

  • Labels charged with price-fixing – again

    Cough it up for The Three Tenors

    A pair of major music labels have been hit with another round of price-fixing charges courtesy of the FTC - a decision which raises the question as to who exactly is to blame for falling music revenue. In a unanimous decision, members of the U.S. FTC (Federal Trade Comission) chastised Vivendi Universal and Warner …

    Music and Media 29 Jul 2003, 16:25

  • Verizon text tapping bug run to ground

    The fix is (kinda) in

    A bug in Verizon's text messaging system created a means for crackers to snoop on SMS messages, or worse, a security research firm warned last week. Verizon, while not admitting that anything was amiss, reportedly closed the security loophole last Friday (July 25). The bug created a means to "easily view mass lists of SMS …

    Security 29 Jul 2003, 18:07

  • AMD claims to win battle of slowest selling chips

    Limps faster than Intel

    Intel and AMD are locked in a 64-bit processor shipment competition that resembles a race between two broken-legged fillies. Horse number one is Intel's Itanium processor, which has stumbled along since its birth. After enjoying a modicum of success with the second generation McKinley chip, Intel saw sales slip in Q1 and any …

    Servers 29 Jul 2003, 19:09

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 beta up for grabs

    Time for Taroon

    Red Hat has put out a beta for version 3 of its enterprise class operating system, offering up support for a host of processors. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 beta - aka Taroon - is available in two forms -- the AS version for servers and the WS version for workstations. The server version has support for quite a few …

    Software 29 Jul 2003, 21:59