6th October 2003 Archive

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ERP users in Europe want Oracle to back off Peoplesoft merger

95% against merger

Users of both Peoplesoft and JD Edwards ERP packages dread a takeover by Oracle in Europe. An ERP survey, completed last month shows that as many as 95% of customers do not want Oracle's bid for Peoplesoft to succeed. The shocking hostility to the merger proposal was uncovered in a general ERP survey conducted by market …

Hardware 6 Oct 2003, 07:40
IT spending shifts to business continuity, services

European survey

A major new survey, detailing future European IT spending plans, has dealt a major body blow to Linux, showing that it is nowhere on CIO radar screens, relegated to being a low urgency "tactical" purchase. Instead European CIOs put business continuity and disaster recovery in pride of place, with 53% saying that they MUST act …

Business 6 Oct 2003, 07:57
Invisible Networks goes titsup

No money, no buyer

Wireless broadband outfit Invisible Networks has gone titsup after running out of cash and failing to find a buyer. Without any money to pay for the leased lines that support IN's wireless broadband communities the company has warned its customers that their services are likely to be switched off "within a very short period of …

Wireless 6 Oct 2003, 08:37
AMD to ship Athlon 64s as mobile XPs?

'Dublin' up processor roles

AMD's plan to market desktop 64-bit Athlon 64 chips as 32-bit Athlon XP chips has been the subject of much speculation for some time. But it now appears that the company may use the same trick with mobile processors, too. According to a story on French-language site x86 Secret, a mobile chip codenamed 'Dublin' will join desktop …

Channel 6 Oct 2003, 08:57
Intel ships fastest two-way Xeon

Update Clock upped to 3.2GHz

Intel has extended its Xeon dual-processor server chip line to 3.2GHz, up from 3.06GHz, the chip giant said today. The chip operates across a 533MHz effective bit-rate frontside bus and sports 1MB of L3 cache. Presumably there's 512KB of L2 cache in there too. Intel is asking $851 for the 32-bit chip, when sold in 1000-unit …

Channel 6 Oct 2003, 09:49
Intel cuts Centrino prices

Up to 34% off Pentium M line

Intel yesterday cut the prices of its Pentium M mobile processors, as anticipated. The prices of the processors themselves fell by up to 34 per cent. Intel also cut the prices of Centrino packages, which bundle the Pentium M, i855 chipset and WirelessPro 802.11b WLAN adaptor, by up to 30 per cent. The cut paves the way for the …

Channel 6 Oct 2003, 09:51
Linux vs. Windows Viruses

Opinion Let's go to work

To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on it, writes SecurityFocus columnist Scott Granneman. We've all heard it many times when a new Microsoft virus comes out. In fact, I've heard it a couple of times this week already. Someone on a mailing list or discussion forum …

Anti-Virus 6 Oct 2003, 09:55
118 services fail to refund

Tsk, tsk

BT is splashing out £3 million on a new ad campaign in a bid to win back customers to its directory enquiries (DQ) service. The monster telco reckons that it can elbow its way back into the market as long as it focuses on accuracy and speed - two areas it reckons it's got the competition licked. But according to a report by …

Mobile 6 Oct 2003, 11:11
HP Europe resellers desperately ‘seeking new vendors’

Driven hard

In September 2001, channel research house Context polled European resellers for their opinion of what HP would be like following a takeover of Compaq. Two years on, the company has revisited those resellers with the same questions. The outcome is somewhat different. In September 2003, Context asked 467 European dealers how the …

Channel 6 Oct 2003, 11:55
David Bedford gets the hump over 118 118 ads

Take a running jump

The Number - whose ads featuring two moustachioed 1970s-style runners have been elevated to cult status - are facing legal action from former British athlete David Bedford. Mr Bedford has written to the directory enquiries (DQ) outfit demanding compensation after he alleged that The Number had ripped off his image without his …

Business 6 Oct 2003, 12:00
US cableco seeks to quash RIAA subpoenas

Customer care

Charter Communications, the US cableco, is challenging the RIAA's attempt to hand over the names of 150 customers who allegedly swapped music files illegally over the net. The company filed suit on Friday in its home town of St Louis, Missouri seeking to block subpoenas obtained by the RIAA. Tom Hearity, associate general …

Music and Media 6 Oct 2003, 12:22
Confusion surrounds suicide Webcast

DJ claims to have footage

There's confusion today over the possible suicide of a terminally ill patient due to be broadcast on the Web last Saturday. According to reports, the Webcast of a suicide during a rock concert did not take place after the Web site was floored by a denial of service attack thought to originate from Hong Kong. Shock rock outfit …

Music and Media 6 Oct 2003, 13:27
Motorola to IPO chip division

PowerPC maker to become publicly traded spin-off

Motorola is to float off its semiconductor business, the company said today. Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS) has been rumoured to have had a 'for sale' sign up for some time, with Europe's STMicroelectronics at one time touted as a potential buyer. But with no purchaser in the offing, Motorola has clearly …

Channel 6 Oct 2003, 13:59
ParkerVision touts Wi-Fi range boost tech

Up to 1.6km

Radio Frequency (RF) transceiver maker Florida-based ParkerVision claims its Horizons wireless adaptor products significantly improve the range of standard 802.11 networking kit - regardless of which vendor's base-station the client accesses. The company says it can extend the outdoor range of Wi-Fi communications by to 1.6km …

Wireless 6 Oct 2003, 14:00
IBM debuts hard drive ‘airbag’ crash protection

Reg Kit Watch Park your heads before impact

IBM today debuted a new hard drive system designed to prevent data damage when the notebook is dropped. The technology, dubbed the IBM Active Protection System (APS), will appear in new ThinkPad R50 and T41 series machines. Essentially, APS watches out for sudden movement and parks the hard drive's read/write head when it …

Hardware 6 Oct 2003, 14:28
IBM and EMC swallow each others' API pride

Storage swap

IBM and EMC are swapping APIs, at long last. The two companies have already forged API deals with just about every other major storage vendor around but could not come to terms on an IBM/EMC exchange. This ends with both companies deciding to fork over their storage system APIs, including future ones based on the SMI-S standard …

Storage 6 Oct 2003, 14:48
Legality of online pharmacies questioned

You want snake oil? We got snake oil!

A restaurateur and her son were sentenced last month to federal prison in Florida for running an unlicensed Internet pharmacy which fulfilled orders from a bedroom in her suburban home. Although they operated only two websites, mother and son generated a stunning $1.3 million in sales, Associated Press reports. What about the …

Music and Media 6 Oct 2003, 15:14
Nokia to sell ‘several million’ N-Gages in 2004

Launches midnight tonight

Nokia's N-Gage phone-cum-handheld games console goes on sale at midnight tonight in more than 30,000 stores in 60 countries around the world. The way Nokia talks, you'd think there has never been a portable games console before, but N-Gage is a risky venture for the Finnish phone maker, so it's not surprising the company is …

Mobile 6 Oct 2003, 15:18
O2 launches mobile video service

Rugby pitch

O2 in the UK has launched its first mobile video service, which is free until 31 January 2004 and is to be available in Ireland early in the new year. The service operates on a GPRS (2.5G) network and is supported on the Nokia 3650 and the Sony Ericsson P800. The company said that next month availability will expand to the new …

Mobile 6 Oct 2003, 15:38
NetScreen nets Neoteris for $265m

SSL VPN power play

NetScreen Technologies today announced an agreement to acquire SSL VPN company Neoteris in a deal valued at $265 million. The acquisition, for approximately $245 million in stock and $20 million in cash, represents the security industry's largest acquisition of a private company since May 2001. The deal represents a further …

Security 6 Oct 2003, 16:19
US should follow EU lead on spam – MPs

Let's co-operate

The US should follow Europe's lead against spam, according to an eagerly awaited report published today by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG). With half of all email sent today estimated to be spam, APIG's enquiry concludes that tackling unsolicited commercial email is a global issue. "We recommend to the US …

Music and Media 6 Oct 2003, 16:23
SCO can ditch its Benelux distie

30 days notice for 30 years business

SCO has won a court case against its Dutch distributor Dupaco. And it's got nothing to do with Linux. SCO, the company now best-known for its crusade against IBM and other companies over Linux copyright issues, recently terminated its 18-year relationship with Dupaco, preferring a European franchise model. Dupaco became a …

Channel 6 Oct 2003, 16:51
Belgacom: minority shareholders eye windfall

Float plans

The Belgian government has revealed details of its flotation plans for the telecoms carrier Belgacom, much to relief of its minority shareholders who have been waiting to realize their investment in one of Europe's most financially robust telecom operators. Bankers have valued Belgacom at $11.6 billion, after the Belgian …

Mobile 6 Oct 2003, 16:58
UK teenager accused of ‘electronic sabotage’ against US port

Houston, we have a problem

A British teenager allegedly brought down the Internet systems of a major US port while attempting to extract revenge on a fellow IRC user, a court heard today. Aaron Caffrey, 19, allegedly slowed systems at the port of Houston in Texas to a crawl as the result of an attack actually aimed at a fellow chat-room user, called …

Security 6 Oct 2003, 18:42
Iraq goes GSM

Wins for Kuwaiti, Egyptian bids

The US Coalition Provisional Authority has finally awarded cellular licenses for Iraq. Shunning the powerful CDMA lobby, all the networks will be GSM and use Middle East-based know how and capital. The awards divide Iraq into three regions. In the north, the award goes to Asia Cell Telecommunications, a new consortium which …

Mobile 6 Oct 2003, 20:34
HP puts Madison-powered workstation into pond

Ecosystem on edge

HP has added to its Itanium ecosystem with a new workstation running on a 1.4GHz version of Intel's 64bit chip. The zx2000 is a single processor system built with design engineers in mind. It's available with Intel's third generation Itanium processor - Madison - at speeds of up to 1.4GHz and with 1.5MB of L3 cache. HP is using …

Servers 6 Oct 2003, 21:23
Day the music died at MP3.com

The domain remains the same

Yesterday was almost the day the music died for MP3.com after the firm forgot to renew its domain name, documents received by The Register claim. According to Steve Cox, a musician who promotes his music by posting it on the site - part of the mighty Vivendi Universal empire - only his quick-witted action re-registering the …

Music and Media 6 Oct 2003, 23:04