Compaq prevented from using Wildfire name

The Big Q introduces its Wildfire Alpha techology come Tuesday, with Mike Capellas, big Larry Ellison and a host of other luminaries not including the now-departed Enrico Pesatori on hand to tell the world and its dog about the wonders of clustering. It's just as well that Wildfire is finally being released, after awesome delays, because new developments would have meant Compaq might have got in a spot of bother with m'learned friends. Sources close to Compaq have informed us that Wildfire is actually a registered trademark of Wildfire Communications Inc. The boys and girls at The Big Q have heard from Wildfire Communications who are far from happy of the use of this codename to describe what will be known come Tuesday as the rather less exciting AlphaServer GS Series. Oops. ®