25th February 2003 Archive

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IBM's (and Oracle's) plans for U2 users

Briefing Note IBM better get its skates on

I recently had a briefing with IBM during which the subject of the future of Informix users came up, writes Phil Howard. The answer to that question is well known: IBM will continue to maintain and upgrade the Informix database for the foreseeable future but, in the longer term, IBM expects to provide migration capability to DB2 …

Hardware 25 Feb 2003, 08:16
Ireland sets FRIACO prices

Welcome to 21st Century

Ireland's communications regulator ComReg says its flat-rate Internet access plans are on track, with wholesale prices set to come in at €12.77 per customer, per month. ComReg has reviewed Eircom's pricing submissions, and says that FRIACO (Flat-rate Internet Access Call Origination) is set for launch this summer. "We are …

Music and Media 25 Feb 2003, 08:30
ALSTOM ditches EDS – before it gets started

Calling All (other) Outsourcers!

ALSTOM has scrapped a mega-outsourcing deal with EDS after failing to "reach mutually acceptable terms". The French energy transmission giant said in a statement today that it "continues to favour outsourcing its IT in order to reduce costs, while delivering improved operational efficiency, and higher IT service and quality …

Hardware 25 Feb 2003, 08:58
Morse dogged by falling Sun, HP sales

But IBM is on the up

Sales carry on falling at Morse, Europe's biggest Sun dealer, but customers are rejecting other lines too. In its interims out today (but highlighted by the company last month), Morse revealed that Sun hardware sales slumped 36 per cent, while HP, another major mid-range franchise, were down 32 per cent for the six months to …

Channel 25 Feb 2003, 09:39
Isonetric Broadband ceases trading

Sat Zapped

Isonetric Broadband Ltd - the Brighton-based broadband via satellite ISP - has ceased trading. Those behind the company decided to call time on the business last week. A London-based firm of accountants, BKR Haines Watts, has been instructed to convene a meeting of shareholders and creditors on March 7. It's understood that …

Telecoms 25 Feb 2003, 10:20
Oh So Quiet with VIA 1GHz Mini-ITX

Homeward bound

VIA today announces a 1GHz C3 processor version of its Mini-ITX mainboard. And it has set its sights on an application and a place for the little beast - Digital media centres and little PCs in the home. The company reckons the VIA EPIA M10000 Mini-ITX Mainboard, to give the mini-mobo its full title, is 50 per cent quieter than …

Personal 25 Feb 2003, 11:16
Punters warned about UK Internet Registry Ltd

Domain sales that "resemble invoices"

Nominet UK - the national Registry for all domain names ending .uk - is calling for people to get in touch if they have received what resembles an invoice from a company called UK Internet Registry Ltd. The company has been sending letters which "resemble invoices" to owners of .co.uk names. In the correspondence from UK …

Music and Media 25 Feb 2003, 11:18
ATI takes two AIW cards to Europe

Yawn

ATI is shipping two ALL-IN-WONDER multimedia graphics cards into Europe, courtesy of boardmakers Hercules and Sapphire. They are the ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 PRO and ALL-IN-WONDER VE. As they were launched in the States last year we see little reason to run through the spec. And as ATI Europe has in its infinite wisdom decided to …

Personal 25 Feb 2003, 13:07
Malvern votes against evoting

X marks the spot

Councillors in the Malvern Hills have ditched plans to trial evoting in the upcoming spring local elections after the Government failed to give its full approval for the project to go ahead. Malvern Hills District Council (MHDC) - which had been working with BT to run the Internet-voting project - was recently named as one of …

Music and Media 25 Feb 2003, 13:49
Co-founder buys Turbolinux's Linux, Windows cluster software

PowerCockpit goes to Mountain View Data

PowerCockpit, pretty much all that was left of Turbolinux following the sale of its Linux business and name last year, has itself been sold. Server management and storage software outfit Mountain View Data today announced that it has acquired the product. PowerCockpit, which is proprietary software, allows the management and …

Hardware 25 Feb 2003, 14:34
Overture buys FAST's web search biz

Paying up to $100m

Overture is stumping up to $100m cash for the Internet business of Fast Search & Transfer (FAST). The keyword ad Johnny is shelling out $70m cash upfront and up to $30m in performance incentives to the Norwegian search firm over three years. In turn it gets FAST WebSearch, AlltheWeb.com, and FAST PartnerSite. FAST says it will …

Music and Media 25 Feb 2003, 15:07
More broken monitors now!

Repair firms need work

Monitor prices are falling and reliability is climbing. That's a good thing, right? Not if you are a warranty repair firm, to which it is more akin to something between a rock and a hard place. Falling prices means that warranty provision becomes a higher percentage of the product cost and so something for the manufacturers to …

Personal 25 Feb 2003, 15:56
UK ICT spending on the up

Phew!

The UK was one of the worst-performing markets for ICT growth last year, according to research published today. IT spending in the UK market remained flat in 2002 at €119bn, according to the European Information Technology Observatory (EITO). Of all the European countries analysed, only Germany performed worse than the UK. …

Business 25 Feb 2003, 16:56
India figures high in MS dev outsourcing plans

Redmond is not the centre of the universe...

Microsoft's recent investments in India appear to be only a part of a larger and more radical plan to conduct an increasing proportion of the company's development activities there. Although the company remains highly profitable in the teeth of a slump it is attempting to keep costs in the west down, while dangling the prospect …

Software 25 Feb 2003, 20:47
Sun's Niagara is SPARC on Viagra

Providing a lift for an old instruction set

Sun talked a little more about its CPU roadmap today, christening the ultra-dense multiple core SPARC technology it acquired from Afara Websystems last year "Niagara". It also made a commitment that could come back to haunt it, if it fails to deliver: the first Niagara systems, said Sun, will offer 15 times more throughput than …

Channel 25 Feb 2003, 22:31