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Stories by James Niccolai

  • Aussie sues Microsoft for $US1billion

    A small computer hardware company, headed up by an Australian, has sued Microsoft for upwards of $US1 billion for allegedly stealing the firm's design for a user-friendly computer mouse. In a suit filed late yesterday in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, GoldTouch Technologies, based in California, charges Microsoft with theft of trade secrets, patent infringement and fraud. The company is seeking $US1 billion in punitive damages plus other compensatory damages, the company's lawyer said.

  • 3Com, Siemens venture tackles voice-data

    3Com and Siemens AG announced plans this week to develop a slew of telephony and multimedia products designed to allow customers to deploy voice, video and data applications over local area networks (LANs). The alliance, which builds on an 18-month partnership between the organisations, calls for the formation of a joint venture company that will begin rolling out products in early 1999 and continue through 2000. 3Com and Siemens will share an initial investment of $US100 million to get the venture up and running, they said. Initial products will be aimed at smaller businesses or for use in workgroups of less than 500 users, and will be based in part on Siemens' HiNet RC3000 call processing software and 3Com's SuperStack II LAN switches.

  • National Semi puts scanner on a chip

    National Semiconductor has developed an integrated circuit that squeezes virtually all of the electronics needed for a colour image scanner onto a single silicon chip smaller than a thumbnail, the company announced recently.

  • Microsoft begins to comply with Java order

    Microsoft has posted on the Web a new version of its Java Virtual Machine (JVM) for Windows and Internet Explorer, as it takes its first steps to comply with a US district court order. The JVM supports Sun Microsystems' Java Native Interface technology, Microsoft said. Last month a US district court judge gave Microsoft 90 days to make changes to its Java products, including the addition of Java Native Interface (JNI), to bring them into line with Sun's Java compatibility tests. A JVM is a program that allows a computer to run Java applets and applications. The JNI is a part of the JVM that allows Java programs to "speak to" the computer's underlying operating system and take advantage of features that are specific to it, such as the multiple font types available in Windows.

  • The Microsoft Files: Trial focus to switch to Java

    The US government in its antitrust case against Microsoft will call Java creator James Gosling to the witness stand next week, shifting the focus of the trial to Microsoft's alleged misuse of Sun Microsystems' programming language, sources close to the case said. Gosling, could take the stand as early as Tuesday morning, the sources said.

  • Oracle pins database success on cost-of-ownership

    In a move aimed at taking away a slice of Microsoft's SQL Server business, Oracle will soon announce plans to sell its database software installed on pre-configured "server appliances" that use a lightweight operating system developed in part by Oracle.

  • Intel to replace flawed motherboards

    Intel has been alerted to a glitch in some of its desktop motherboards which has left some recent PC buyers unable to boot up their machines, a company spokesman confirmed. The problem affects Intel's SE 440BX-2 motherboards, which are designed for use with Pentium II-based desktop PC systems, Intel spokesman Robert Manetta said.

  • Ellison goes for speed with 8i

    Oracle chairman and chief executive officer Larry Ellison used his keynote address here at Comdex to hawk the speed of his forthcoming Oracle8i database, and found time to offer some choice words about rival Microsoft's new SQL Server 7.0 release unveiled earlier this week.

  • Sun gets injunction against Microsoft

    A US district court yesterday granted Sun Microsystems' request for a preliminary injunction in its Java technology lawsuit against Microsoft, forcing Microsoft to make changes to some of its key software products, according to the judge's order. District Court Judge Ronald Whyte ruled that Sun is likely to prevail on the merits of the case and ordered Microsoft to make changes to its products within 90 days so that they include a version of Java that will pass Sun's compatibility test suite.

  • Oracle pitches its strategy for data warehousing

    Oracle has outlined its strategy to target the growing data warehousing market, with new products and partnerships that it hopes will allow it to get the attention of small, medium-sized and large businesses. The strategy calls for Oracle to provide not only the underlying technology for building and managing a data warehouse, but also many of the analytical software applications that allow customers to drill down into their data and extract meaning from it, officials said.

  • Judge may rule soon in Sun-Microsoft hearing

    More evidence in Sun Microsystems' Java lawsuit against Microsoft was unsealed by a California district court today, paving the way for the judge overseeing the case to make a ruling on Sun's request for a preliminary injunction.

  • Palm Pilot still setting the pace in handhelds

    The market for smart handheld devices is booming, but with lots of product designs to choose from and new smart phones on the horizon, vendors will have to work hard to keep consumers interested in their products, according to a report released last week by International Data Corporation (IDC).

  • Compaq's PC market share slides

    The number of PCs shipped worldwide in the third quarter increased as much as 15 per cent over the same period last year. But the news wasn't all good for market leader Compaq, according to two reports released last week. Compaq's worldwide unit sales grew just 9.7 per cent over the same period last year, compared to a 24 per cent increase for IBM in second place, and a 61 per cent increase for third-placed Dell, according to preliminary figures collected by Dataquest.

  • PC sales up in Q3, but Compaq's share slides

    The number of PCs shipped worldwide in the third quarter increased as much as 15 per cent over the same period last year, but the news wasn't all good for market leader Compaq, according to two reports released this week. Compaq's worldwide unit sales grew just 9.7 per cent over the same period last year, compared to a 24 per cent increase for IBM in second place, and a 61 per cent increase for third-placed Dell, according to preliminary figures collected by Dataquest.

  • Packard Bell NEC to use AMD's PC chips

    Packard Bell NEC has become the latest manufacturer to offer desktop and notebook PCs powered by Advanced Micro Devices' microprocessors, AMD said this week. AMD this year has been steadily increasing its share of the PC chip market, mostly at the expense of market leader Intel. AMD prices its chips 25 per cent lower than comparable offerings from Intel, making them popular with PC vendors competing in an increasingly price-sensitive market, analysts say. Packard Bell NEC joins industry heavyweights Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sony and Acer America on AMD's list of K6 customers.