Corel's directors have introduced a shareholders' rights programme but have vigorously denied that the move is in any way linked to a rumoured takeover bid by rival software company Adobe. Management at Corel, which employs more than 150 people in Ireland, refuted suggestions that they had been approached by Adobe and said in a statement that the shareholders' rights programme had been adopted in order to provide the company's executives and shareholders with sufficient time to evaluate developments in the event of a bid rather than to to deter an imminent takeover.
Reuters, however, has quoted a source close to Corel as saying that the move was made in order to give the company time to respond to any bid and perhaps seek out a white knight to protect them from a hostile takeover - at least until the next shareholders meeting, scheduled to take place in April. In an effort to scotch the rumours, Corel's Chief Financial Officer, Michael O'Reilly, said that the company has never talked to Adobe because "they've never approached us in any way".
Icann Do It: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has released a draft proposal for the accreditation of Internet domain-name registrars. It's a first step towards establishing fair and consistent procedures and is aimed at increasing competition and global participation in domain-name registration services. The draft includes criteria for selecting the five registrars who will test the system for a two-month period beginning at the end of April. The proposed guidelines are available from www.icann.org.
Amazon Comes Clean: The New York Times has revealed that Amazon.com was forced to revise its advertising policy and disclose when book publishers pay to have titles featured, after receiving irate emails from the public. The online book retailer had fashioned an "E-merchandising" programme for book publishers: in exchange for advertising fees of as much as $12,500, books were slotted into categories such as "What We're Reading" and "Destined for Greatness" regardless of their literary merit. Amazon.com has now offered refunds for all books recommended and promised to mend its ways by informing its customers when publishers pay for prominent displays on its site.
BT's Deals: British Telecom and Microsoft have announced a global agreement to develop a range of Internet, intranet and corporate data services for mobile customers around the world enabling them to access email, calendar services, personalised Web content and online information using their phone, pager or laptop. Trials are to begin in the Britain this spring, with services expected to become available by early 2000. Under this agreement, the new services will be developed and marketed worldwide by BT and Microsoft, and offered by Concert Communications Services, BT's global communications company.
No Fly Zone: A new poll from ICL shows that 32 per cent of the general public in Britain feels that the Millennium Bug is a threat to their safety while a slightly smaller number of IT specialists has similar concerns. The poll was conducted by MORI in January and reveals that, if offered a free flight on New Year's Eve, 53 per cent of IT specialists would turn it down due to safety considerations, as would 43 per cent of the general public. In contrast however, 28 per cent of IT specialists and 31 per cent of the public think that the Millennium Bug is just marketing hype.
Y2K Threat: A somewhat less sceptical Japanese government agency is threatening to punish financial institutions which fail to prepare adequately for Y2K. The Japanese Financial Supervisory Agency will penalise banks and other financial companies if their customers are adversely affected by the Millennium Bug.
Apple's Eastern Harvest: Apple's success in the wake of the iMac release was further underlined after the company became the number one retail PC vendor in Japan last month where figures given, for the week ending January 15th, showed the company with a 37 per cent share of the entire PC market.
In Brief...The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Arthouse are to compile a fully searchable multimedia CD ROM of Northern Ireland professional artists called Artifact. . . Another ISP, City 2000, has arrived in Ireland. . . Hewlett-Packard is to be the first computer manufacturer to build the Oracle8i Appliance previously code-named Raw Iron. . . Celestica has announced record results for the fourth quarter and the year ended December '98. . . Datapac has been awarded the contract to supply hardware soloutions to Boole and Babbage Europe. . . Net Results is to participate in the Dublin Inner City Schools project, supplying net.works CX . . . America Online has signed a deal with Columbia House to market the record club for online and off-line promotions. . . The Nuremberg Files pro-life website, which featured lists of pro-choice doctors with strikes through the names of those who had been murdered has been shut down by its host ISP. . . Lotus Development has announced an expanded global initiative, SmartMove, to secure its position as a leader in the worldwide messaging market. . . Compaq has announced major additions to its ActiveAnswers online resource for marketing, buying and deploying business and enterprise software - details from www.compaq.com/ActiveAnswers. . .