Bill Gates launched Windows 2000 in San Francisco last week at an event which Wired News described as "painfully boring" and filled with "crushing tedium". Although nearly a year later than expected, Windows 2000 has received good reviews from industry analysts and companies that have already installed it. With more than 35 million lines of code, it is one of the most complex software programs ever made.
Despite having built-in anti-piracy features, bootleg copies of the new software have been in circulation for months in Russia where it has being well received, retailing for $2.75. About 90 per cent of software sold in Russia is pirated, Microsoft's marketing manager for Russia, Gamid Kostoyev, has said.
Technology Last: Rather than focusing on the technology that makes e-commerce possible retailers need to focus on the customer relationships, according to a new report by affininet.com, a joint venture of Amarach and the Bristol Group of Canada. The report also found that forays into Internet retailing have weakened retailers' relationships with existing customers.
German Takeover: Deutsche Telekom is buying the Internet services of French conglomerate Lagardere in a bid to expand its Internet presence in Europe. Telekom's subsidiary, T-Online International, will trade stock for a 99.9 per cent stake in Lagardere's Club Internet, which has 320,000 users.
Double Trouble: DoubleClick, the online advertising firm with a base in Dublin, is facing a new legal challenge from the Michigan attorney general's office, taking the number of privacy-related lawsuits it now faces to six. The company has defended its data collection policies, saying it does not use sensitive personal details in the data it compiles on Net users.
Raging Ocean: Ocean has lodged a complaint with the Office of the Telecommunications Regulator about what it claims is eircom's abuse of privileged information. The complaint contends that users who have switched to Ocean's service following the introduction of carrier pre-selection are being called by eircom sales staff in an attempt to persuade them to stay with eircom.
Crack Addict: A teen-age cracker sentenced to five years without a PC after breaching AOL's internal computers last year will need approval to even touch a terminal for work or school, a US judge has ruled. Initially employment and education were exempted from the sentence but his probation officer said letting him near a keyboard "is like putting a drink in front of an alcoholic".
Web Art: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Webbys awards show (www.webbys.com) are offering a $50,000 prize to the digital artist with the most impressive work.
Mad For It: Sony briefly shut down its site early last Friday after receiving 100,000 hits in one minute after the online debut of the 128-bit PlayStation2. Sony halted its swamped Web server only moments after beginning to take online orders for the console which makes its debut on March 4th.
New Media Guide: NewMediaCV has launched a guide to new media training and education in Ireland available free from www.newmediacv.com. According to the company, a number of factors have influenced the skills gaps and concentrations found in the Irish market including small games and film industries, a growing demand for e-commerce skills and a shortage of experienced C++ and Java developers.
Willamette Speed: Intel has unwrapped a chip running at 1.5 gigahertz, code-named Willamette, as part of a flurry of announcements from the twice-yearly Intel Developers' Forum. It is due to go on sale this autumn.
Tracking Cracking: US Attorney General Janet Reno has acknowledged difficulties in tracking the crackers responsible for recent attacks against major websites. Reno, testifying before a Senate panel, called the challenge of averting cybercrime "one of the most critical issues that law enforcement has ever faced".
School Dell: Dell has announced an educational programme for Irish schools aimed at enhancing the use of technology in the classroom as a teaching and learning tool. In alliance with Diskovery Educational Software, Dell will promote a number of offers targeted at the educational sector.
EPA Shutdown: The US Environmental Protection Agency has shut down its website in response to congressional concerns that it did not have adequate security to protect sensitive information, including trade secrets.
Bigger Macs: At MacWorld in Tokyo Apple announced a new range of laptops with 10 hours of battery life and both DVD and FireWire. Both run with PowerPC G3 processors clocked at 400 and 500 MHz.
Wapping Up Email: E-Search has launched a service allowing email to be sent from WAP enabled mobile phone to any email address. The service incorporates a lookup of the ESearch email directory and allows registration in the directory through the phone. It can be accessed through WAP phones at www.esearch.ie/wap.
In Brief...Microsoft and Cap Gemini have formed an alliance to develop enterprise services and custom solutions based on MS Enterprise. . . Novell has announced an agreement to become Benetton F1's technical supplier. . . Hewlett-Packard has reported revenue growth of 14 per cent for the first quarter of 2000. . . Tesco Ireland and MicroWarehouse have reported an encouraging response to the home computing packages sold during December. . .