Flamboyant AMD founder Sanders steps down

Jerry Sanders III, the flamboyant chairman and founder of AMD, is to step down from the chair of the board in favour of the president and CEO Hector Ruiz. The handover will happen at the company's annual meeting on 29 April and Sanders will retain the title of chairman emeritus. Sanders, who stepped down from the positions of president and CEO two years ago, is credited with keeping AMD afloat against competition from the much bigger Intel. ...more

EC anti-competitive ruling challenged by Microsoft today

Microsoft has opened its appeal against the EC ruling in Brussels this morning. The European Commission ruled in March that Microsoft had indulged in anti-competitive behaviour with Windows and set a fine of ?333mn plus orders to produce a version of Windows without the Media Player within 90 days or face further action. Microsoft always intended to appeal, and in a pre-hearing statement, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said today: 'We have a lot of confidence in the strength of our case. ...more

International domains will not be rushed

ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is refusing to rush the introduction of international domain names, despite political pressure to allow the use of non-Latin characters in website URLs. Speaking in Sydney, Australia, Paul Twomey, chief executive at the organisation which oversees the entire domain name structure, said that at the recent UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Greece ICANN had come under 'significant' pressure from the non-English speaking world. While accepting that 'we all want a multicultural Internet' he said nothing would be done before ICANN has completed its exhaustive testing. ...more

eDonkey put out to grass

It looks like the peer-to-peer networking site is headed for the knackers yard. The eDonkey site has been taken down, although according to Wikipedia, the eDonkey2000 network itself is still available to those who already have the eDonkey client software installed. A federal court ruled earlier this week that the eDonkey network allowed the trade of copyright content and was thus illegal. ...more

Microsoft delays Vista

Microsoft has dropped a bombshell on users and computer manufacturers alike by pushing back the release of the much delayed Windows Vista operating system. Now, the business version of the new operating system will not arrive until November with the home user version pushed back until January 2007. It means that while Microsoft will keep its promise to ship Vista in 2006, it will only appear in offices with IT staff deploying the new operating system in the party season. ...more