Microsoft's antitrust efforts slammed

The European Commission has sent a new letter to Microsoft explaining that the software company is still failing to comply with its March 2004 antitrust ruling. In particular the Commission draws attention to a report by the Monitoring Trustee professor Neil Barrett regarding Microsoft's obligation, under the terms of the 2004 settlement, to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. Professor Barrett, who is responsible for providing technical advice to the Commission on issues relating to Microsoft's compliance, said that despite revising its interoperability guidelines they still fall short of the what is required. ...more

ATi's consumer products drive revenues to $463mn

Black is the happy colour for ATi with its latest quarterly financial results. On the back of a 47.8 per cent increase in revenues from the same period a year ago, ATi has stayed in profit to the tune of $47. ...more

PC World goes mod

PC World is to sell modding kit in its retail outlets that will allow customers to add neon strips, tubing and other embellishments to their computers. PC World showed off some of the possibilities at an event yesterday, with a range of new cases, from shuttle boxes to glass cases revealing LED-tastic innards, industrial-looking tubing to replace ribbon cables and neon strips festooned across cases and monitors. The eye-candy comes courtesy of OPTX, which already has a successful business in the US modding both cars and computers and approached PC World to bring the kit into the UK. ...more

Microsoft re-signs NHS to nine-year licensing deal

A nine year deal has been signed by Microsoft and the National Health Service which gives the NHS a licence to use Microsoft software across 900,000 computers. Neither Microsoft nor the NHS will confirm the value of the deal although The Times today mentioned a figure of around ?500 million over the term of the contract. According to sources, this is around the same figure for a previous contract. ...more

New portable hard drives unveiled

VTEC has unveiled a new range of USB 2 portable hard drives. The V-DISK3 range comprises four 7,200rpm drive providing 40, 80, 120 and 180GB of storage and compatible via USB 2 (and USB 1.1) with both Windows and Mac systems. ...more