The Me generation
The last version of Microsoft Windows 95/98 will be called Windows Millennium Edition - or Windows Me - and, according to the usually well-informed WinInfo newsletter, will ship on May 26.
It won't be very different from Windows 98, but will include updates to match the new Windows 2000 interface and a Movie Maker program for handling digital video. Me will also see the final removal of MS-DOS. For details, see www.winsupersite.com/faq/faq_millennium.htm
Why Millennium? Microsoft got into a naming problem after it turned the pre-launch Windows NT5 (New Technology) into Windows 2000.
That was when Microsoft was saying that Windows 98 would be the last-ever version of Windows 95, and would be replaced by the more powerful, more secure, stable, multi-tasking, multi-processor NT version. In other words, the Microsoft story hasn't changed at all between Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows Me. The real question is whether it really means it this time.
Buying Borland
Corel Corporation, Canada's largest software house, is using a $2.4 billion share-swap to take over Inprise, which was called Borland International until the name's former glory became too much of an embarrassment.
Corel has already soaked up WordPerfect Corporation and Borland's Quattro spreadsheet - or the remains cast off by Novell, the network software company, which bought them first. Both are part of the WordPerfect Office suite, which was trounced by Microsoft Office in the applications market. Duncan Stewart, fund manager at Tera Capital Corporation in Toronto, compared the deal to a boa constrictor swallowing a 200-pound pig.
Corel had a huge success with CorelDraw for Windows, but has been struggling after falling for the Java hype and also investing in network computer "appliances". The combined companies, which had revenues of $418 million last year, are now betting on the latest bandwagon: Linux, the clone of the old Unix operating system. Corel has already produced Corel Linux (based on Debian's version of GNU/Linux) and will launch WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux for £150 in March. Borland's sales peaked at $482.5 million in 1991.
Hot chips
The annual International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), which started on Monday in San Francisco, California, is where chip manufacturers take their bragging to the limits. This year, IBM looks like winning with its IPCMOS (interlocked pipelined complementary metal oxide semiconductor) chips that it says could reach speeds of 3.3GHz to 4.5GHz, four times today's speeds.
Going giga
Both Intel and AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) have chips running at 1GHz, which might be built this year using the production lines that are currently making 700-800MHz parts. IBM and Compaq also have 1GHz versions of their PowerPC and Alpha processors. But Intel is expected to reveal details of the next version of the Pentium - code-named Willamette, after a river in Oregon - at its Professional Developers Conference in Palm Springs, California, next week. Willamette may appear in October, and is expected to replace the Pentium III in 2001-2002. It will run at speeds of 1GHz plus.
Intel is also working on a Celeron (Pentium II) replacement - code-named Timna, after a valley famous for its copper mines in Biblical times - which will have built-in graphics.
CDs in minutes
It takes only six minutes to copy any tpe of CD using Odixion's DigiCopier DG1-12X which, as the name implies, is a 12x speed CD-R burner. But the system's real appeal is its ease of use. The DigiCopier is a standalone device which is operated via a simple LCD screen: no technical knowledge is required.
The new DigiCopier can also be used to make rewritable CD-RW discs, in which case it operates at 4x speed. The system does not need to be connected to a computer, but includes a SCSI interface and software so that it can be linked to a PC or Apple Macintosh. The DigiCopier DG1-12X, including 10 Philips 12X Silver Premium blank discs, costs £849 plus VAT (£997.58): if you already own a PC, it's not the cheapest way to copy CDs. But for companies sending out images, presentations, music and other large data files on CD, speed and convenience could make it an attractive purchase.
Suits you, sir
Is that a mobile phone in your pocket, or are you just dressed strangely? Launching a new mobile phone, NEC teamed up with designer Alexander McQueen to create a suit especially designed for the mobile phone-toting man about town. The result is this silvery affair, which effortlessly combines the need to have a mobile phone in your breast pocket with a fetish for dressing like Dr Evil from the Austin Powers movies. Who says Cool Britannia is dead?
