Netscape released the first public beta version of its Communicator 4.5 browser late last week, almost certainly the final release to be developed in-house by the company. Enhancements include smart browsing, high performance email and roaming access support for mobile users. Netscape remains the leader in the browser market but Microsoft is now uncomfortably close, recent reports show. A survey by the Internet advertising company AdKnowledge indicates that, in the past six months, Netscape's market share has fallen 8.9 per cent to 52.2 per cent while over the same time period, the share of the market held by Internet Explorer rose 9.6 per cent to 45.6 per cent.
Esat At Home: Esat is to establish a separate residential division in advance of the telecommunications market being fully deregulated next year. The new division will provide services to homes throughout the country from December 1st, 1998. A nationwide recruitment programme for the new division, which will complete the Esat portfolio, is currently underway.
Football Fever: Based on the somewhat shaky presumption that 'Net users tell the truth, tracking World Cup activity online at work became more popular than trawling through dodgy sex sites last month, according to a new survey carried out by Novell. Over a quarter of all UK office workers claimed they used the web to follow the World Cup while, in a separate Novell survey conducted at the end of last year, 15 per cent of workers admitted viewing pornographic material online at company expense. The survey comes shortly after it was reported that the official World Cup web site was the most widely accessed site in history with over 58 million accesses recorded in one day.
Digita Snaps: FlashPoint Technology has created a software-based operating system designed to act as a smart brain for all digital cameras. Digita, as it has been christened, allows manufacturers to customise the image-processing software which enables the user to add applications to the camera. The software is both Mac and PC-compatible and cameras carrying the technology went on the market two weeks ago.
MS Boom: Microsoft exceeded analysts' expectations in its fourth fiscal quarter results released last Thursday by returning a profit of $1.36 billion (£971 million) on sales of $4 billion. It is believed that strong early sales of Windows 98 and the continued success of its Office 97 software helped improve sales by 26 per cent. Not content with such profit margins, Microsoft has also launched an online service aimed at helping people buy homes. Their new site, called HomeAdvisor allows people to trawl through more than 400,000 property listings.
Sun Also Rises: Meanwhile, that company's impending courtroom rivals, Sun Microsystems has announced fourth quarter profits of $288 million, on sales of $2.88 billion which represents a 13 per cent leap on the same period last year. The company is believed to have enjoyed record shipments of its servers and high-end computer workstations.
More Than His Jobs Worth: Poor old Steve Jobs. Having returned to Apple after years of estrangement, he found himself barred from the Mac World convention in New York following his keynote address after an eagle-eyed security guard noted that he didn't have the necessary access-all-areas pass. The flustered Job minions, clearly willing to fall on their swords for their leader, promptly offered him their accreditation whereupon the security guard threatened to confiscate all the passes and bring in state troopers as back up. The mobile phones came out and cries of: "Don't you know who this is?" could be heard, but the resolute guard refused to budge and Jobs had to slink off in search of the appropriate pass.
No Encryption For First Amendment: A district court dismissed a law professor's challenge last week to US regulations strictly limiting the export of computer data scrambling technology. Judge James Gwin ruled the export limits, which prevented Case Western Reserve University Law School professor Peter Junger from posting the text of encryption programs on the Internet, did not violate the constitutional right to free speech.
Private Doorbells: A group of companies led by Cisco Systems have announced a plan to secure computer networks using encryption while still allowing law enforcement officials a "back door" to crack the security. The new plan represents a partial resolution of the long-running debate between the high-tech industry and civil libertarians, who favour unbridled use of encryption, and national security officials who fear unregulated use of the technology would help criminals and other ne'er-do-wells. The companies said they designed the system, called "private doorbells", to meet strict export rules which sharply limit the sale of products containing encryption to customers outside the United States.
Costly Spam: A Seattle man has received $200 from a company that sent him unsolicited commercial email making it the first settlement of its kind under Washington state's new anti-spam law. The law, which took effect in June, allows spam recipients to collect $500 in damages for each piece of unsolicited mail. Sadly, the law applies only to email sent or received from Washington state.
Virgin Territory: First there was a live birth online and now the world is breathlessly awaiting the arrival of a toothsome young US couple, Mike and Diane, who plan to have sex for the "very first time" live online on August 4th. Organisers of this great occasion have claimed it is shaping up to be a huge Internet event but warned that it might not take place at all unless someone pledges $100,000 to pay an Internet Service Company as hardware for their site, www.ourfirsttime.com, is cracking under a tidal wave of hits. Could this be a spoof?
People Soft At KPMG: KPMG have announced a strategic alliance with leading international software company PeopleSoft. The alliance will combine PeopleSoft's software applications with the consultancy background of KPMG to provide enterprise resource solutions for progressive organisations. The new venture will employ 15 people initially. KPMG and PeopleSoft have already begun working on projects in Ireland for Merck Sharp & Dohme and ACC Bank.
Easy Money: Keeping track of investments, savings and expenditure has apparently got a whole lot easier, thanks to a new software package for the Psion Series 5. `Money', an intuitive package has been developed by Palmtop BV to allow users to have an instant and accurate picture of all their finances. Money tracks transactions as they happen and can even make forecasts about your financial prospects. Grim probably.
Intel In Court: The Federal Trade Commission antitrust suit alleging that Intel used monopoly power to pry trade secrets from competitors will go to trial on January 5th next year. The FTC sued the company last month and some of the facts in the contentious antitrust case are not in dispute. Intel makes four out of five of the microprocessors that are the nerve center of personal computers.
In Brief.... . .Pope John Paul II has said that high-tech society is turning people into anonymous cogs of the labour force and has urged people to take time out to contemplate God through the wonders of nature. . . Microsoft and enterprise business software developer J.D. Edwards have announced their collaboration to improve the integration between the OneWorld suite and MS BackOffice. . . More than 20 per cent of large US corporations and more than 40 percent of mid-sized companies have yet to start assessing their Y2K problems.