X
Tech

The Week In Review

You wait ages for an IT bounce-back and then three come at once.
Written by Arif Mohamed, Contributor

This was the week that Novell came back in from the cold with a tidy financial quarter. Several analysts who really should know better wrote off the Provo, Utah networking giant through a simple equation that goes Microsoft + Windows NT Server = Death To All-comers. They forget that Novell has a slick piece of code that is at the heart of most of the world's local area networks and a has a huge knowledge base built around it. Novell's going to be around for a long time yet.

Another company written off was Software Publishing Corporation which used to be a big shot when DOS was king and Harvard Graphics ruled the presentation graphics roost. SPC is back, much smaller than it was, owned by a company of which not many people have heard. SPC's new strategy sees it tucking in tight behind Microsoft and promises some neat products in the new year.

The third company back is Spyglass, the developer of Mosaic. A pocketable browser spec is winning favour among US developers for what could be an explosion of Web-connected phones, organisers and other tiny devices.

It was also the week that Corel CEO Michael Cowpland blew into town. In an interview with PCDN Cowpland said Corel has shelved plans for a handheld but will push hard on its VNC video-enabled network computer and on anything with the word 'Java' in it.

Microsoft got into yet another war of words. This time the theme was server databases and Oracle, Sybase et al weren't impressed with Big Green's SQL Server sales arithmetic

Also this week:

UK bright spark Grey Cell sealed a big deal with British Gas on GSM data cards.

Philips showed a good-looking double-speed write, six-speed read CD burner that supports the hot new UDF format.

Watch out everybody, Toshiba's desktops are coming next Easter.

Compaq recalled faulty adaptors from its Armada notebook line.

Editorial standards