__ Wired News __
__ Unabargain __
Prosecutors cut a deal with the Unabomber: an unconditional life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea for killing three and wounding 29 in a 17-year string of parcel bombings. As the case concluded, Ted Kaczynski described his deadly avocation as "skilled crafts." End of story? Word is that the antitech essayist is writing a new treatise.
__ Smart Deals __
Lycos paid $58 million for the hip Web community Tripod. The play: the ISP assimilates the 941,000-member service's traffic. ... CNET's content deal with Bloomberg involved no money and lots of moxie. The play: Bloomberg will provide news for CNET channels; the companies will partner on specialized stock indices.
__ Chutes and Ladders __
Notable earnings: Microsoft fiscal second-quarter net up 52 percent over the previous year (revenue $3.59 billion, net $1.13 billion) ... Compaq net up 37 percent for the fourth quarter (sales $7.3 billion, net $667 million) ... IBM fourth-quarter net up 5 percent (sales $23.7 billion, net $2.1 billion) ... Netscape's not-so-notable fourth-quarter net fell 110 percent (sales $534 million, loss $88 million).
__ Small Blue __
Compaq agreed to buy venerable Digital Equipment Corporation for US$9.6 billion, a deal that could make it the Number Two computer maker (after IBM). If regulators approve, the PC giant will gain solid technology and a service army that will give it clout in the corporate marketplace.
__ Set-Top Duel __
Cable giant TCI picked Sun Microsystems' Java and Microsoft's Windows CE to run on its next-generation set-top boxes. The blat of corporate announcements drowned out a more subtle melody: the set-top market remains wide open, and smaller OS players such as PowerTV have made inroads.
__ Speed __
Thanks to improved chip-fab technology, Intel unveiled a 333-MHz chip, codenamed Deschutes, and claimed it would release a 450-MHz model by year's end. But, stealing Intel's thunder, DEC and IBM both pre-preannounced 1-gigahertz chips: DEC's Alpha 21264 will come to market in two years; IBM didn't commit to a market date. Moore's Law is going the way of the 55-mph speed limit.
__ Speed II __
Intel, Microsoft, Compaq, and a handful of big phone players announced that new digital subscriber line technology would make 1.5-Mbps downloads widely available by Christmas. The Scrooge-ish reality: You won't be huddled around the monitor watching It's a Wonderful Life on streaming video - the DSL standards battle is far from over, and the bandwidth limits of conventional phone wires have yet to be overcome.
__ Domain Game __
The Clinton-appointed task force led by Ira Magaziner released its Internet domain-name system proposal: form a nonprofit international corporation to handle technical issues, allow market competition in both the administration and sale of domain names, and bring an end to US government involvement in running the Net. The response was mixed, and some critics asked why, if Washington wants a smaller role in the domain-name system, it is playing such a large role in the current drama.
__ Code Gambit __
Netscape, its dominance in the browser market all but evaporated, released its Communicator source code to the world. By giving developers the ability to tweak its code, Netscape hopes that valuable features will be created and its products will remain competitive. The gamble attracted significant praise and several rumored suitors, including Sun Microsystems and Oracle.
__ Pawn Sacrificed __
Microsoft beat a tactical retreat in the Internet Explorer antitrust match: it agreed to obey Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's order to unbundle IE from Windows 95 by allowing computer makers to remove the browser icon from the OS desktop. But in its next move, Microsoft folded its browser unit into its OS group, giving the teams - if not the technologies - a united front.
__ Knight Pinned __
A federal appeals court ordered the Jackson-appointed legal fact-finder - Harvard law professor Larry Lessig - to stop work on the case pending an April hearing, at which Microsoft will argue that Lessig is biased and that Jackson should do the job himself.
__ Millions Surfed __
The latest Net census guesses: International Data Corporation forecasted 63 percent annual growth in Asia's Net population through 2001. Japan's online citizenry expanded 54.6 percent in 1997 and is expected to grow 67 percent in '98 and 50 percent in '99 to more than 20 million. In the US the choice is yours - 25.3 million online accounts (Electronic Information Report) or 56 million adult users (IntelliQuest).
__ United Networks __
The European Union's draft charter for global cooperation in cyberspace policy did not propose a new regulatory body, but it did call for governments to communicate before making sweeping decisions about ecommerce, copyright, encryption, and other key issues.
