The US Justice Department appears to be retreating from demands to break up Microsoft, a concession that would dramatically improve chances for settling the landmark antitrust case. Microsoft has indicated it will not accept any settlement that divides the company. The US Assistant Attorney General, Mr Joel I. Klein, believes such a punishment may not be necessary to restrain what the trial judge characterised as Microsoft's monopoly power over the technology industry. The move represents a fundamental shift by the federal government which largely decided months ago to press for a break-up while anticipating a strongly favourable ruling from Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.
WILLS TO LIVE: A cd-rom detailing Irish wills from 1484 to 1858 has been unveiled at the National Museum. Designed and compiled by professional archivists, it is the first volume in a new series of sources for Irish history and contains over 70,000 individual records.
MOBILE BANKS: A mobile phone banking service allowing AIB customers to view their bank and credit-card balances will be available next month. The system will work on compatible GSM or WAP phones, although users will have to install a free SIM card to avail of the service.
TAKEOVER TIMETABLE: The European Commission has extended the deadline for a decision in its antitrust probe into Vodafone Airtouch's planned takeover of Germany's Mannesmann until mid-April. The deal, valued at $180 billion when it was announced in February, would be the world's biggest corporate merger. The extension gives the EU executive body more time to look into "new undertakings" from the companies, Commission spokesman Michael Tscherny said.
IRISH ENTER UK DOMAIN: IE Internet.com has become the first Irish company to receive membership of the UK domain name registry, Nominet. This allows it to register UK domain names for companies based in Ireland and abroad.
UP AOL: Universal Pictures and America Online have agreed on a partnership to promote movies and sell tickets online. Last week Sears announced a marketing and product development deal with AOL, which also has announced partnerships with Wal-Mart, Circuit City and Blockbuster in recent months.
IBM-TV: IBM is developing chips for television set-top boxes that will transform TV sets into fully interactive, two-way information appliances. IBM is combining high-speed PowerPC processors and other television set-top box components onto a single system-on-a-chip, IBM said. The three new systems simplify the set-top box design by combining components such as an audio/video decoder, memory interface and peripheral interfaces.
ALLEZ ALLEZ SORTIE: A French auctioneer has made history by selling items to Net users bidding online in real time. As the sale was taking place at Drouot auction house, two unidentified buyers placed bids for a 17th century Dutch painting by Rombout van Troyen and a 1960 wool suit by Pierre Cardin.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST PROFITS: Shares in games publisher Eidos have fallen sharply after the company warned of further financial dangers ahead due to the transition to a new generation of gaming platforms. The company behind Tomb Raider said second half operating profits would be significantly worse than a year ago and results for the year to March would therefore be substantially below last year.
VIRTUAL HOMELAND: Palestinians will get their independence in cyberspace before they get a country of their own after a separate domain name, .ps, for Palestinian web sites won approval. The US Commerce Department approved the new suffix hours after a recommendation from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
DOUBLECLICK DEAL: Michigan's attorney general is optimistic a settlement can be reached with Internet advertising company DoubleClick over privacy rights that will eliminate the need for a group of states to sue the company. Jennifer Granholm said she and other attorneys general have been negotiating with DoubleClick in the hope of reaching a deal that would protect consumers' privacy.
In Brief...The advertising company, ICAN, has established a strategic partnership with Deloitte & Touche. . . China's most popular Web portal, Sina.com, has been approved to sell shares on the Nasdaq. . . Yahoo! has acquired Arthas.com, a provider of an Internet payment service that enables individuals to send and receive money online without using credit cards. . . British company freecom.net has bought rival Oneview.net, its second takeover since it floated on the stock market in December. . .