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A division of the German electronics giant Siemens AG has claimed to be among the first to ship 256MB SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) chips, heralded as the next major leap in RAM capacities. The expensive chips will go first to high-end workstations and servers, where they will multitask graphics programs and ease the growing load on Web servers.

As Microsoft edges ever closer to releasing a final version of Windows 2000 by the end of this year (or early in the next), many companies will face a choice. Those companies that have provided Windows 98 or Windows 95 to users at their desktops will have to decide whether to continue with the Windows 9x series or switch to Windows 2000 (formerly known as Windows NT 5.0).

For some time, one of the channel's biggest bugbears has been trying to deliver multi-vendor solutions to customers that can interoperate without breaking down at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately for many resellers, that dream is far from reaching fruition thanks to many narrow-minded vendors. However, one organisation is attempting to break these shackles by developing a framework upon which customers, VARs and integrators can buy and sell substitutable, vendor-independent application modules.

Switching specialist Xylan is striving to integrate its data products with the voice offerings of new owner Alcatel, but the channel is proving slow to follow the integration trend. According to David Keane, Xylan's Australian managing director, there is a "huge opportunity" for resellers to offer integrated voice and data services but only a few are up to speed.

Lotus and IBM are outlining their new business partner program for Australia and New Zealand during a national roadshow this month. The new program will kick in on July 1.

Electronic Data Systems (EDS) last week announced a major reorganisation along geographic lines and offered details about its new E-Business initiative. Both moves are designed to jump-start the former market leader, which has fallen behind IBM in revenues and also behind Computer Sciences (CSC) in terms of its rate of growth. EDS will reorganise into five geographic management regions instead of its traditional industry units as the primary channels for marketing, selling, and delivering products and services to clients.

BUGS AND FIXES

I will never figure out Rose. She works out every day at the gym, climbing the Stairmaster. True, this is massively offset by her indulgences at night, but recently we were driving to see Rufus Wainwright in concert. Once again she insisted we use the overly expensive valet parking. Why, if she spends money to climb imaginary stairs in the morning, would walking from the parking lot to the concert be a problem the very same evening?

NetStar is clamouring to capture a prime spot in the emerging specialist security consulting market, predicting 1999 revenues of between $15 and 20 million.

A series of industry-wide year 2000 tests involving about 400 brokerages, clearing houses and stock exchanges yielded fewer errors than normally occur on a typical trading day. Observers said the results were encouraging, but the tests by the Securities Industry Association (SIA) didn't include leap-year testing, nor did they involve overseas banks or stock exchanges.

IDC certainly threw the cat among the pigeons recently when it claimed that customer spending on Y2K-related issues would continue to surge, despite grumblings to the contrary that many customers have shredded their cheque books. What's more, when ARN spoke to a number of resellers for our front page story last week it was clear IDC wasn't speaking through its bum, as has been the case previously, according to some analyst-watching resellers.

Chip speeds are up, system prices are down, and budget PCs are adding features at a frenetic clip. It just doesn't make sense. But feature-rich PCs based on brand-name components are filtering into the sub-$US1500 market.

This month Intel will rearchitect its StrongArm embedded processor and optimise the high-power, low-performance chip for handheld PCs and network hardware devices. Capitalising on technology obtained from Digital Equipment, Intel has tweaked the StrongArm to achieve 600MHz performance with a 32KB cache, while consuming only 0.5 watts of power.

Knowledge management vendor PC Docs has re-emphasised its commitment to its Australian channel strategy, and claims its intention is to help more partners make more money. PC Docs managing director Darren Adams said that the company has identified four key vertical market segments in which he would like to see a clearly dominant or "premier partner" emerge, whilst also encouraging and inviting other potential suitably qualified partners to come in.

I don't need to tell anyone that business is changing dramatically. It's a simple truism. The way companies operate, go to market and interact with customers, suppliers and partners is significantly different today to the way businesses used to be run.

Doubling your margin on hardware is often as simple as spending a couple of extra minutes explaining the benefits of an alternative product, according to Rob Francis, product manager with distributor Tecksel. An incentive scheme offered by rising printer vendor Kyocera was helping to show resellers the benefits of having an extra brand name on the price list, Francis said.

Former Spike employees have vehemently denied recent claims by a Spike executive that seven staff were made redundant because their skills were irrelevant. A number of former employees told ARN the mass exodus of Spike's core team of Web developers, business managers and technical experts to rival start-up Oven Digital was entirely voluntary.

AAG's long-term plan to float is in the final stages of coming to fruition. All that remains, according to managing director Allan Brackin, is the arrival of the right market conditions and the resolution of where AAG-owned Prion will be come the group's public offering. Prion's place, or lack of, in the public company is certainly top of AAG's agenda. "There are definitely alternatives when considering what will happen with Prion," explains Brackin.

Imagine animating and adding interaction to the content on your Internet commerce site without forcing your visitors to endure lengthy downloads. Add the capability for this content to be seen and used on virtually every platform in 3D, and you are just starting to realise the power of Cult3D 3.1. Cult3D from Cycore Computers is a highly optimised software solution that provides graphic artists and Web designers with a real-time, 3D development and rendering environment for the Web.

The creation of digital content represents a huge growth area for companies willing to embrace the technology, but it's vital to have the necessary anti-piracy measures in place to secure content creators' intellectual property rights. That was the message being preached here by Intel's CEO and president Craig Barrett.