David Needle

Reporter’s Notebook: How do you bring two of the world’s leading technology companies to their knees? Wi-Fi. At a recent media day, Google provided Wi-Fi in a lecture hall for the 200 or so members of the media in attendance. At least there was supposed to be Wi-Fi. Technical glitches prevented that. “We apologize. We […]

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Conventional wisdom has it that Intel is ready to bring its considerable resources to bear and stomp pesky competitor AMD back into distant second place, where it had been up until recently. Intel plans a major set of product launches over the next year and is in the midst of a billion […]

AMD’s 64-bit and dual-core processors are proving to be a formidable competitor to Intel. And while AMD officials aren’t shy about touting what it sees as a performance and price-per-watt edge over its larger rival, the company is looking for new ways to differentiate its products. At a “Technology Day” event at its Sunnyvale, CA […]

The digital living room has a new guest. AMD introduced its Live! brand for consumer PCs into the home, saying it will provide a better multimedia experience with a different approach than Intel’s. The company established its Live! brand to push its 64-bit processors to media professionals in film, broadcast and music. Now with a […]

The company Mac fanatics love to hate is expanding its non-Windows product lineup. Microsoft today announced it plans to release its first Mac-specific keyboard and mouse. The Wireless Desktop for Mac is due out this summer for a suggested price of $99.95. WDM is the first Mac-specific desktop product from Microsoft and the first keyboard […]

Analysis: SEATTLE — In launching its delayed but ambitious new operating system, Vista, and Office 2007, Microsoft faces the most daunting competitor in its history – itself. Windows XP and Office 2003 are well-entrenched and the “known quantity” corporate America, and IT departments specifically, feel safer dealing with the known rather than unknown of recently-released […]

In a sharply worded filing, AMD sent a response to the U.S. District Court in Delaware disputing Intel’s request to have AMD’s case restricted to U.S. sales. Earlier this month, Intel filed a motion with the court, suggesting that because AMD’s chips were manufactured overseas and largely distributed outside the U.S. that its antitrust charges […]

The long-rumored Google-Dell partnership is official. Google confirmed an agreement today that Dell will preload Google Desktop and Toolbar on its PCs, as well as add Google Search to the Internet Explorer 6 side pane. The two companies will also offer a co-branded homepage, which new Dell customers will default to during their first visit […]

SEATTLE –- Bill Gates told a WinHec audience this week that the PC is changing. But it’s not just Microsoft’s forthcoming Vista software and faster processors that are prompting that change. At WinHec, Microsoft’s annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, several companies showed innovative hardware advances. Samsung unveiled a working prototype of a Hybrid Hard Disk […]

Reporter’s Notebook: The late, great science fiction writer Frank Herbert wrote a book for neophyte computer users in the 1980s called Without Me You’re Nothing. The title referred to the fact that, for all its technical smarts, a personal computer needed a human operator to accomplish anything. Point taken. But in the 21st century it’s […]

UPDATED: SEATTLE – It’s official. Microsoft has released beta 2 of its Vista operating system. With its “Longhorn” Server system and Office 2007 all available, the release marks the first time Microsoft has had all three of its primary software products available for testing at the same time. Speaking at the annual WinHec conference here, […]

HP and IBM are among the big-name enterprise computing suppliers Intel hopes will help it regain lost ground in server share to AMD. While still dominant, Intel’s share of the server space has slipped to less than 85 percent, with AMD picking up the rest of the x86 server market. Intel has been working to […]