John Lewell

To compete with Europe’s booming free ISPs market, AOL Europe says it will introduce a new, low, flat fee service in the UK, to be launched June 1. The unlimited use pricing plan will cost just £9.99 (US$16.14) per month, and, says AOL, will offer “unmatched value” to its 600,000 UK members while also driving […]

In a major shake-up of European Web sports media, SportsLine USA is to purchase SportsWeb from Reuters, while forming a new subsidiary called SportsLine Europe. The American company, which already publishes Soccernet, GolfWeb and the highly popular cricket site CricInfo, will own approximately 80 percent of the new company, with Intel, MediaOne Ventures and Reuters […]

Shares in Scottish Power rose amid speculation that the company will float its Scottish Telecom subsidiary. Scottish Telecom boosted its profits to £10 million (US$16 million) last year, helped in part by the strong performance of Demon Internet, the UK’s original low-cost Internet service. Today, Scottish Power also delivered a letter to its shareholders, explaining […]

First quarter shipments of PCs to European home users are up by 57 percent over the same period last year, according to the GartnerGroup’s Dataquest unit. By contrast, the professional segment in Europe grew by only 9 percent. “Ever lower prices, the allure of the Internet, and new cost-saving channels, as well as innovative marketing […]

Reuters and Northern Trust Company (Chicago) are to supply a web-based foreign exchange dealing system to clients of Northern Trust. The new service will be available to investment management firms around the world from the third quarter of this year. Co-branded as a joint offering from the two firms, the service will operate on any […]

Research company Strategy Analytics predicts that most of the leading Internet players will have merged with other vendors by the end of this year. Far from becoming an open market for all participants, with equal access to technologies, buyers and suppliers, the industry will be composed of huge, vertically integrated companies, says the firm. The […]

Unisys has signed a $200 million contract with BT to design and install new cabling infrastructure. Unisys says it will put in over 15,000 miles of cable and 700,000 sockets at over 7,500 BT customer sites during the first year of the contract. “The BT brand image for quality is very important to us. We […]

Customers in Tesco supermarkets have been putting “Free Internet Access” packages into their baskets, only to find that there is a 50 pence charge for them at the check-out. So when is “free access” really free? The last few days leading up to the Bank Holiday weekend have seen some extraordinary turmoil in the UK […]

Sun Microsystems this week launched i-Planet, a new software product that is said to “extend the boundaries of the workplace.” iPlanet enables users to access the whole enterprise, complete with applications, calendars, files and e-mail, from any Java-enabled browser, at any time. It will be sold non-exclusively through the Sun-Netscape Alliance. Unlike most existing portal […]

Leisureplanet, the Internet-based travel service, announced the launch of its service in the UK, co-branded with Lycos Bertelsmann. This week’s UK launch follows successful rollouts in Germany and France last week. The Leisureplanet service is tailored to each local market and offers comprehensive facilities to the traveller. Users get access to low-cost negotiated airfares, car […]

Looking to make use of the Internet without the confines of a computer, Landel Telecom launched MailBug, a self-contained Internet appliance that provides full-featured e-mail messaging without a computer or modem, and without needing any special skills or software. MailBug is a tool designed to let users check and reply to their e-mail from anywhere […]

TeleServices International Group (TSIG.com) has partnered with British-based investment company Riseholm Investments to form International Sound Corp. (ISC), a venture that will develop a new UK Internet portal. The portal will use TSIG.com’s e-commerce software that enables companies to do business on the Internet without incurring excessive start-up costs. “One of the biggest problems in […]