BT doubles business broadband speeds

BT is to double the broadband speeds for its 512Kbps and 1Mbps business customers at no extra cost, while 2Mbps users will get a ?30 reduction in their monthly line rental. From 1 November all its Business Broadband Network 500 and 1000 customers will have their connection speed doubled. Only those few customers who are based too far from an exchange (beyond about 6km) to get services faster than 512Kbps will not be upgraded. ...more

Microsoft extends Windows support to a decade

At TechEd 2004 in San Diego, Microsoft has announced extended product lifecycle support (now extended to 10 years), and rolled out details if a new server roadmap. Andrew Lees, Corporate VP of Server & Tools Marketing at Microsoft, announced in his keynote the company's extension of its product support lifecycle, for up to ten years. 'I'm very excited to tell you that today we are extending support as part of a new product support life cycle, where we will move from 7 years to 10 years, a minimum of 10 years support, for all of our business software,' said Lees in his keynote. ...more

File-swapping to cause music industry 'major crisis' - report

The music industry may face a major crisis unless it can persuade the current generation of 15 to 24 year olds to stop swapping music and start buying it. This is the conclusion of a report issued by Jupiter Research which found that file sharers outnumber paid-for downloaders by three-to-one and that a third of all 15 to 24 year olds admit to sharing music files. 'The digital youth of today are being brought up on a near limitless diet of free and disposable music from file-sharing networks,' said Jupiter's Mark Mulligan. ...more

Napster comes out fighting

Napster, the beleagured MP3 exchange service, is attempting to have an injunction ordering the closure of its service overturned. Federal judge Marilyn Hall Patel granted a request by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for a temporary injunction ordering Napster to prevent the exchange of copyright works on its service. That order, which was to take effect within three days, was later suspended by the appeals court; Napster is now seeking to have the injunction overturned altogether. ...more

Skype betas v2.6 of its Net phone software

Skype has released version 2.6 of its Net phone software as a public beta. The new version makes a big deal of Skypecasts. ...more