BT to buy PlusNet for ?67m

BT has made a cash offer for the UK ISP Plusnet The deal, based on a cash offer of 210p per share, will add 200,000 broadband subscribers to BT's own broadband customer base. The offer has been unanimously recommended by the PlusNet directors. PlusNet revealed it was being wooed by a potential buyer more than a month ago, prompting its stock to surge some 30 per cent towards the 200p range. ...more

BT's broadband rivals press Ofcom for urgent action

BT's main competitors in the wholesale ADSL broadband market have renewed calls for urgent action to address BT's 'stranglehold'. The Broadband Industry Group, which represents Cable & Wireless, Centrica, Energis, Wanadoo, Tiscali and Brightview says that despite intervention by industry regulator Ofcom, BT holds over 90 per cent of the market. 'While Ofcom's fresh approach to regulation is having an effect, the real spade work lies ahead, BIG says. ...more

Drag and drop printing for Red Hat Linux 9

The latest retail Linux distribution from Red Hat is launched today. Version 9.0 of Red Hat's Linux distro features an updated graphical installation process and various usability enhancements. ...more

BT boasts 10 million broadband barrier breakthrough

BT claims it has doubled its target for broadband connections, expecting to break through the 10 million connection mark this week. Its original figure of 5 million by the end of 2006 was set in 2002, when there were fewer than 150,000 DSL connections and availability was limited to a third of the UK population. The latest figures comprise connections sold by BT Wholsale, which supplies Internet services to a range of ISPs, including BT Retail, and BT Openreach, which offer unbundled services. ...more

Panasonic to ship Blu-ray drives next spring

Panasonic has announced that it will ship Blu-ray devices and media as early as Spring 2006. The subsidiary of Matasushita will introduce Blu-ray Disc (BD) drives for notebooks and desktops that will be able to write and read single- and dual-layer BDs as well as all types of recordable DVDs and CDs. The drives will be accompanied by the new non-cartridge BDs (bare disc) with storage capacities of 25 GB and 50 GB. ...more