Microsoft faces another possible anti-trust investigation by the US Department of Justice, based on allegations that in May 1995 it tried to persuade arch rival Netscape to agree to divide up the Web browser market. According to Friday's Wall Street Journal, Microsoft officials met Netscape to debate the deal before the launch of Internet Explorer. Justice officials are investigating whether Microsoft suggested that Netscape concentrate on producing browsers for non-Microsoft operating systems. Microsoft denies the allegations.
New Digital Park: The National Technological Park in Limerick is to become Ireland's first "digital park". Firms in "EPark" will have access to a wide range of broadband telecommunications services, through Esat Telecom's fibre-optic network. These include integrated voice, data, Internet and videoconferencing facilities.
Virtual Timber: The Virtual Forest Management and Fantasy Forest League are a new multimedia project for Transition Year students, which includes a Web site, CD-Rom, teachers' guides and other resources. It's funded by the Forest Service of the Department of the Marine and Natural Resources, and Windmill Lane Pictures is behind the production. - info: tel 01-6174790, www.projectforest.com
HEAnet Expands: HEAnet has added a 2 Megabits/ second line to the US, increasing its transatlantic capacity by 50 per cent. HEAnet says it's the first Irish Internet service provider to use this IMUX technology, in conjunction with Data General and MCI, to deliver a single 6 Megabits/second pipe to the US.
Gateway Not 2000: Gateway 2000 shipped 767,000 PCs in its latest quarter, a 38 per cent increase on the same quarter in 1997. Sales increased 22% to $1.7 billion. Unit shipments from its Dublin factory to Europe, the Middle East and Africa were up 4.2% from last year, but revenues declined 8.2%
Other Results: IBM had first quarter earnings of $1.04 billion, down $200 million from a year ago - and its first quarterly earnings decline in two years. Microsoft had strong third quarter earnings of $1.34 billion. WorldCom had first quarter revenues of $2.35 billion, a 38 per cent increase over the same quarter in 1997; its chief executive received a $17 million bonus in last year's pay cheque (not to mention those stock options worth millions more). Lucent Technologies had quarterly earnings far above analysts' expectations, with revenues of $6.2 billion up from $5.1 billion a year ago.
Photoshop Upgrade: Photoshop 5.0 should hit the shops next month, with enhancements such as multiple "undos" through a history palette - users can look at a "timeline" of changes and revert to previous versions or save and compare snapshots of different versions.
NBSP: Several readers including Aengus Lawlor and John McDonnell emailed us to explain that   within HTML (see our previous "DIY Webmaster" article) stands for Non-Breaking SPace.
In Brief...Irish payment card software specialist Flexicom is to supply its dual currency application Trident Euro Acquirer on Compaq's clustered Windows NT-based servers. . . Microchip maker National Semiconductor is to cut its worldwide workforce by 1,400 people or about 10 per cent . . . Turn Me On is a forthcoming erotic thriller movie centred on webcams, written by John-Michael Maas and Bruce McKenna. . . Gateway has dropped the "2000" tag, and cut the price of its new 333-MHz Pentium II PC to under $2,000. . . Sun is to consolidate its Java operations, and its new Java plug-in will start shipping this week. . .