Network: Bytes

PALM COMPUTING will unveil the Palm VII hand-held computer and the Palm.net wireless Internet service in New York today. As the company is still testing the devices and its pared-down Internet content, prices have not been fixed, and only a limited numbers will go on sale at around $600 plus a usage plan. A Palm Computing spokesman said that the price could be adjusted over the next three or four months to reflect user feedback.

The hardware is not radically different from existing Palm machines that account for 72 per cent of the market, except for an antenna that enables wireless connections.

Full Internet access is not provided because, executives say, the small screen is not suited for it. However, Palm.net will allow information to be requested from content providers involved in the scheme, such as Yahoo, and a variety of business-oriented organisations.

Pager-style short messages can also be sent and received through Palm's iMessenger service. Analysts expect Palm to move towards full e-mail capabilities, and a spokesmen admitted it was an issue that is being addressed.

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MICROSOFT'S REQUEST for a delay in the anti-trust case brought against it by a small Connecticut software company - Bristol Technology - has been turned down by a US district judge.

Bristol Technology claims that Microsoft has stifled competition by not allowing access to Windows NT source code.

Judge Janet Hall said the trial will start on 2 June and that Bristol may share information with lawyers for other anti-trust trials against Microsoft, including the one brought by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and 19 American states, as well as the one that has been brought by Caldera.

In Washington, an aide to Judge Thomas Penfold Jackson said the Department of Justice's case against Microsoft will resume on 1 June. The next stage of the trial, which began in October 1998, involves each side presenting three rebuttal witness over a period of one month.

Microsoft will be calling AOL executive David Colburn as a hostile witness, to question him about "the completeness and candour" of testimony he gave as a DoJ witness earlier in the trial.

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XEROX AND Microsoft last week formed an alliance to develop software to link photocopiers to PC networks. The effort involves Xerox and Compaq working on software to allow images to be scanned and digitised on Xerox Document Center copiers and made accessible through an office network via Microsoft Outlook software. The system is expected to ship in the US in the autumn and globally next year.

Xerox said it will replace Unix with Windows NT as the operating system for its next generation of products, enabling it to develop a wider range of new applications.

Microsoft, in turn, will adopt Xerox's Web Forager software - an interface that makes the Internet resemble physical book pages - and then use it in combination with its current 3D user interface research projects.