Intel answers with Xeon 5100
Intel Corp. introduced its latest microprocessor for server computers Monday, one of a trio of new chips the world’s biggest semiconductor maker is counting on to regain market share lost to Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
The new chip, the Intel Xeon 5100, is the company’s answer to AMD’s Opteron processor, whose performance and power management have stolen share from Intel for more than three years. Intel says the new Xeon more than doubles the performance of its previous top-of-the-line server chip while drawing 40 percent less power.
St. Louis
Bud wins legal battle in Europe
Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. announced another legal victory Monday in an ongoing fight to trademark its top-selling Budweiser beer in Europe.
The Board of Appeal for the European Union’s Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market ruled that Anheuser-Busch can register its trademark “Bud” beer throughout Europe, the company announced.
The ruling is just one piece of a massive legal fight in several European courts between Anheuser-Busch and the Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar. At issue is the famous Budweiser brand, which both companies claim an historical right to use.
The Czech brewery was founded in 1895 in a town called “Budweis” by the German immigrants who founded it – a beer brewed there would have been known as a Budweiser. Anheuser-Busch launched its own U.S. Budweiser brand in 1876, picking the name because it evoked German brewers but was still easy for U.S. consumers to pronounce.
Redmond, Wash.
Microsoft offers Office preview
Microsoft Corp. has launched an online preview of its new Office business software, as part of efforts to drum up more interest in the coming set of releases.
Microsoft plans to release its version of Office 2007 – which includes new versions of applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint – to consumers early next year. Corporate customers are scheduled to get it in November.
The company has already been letting technology experts download test versions of Office products.
Atlanta
Costco lawsuit to proceed
A special master has ruled that Costco Wholesale Corp. improperly fired a black employee who says he was repeatedly ridiculed and denied a promotion by managers because of his race.
The decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge E. Clayton Scofield III, issued June 15, means Gavin Alleyne’s lawsuit against the Issaquah, Wash.-based chain will go to a jury trial, according to the plaintiff’s lawyer, Stephen Camp.
Alleyne, a 32-year-old University of Georgia graduate student who worked at Costco’s warehouse store in Duluth from 1996 to 2001, is seeking more than $300,000 for back pay, future pay and psychological counseling.