Archive

Internet traffic to online news sites and U.S. government pages surged as the U.S.-led war with Iraq got under way, with some sites experiencing a 50 percent increase in visitors, according to Web measurement companies. The surge came without any reports of disruptions or widespread slowdowns, even ...

Lured by promises of increased security, lower costs or simply the chance to align themselves with a company other than Microsoft, many enterprises are turning to Linux systems. More often than not, that means tapping Linux vendor Red Hat, which has come to dominate the market and has made its name ...

In a move likely to raise the hopes of high-tech deal watchers, Cisco Systems has entered the home networking fray by agreeing to acquire The Linksys Group, a leader in home, small-office and home-office (SOHO) networking gear, for $500 million in stock. "We felt we could do this on our own, but we ...

Amid an overall high-tech slump, the unglamorous yet vital data storage sector has fared strikingly well. Even as IT buyers have struggled with meager budgets and analysts have forecast scant growth, storage giant EMC's stock price has doubled. Recently, though, a prominent name in the field, Storag...

PayPal is the de facto market leader in the person-to-small business payment universe, but change is in the air. Since eBay purchased it in 2002, PayPal has become a revenue unit of the world's most successful e-commerce venture -- eBay's secret weapon, as it were. But is this weapon double-edged? P...

Taking aim at a cost structure that analysts say has been a millstone in the brutally competitive market for PCs, Gateway has announced plans to lay off 1,900 workers and close 80 of its retail stores. The company said the 17 percent workforce reduction and the store closings will produce cost savin...

Big enterprises are obvious sales targets for technology vendors. For both hardware and software providers, landing a big installation that affects thousands of workers is like hitting a home run. But the current economic climate is a stiff wind blowing in from the outfield, turning those prospectiv...

Computer makers sold some 72,000 tablet handheld computers during the fourth quarter, marking a "good start" for sales of what some have hailed as a revolutionary computing tool, according to research firm IDC. IDC analyst Alan Promisel told NewsFactor the strong launch makes it likely that first-ye...

In today's tightly budgeted IT environment, security spending is likely to be squeezed even more than other areas, because expenditures may appear to be unnecessary until a break-in occurs. Of course, no company wants to see its name in lights after a cyber attack. But neither do companies have coun...

The market for personal computers will not grow as quickly as previously expected during 2003, primarily because government budget woes will deflate spending in that key sector, a new report says. IDC is changing its growth forecast for PC unit sales to 6.9 percent, down from a December prediction o...

Some of the biggest names in technology -- including Amazon, Google and Yahoo! -- share something in common: At least at first, they grew to become household names with little, if any, help from traditional advertising. Instead, they used word-of-mouth, publicity and other relatively low-cost approa...

Web services is arguably the most important IT initiative of our time. Enterprise back ends, which have been cobbled together over decades with application-specific components from a variety of vendors, now can be (and increasingly must be) integrated and delivered to customers with a universality a...

Federal investigators reportedly have widened their probe into AOL's accounting practices during the dot-com boom years, focusing on whether AOL aided and abetted the artificial inflation of revenue reports at partner companies, including embattled Homestore.com. The Washington Post reported the pro...

While sometimes warranted, changing databases is a huge undertaking for almost any enterprise. An IT department embarking on such an endeavor should plan for a major upheaval, with sizeable up-front costs, a host of compatibility issues and the need to retrain key employees. Still, some companies se...

The e-tail universe has seen tremendous consolidation since the dot-com bubble burst. But more people are buying online every day. Air travel, consumer electronics and apparel are three of the hottest categories of consumer products sold online, IDC research manager Jonathan Gaw told the E-Commerce ...