Articles by Erika

The Department of Justice is reportedly looking into the settlement agreement that Google negotiated with representatives of book publishers and authors to put their works online. The Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guildfiled a lawsuit against Google some three years ago in an effort to shut down its book-scanning project -- or...

Sun Microsystems has reported a US$201 million loss for Q3 2009, a significant increase over the loss of $34 million that it registered in the same quarter a year ago. At $2.6 billion, third-quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street's forecast of $2.86 million and was a steep drop from the $3.3 billion the company realized in Q3 2008.

Wireless may prove to be the magic bullet for many tech and telecom firms in this recession. Verizon's newly released earnings report is yet another indication of movement in that direction. The company reported higher revenue on Monday, based largely on growth in its wireless division, as well as its acquisition of Alltel Verizon reported net inco...

Partner relationship management has an intriguing business case: It applies the concepts and tools of customer relationship management to the business relationships that also affect a company's customer base. The problem with PRM is that it hasn't caught on -- for myriad reasons, starting with its expense and difficulty in implementation. Enter th...

Google has rolled out a mobile-friendly version of its Product Search feature for iPhone and Android-powered devices Google Product Search is a search engine that works much as the name indicates: Users type in keywords relevant to what they're seeking -- "garnet rings," for instance -- and the feature delivers likely prospects from various shoppin...

It's a bad time to try to grow a startup -- unless of course your overhead is low. Fortunately for Ryan Born, CEO of AudioMicro, his company falls in that category. Last year, Born launched his crowdsourced music and sound effects platform to good reviews. Customers range from amateur videographers who want background music to accompany what they ...

The music and entertainment industry didn't even have a week to fully savor its victory against the four proprietors of The Pirate Bay before they filed an appeal Though the move was expected, the grounds for the appeal may have caught the plaintiffs by surprise. The Pirate Bay contends that the judge hearing the case should have disqualified himse...

Profits dropped at eBay last quarter, but the online marketplace still delivered a solid earnings report for Q2 that beat analysts' expectations. eBay's results provide a welcome boost to the tech sector,whose performance has been all over the map this earnings cycle. They also validate the direction CEO John Donahoe has been taking the company: away from its small-garage-sale roots and toward large-scale sellers and buyers...

"HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21stCENTURY." So read Oprah Winfrey's first tweet last Friday....

By some measures, AT&T's Q1 earnings report was lackluster, at best. The company reported a nearly 10 percent profit decline for the quarter ending March 31, compared with the same period a year ago. However, the drop was not as steep as analysts had expected. Furthermore, certain segments of AT&T's business lines -- namely its wireless and data o...

By some measures, AT&T's Q1 earnings report was lackluster, at best. The company reported a nearly 10 percent profit decline for the quarter ending March 31, compared with the same period a year ago. However, the drop was not as steep as analysts had expected. Furthermore, certain segments of AT&T's business lines -- namely its wireless and data o...

By some measures, AT&T's Q1 earnings report was lackluster, at best. The company reported a nearly 10 percent profit decline for the quarter ending March 31, compared with the same period a year ago. However, the drop was not as steep as analysts had expected. Furthermore, certain segments of AT&T's business lines -- namely its wireless and data o...

VMware is launching what it bills as the first operating system that has been developed specifically for cloud computing. Called "vSphere 4," the virtualization platform pools and then manages an enterprise's virtual infrastructure and computing resources in its data center VMware has previewed some of this functionality in various products -- name...

President Barack Obama has rounded out his panel of high-tech advisors, naming Aneesh Chopra, the state of Virginia's secretary of technology, as the chief technology officer of the U.S. While not having the heft of a cabinet-level appointment, the newly created position is still seen as pivotal to many of the Obama administration's initiatives Oba...

Around the time when Software as a Service (SaaS) was pre-empting the on-premise vendors, SugarCRM burst onto the CRM scene with its owndisruptive business mode: open source for CRM. The build-it-yourselfmodel wasn't for everybody, of course -- or so many thought at thetime. As SugarCRM continues to refine its code and product lineup, itis attract...

It's telling when a company in this market registers growth yet still comes under scrutiny because the growth wasn't as high asprevious years. Then again, this is Google we're talking about -- theuber-corporation of the Web with seemingly limitless potential and promise It still has both, of course. However, due to both a combination ofthe economy ...

Part 1 of this three-part series focused on planning out a successful move to a cloud environment. Part 2 investigates obstacles and strategies relating to customization in the cloud. Part 3 takes a look at training One of the selling points for moving software into the cloud is thatit is supposedly hassle-free: no hardware, no software and presuma...

eBay is making a play for one of the most wired nations in Asia with aUS$1.2 billion acquisition offer for South Korea's Gmarket, thecountry's largest online market. Under the terms of the proposal,eBay will make a cash tender offer of $24 per share for alloutstanding Gmarket common shares and American Depositary Shares. If the deal is secured, eB...

eBay is planning to spin off Skype in a public offering next year. While Skype has been successful in terms of growing its user base since being acquired by eBay over three years ago, the VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) service has proven to be a less-than-perfect match with the Internet auction powerhouse "What can I tell you? It was a badacqu...

What is worse: to be accused of prejudice, or accused of incompetence? In thee-commerce world, where how well one safeguards one's customer data isparamount to any reputation, taking a hit on the latter is a bitterpill to swallow. That is better, though, than to be viewed as a companythat would deliberately and stealthily delist gay-themed books andmovies, among other materials, from its sales ranks, as Amazon was thought to have done this past weekend...