Articles by Lori Enos

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced Monday that it has reached an agreement to purchase privately held e-business software company NCompass Labs, reportedly for US$36 million Microsoft said that it is acquiring Vancouver, British Columbia-based NCompass Labs in response to customer demand for Web content management products that ensure that "organiz...

Dot-com companies claimed more executive departures than any other business sector in April, according to a study released Monday by Chicago, Illinois-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CGC) Nearly one-fourth of the 134 chief executive and chief financial officers who left their jobs in April were leaving online companies, accord...

Gone are the days when visiting dusty warehouses and digging through bins of junk were the only ways to buy bargains from the government. Now a number of government agencies have gone high tech and are using Web sites like eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) to auction off surplus property, ranging from jalopies to jewelry About 12 government entities list regular...

Taking a cue from rival IBM, Compaq (NYSE: CPQ) announced late Thursday that it has reached an agreement to buy Internet consultancy Proxicom (Nasdaq: PXCM) for US$266 million in cash The purchase pushes Compaq toward its stated goal of increasing its consulting and services business from 21 percent of its revenue to 30 percent.

KB Toys said Thursday that it is purchasing "substantially all" of defunct e-tailer eToys' inventory for US$5.4 million, as part of eToys' bankruptcy proceedings KB Toys stressed that although the retail value of the eToys merchandise is estimated to be $40 million, KB Toys does not expect to sell the goods for near that amount....

Universal Music Group (UMG) said late Wednesday that it has bought out BMG Entertainment's stake in GetMusic, an online e-commerce and music information site founded jointly by the companies in 1999 "I think we're seeing Universal make a more aggressive move to catch up with BMG," Webnoize researcher Gregor Rohda told the E-Commerce Times. He point...

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced late Thursday that it is acquiring Internet business consulting firm Mainspring (Nasdaq: MSPR) for approximately US$83 million in cash "This acquisition will expand our business strategy capabilities so we can address increasing market demands for integrated business consulting and IT implementation services," said Tom Haw...

Amazon-backed Ashford.com(Nasdaq: ASFD) announced this week that it has received noticefrom the Nasdaq that the company no longer complies with the exchange's US$1minimum bid requirement and that the stock faces delisting The Houston, Texas-based luxury e-tailer has 90days to comply with the requirement. Ashford stock must achieve a bid price of $1...

Automotive e-marketplace Covisint announced Wednesday that it had chosen Kevin W. English, a former Wall Street executive with no automotive experience, as its first chief executive officer, president and chairman of the board Dubbed an "e-commerce leader" by Covisint, English was previously the managing director and CEO for e-commerce at Credit Su...

Despite the common perception that the Internet will play a critical role in corporate purchasing strategies, a report released Monday by the National Association of Purchasing Management (NAPM) and Forrester Research found that 26.1 percent of companies reported a cost savings from their Internet activities for the quarter ended on March 31st. Du...

Microsoft announced Monday that it is now offering e-commerce capability to its FrontPage 2000 Webdesign software -- but the storefront options are only being made available to subscribers of bCentral, the software giant's online service center for businesses The Microsoft bCentral Commerce Manager includes templates for an online product catalog, ...

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced late Friday that it has cleared controversial travel site Orbitz to begin operations in June, despite complaints that it will pose an anti-competitive risk The DOT said it had "concluded it did not have evidence that would justify stopping the company from beginning operations." However, the DOT...

With the first 100 days of his presidency coming to a close at the end of this month, President George W. Bush has yet to articulate a formal e-commerce strategy. As a result, there is some disagreement among experts on how much Bush will help the industry Forrester Research group director John McCarthy told the E-Commerce Times that e-commerce wou...

Troubled Internet consultancy MarchFirst (Nasdaq: MRCH) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday The filing comes little more than a week after the company laid off 1,700 employees, sold a slew of assets to rival Divine, and acknowledged that had "significant liquidity difficulties."

Consumer electronics e-tailer Outpost.com (Nasdaq: COOL) reported a fourth quarter 2001 loss Thursday and said that it is considering a number of cost-cutting measures, as well as strategic alternatives Outpost's stock lost more than 40 percent of its value Thursday, trading down 13 cents to 19 cents.

Privacy watchdog group TRUSTe issued guidelines Wednesday designed to address the issue of what happens to consumer information when a dot-com shuts down or merges with another company Currently in draft form, the guidelines say that the privacy policies instituted when a dot-com is in business must be followed when they are going out of business.

Internet behemoth Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and brick-and-click bookseller Borders Group (NYSE: BGP) announced Wednesday that Amazon will take over Borders' online operations The companies said that the Borders.com site will re-launch as a co-branded Amazon site in August. The new site will combine the selection of books, music, videos and DVDs current...

Many financial institutions risk losing market share because they are concentrating too much on developing new online and wireless products, rather than improving the experience customers have on their existing Web sites, according to a report released Tuesday by Jupiter Media Metrix The report, "Integrated Finance: Composing a Symphony Out of the ...

Ministers from the 15 nations of the European Union (EU) adopted a copyright directive Monday aimed at updating copyright laws for the digital age to prevent Internet and high-tech piracy of music, books and other copyrighted works The ministers approved the so-called Copyright Directive by consensus. The member nations now have 18 months to ratify...

On Monday, Internet powerhouse eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) and other prominent investors took a combined US$15 million stake in ReturnBuy.com, a company that resells returned goods for both e-tailers and retailers Ashburn, Virginia-based ReturnBuy.com said that by using online auction house eBay and other online channels to resell returned goods, it will b...