Articles by Los Angeles Newsroom

San Diego, California-based eAssist said Wednesday that it received $35 million from venture capital firms as it gears up to deliver its full suite of CRM products. eAssist offers a subscription-based package of CRM services Infinity Capital, Trinity Capital, Enterprise Partners and VantagePoint Venture Partners all kicked in funds to help eAssist ...

Solutions provider ePartners completed its bookend of nationwide CRM offerings, as the Dallas, Texas-based company announced today that it will acquire the San Mateo, California-based LeadTrack Systems for an undisclosed sum. LeadTrack offers software for sales lead automation The acquisition will be ePartners' second CRM pickup. In March, it purch...

Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Retek, Inc. (Nasdaq: RETK) strengthened its new CRM offerings today, as it announced an agreement to buy HighTouch Technologies for $27 million (US$) HighTouch provides CRM solutions to such dot-com companies as Tupperware.com, SportsLine.com and others. The deal calls for Retek to pay $18 million in cash and $9 million...

Privately-held eForce, a provider of e-business strategies, said Monday that its revenues rose 115 percent for the first quarter of the year to $4.3 million and its work force expanded rapidly to keep up with a growing customer base The Hayward, California-based company added dot-com clients Chipshot.com, Guru, HomeLoan.net and others to its client...

Octane Software, a provider of CRM applications and software, announced Monday that it sold its products to 32 new customers in the first quarter of the year, breaking a company record The San Mateo, California-based company -- which agreed to be acquired by E.piphany (Nasdaq: EPNY) last month -- added a number of business-to-business (B2B) compani...

Business solutions provider NCR (NYSE: NCR) said Monday that it has sold versions of its eBusiness Teradata Warehouse to E*Trade, Travelocity, Macys.com, and others since its recent launch The global giant also announced that MatchLogic, an online advertising subsidiary of Excite@Home, bought a similar version of the e-business system and that NCR ...

Lexington, Massachusetts-based MarketSoft, a provider of e-marketing solutions, touted its achievements of late in a succession of walks to the podium The company, which delivers offers and promotions to customers, was named one of five finalists in the Rookie of the Year category at the prestigious MIT Sloan School of Management eBusiness awards h...

Eight Internet-based service companies were the latest to sign up for an e-fulfillment system from B2B solutions provider Descartes (Nasdaq: DSGX), the company announced today The Waterloo, Ontario-based Descartes said the eight -- among them YourGrocer.com and PurpleTie -- join Internet grocery company Webvan as clients. Webvan chose the company's...

Swedish business applications provider Industrial & Financial Systems, AB (IFS) said today that it sold its Atlanta, Georgia-based Exactium unit to Pivotal Corporation (Nasdaq: PVTL) for $34 million The sale will consist of $9.4 million in cash, with the balance in shares of Pivotal. The agreement also calls for Pivotal to retire IFS' debt and for ...

The E-Commerce Times (www.ecommercetimes.com), the leading global e-commerce news portal, has announced the acquisition of allEC.com from Canadian-based V-Networks, Inc. The acquisition extends the E-Commerce Times' brand name recognition, audience reach and revenue base AllEC.com is an established pioneer in the field of e-business and technology ...

Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce solutions company Ariba (Nasdaq: ARBA) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), the largest bank in the United States, announced plans today to develop a suite of B2B services and a marketplace for the bank's two million business customers The Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, with $633 billion (US$) in ...

One of the best known Internet business models is to provide free content to online readers and charge corporate sponsors for advertising space.While there has never been a doubt as to the success of this paradigm in the print and broadcast media, some skeptics have questioned whether this "content/publisher" strategy can succeed on the Web. The E-Commerce Times took a close look at five Internet-based content publishing companies,Andover.net, Inc., CNET Networks, Inc., Internet.com Corp.,Yahoo! Inc. andZDNet Group, and found not only that the business model is fundamentally sound, but also that some of the leading content providers are well-positioned to become extremely profitable pillars of the new Internet economy...

German media giant Bertelsmann AG announced Friday that it is selling its 50 percent stake in AOL Europe and AOL Australia back to AOL in a stock deal worth between $6.5 billion and $8.25 billion (US$) The move has been highly anticipated since the announcement of the AOL/Time Warner merger in January. The privately held Bertelsmann owns more than ...

In an effort to keep its MSN.com portal competitive with its rivals, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced today that it is joining with a number of financial institutions to launch a Web site that will automate home mortgage transactions The new company, HomeAdvisor Technologies, will provide tools to automate electronic applications, underwrit...

In yet another deal that has analysts shaking their heads over the fundamental valuations of Internet companies, customer relationship management (CRM) firm E.piphany, Inc. (Nasdaq:EPNY), has agreed to pay $3.18 billion (US$) to buy privately-held Octane Software Octane had revenues of $3 million in 1999 and is on a rate to hit approximately $35 mi...

In what has become a common refrain, business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce solutions provider Ariba, Inc. (Nasdaq:ARBA) has announced a set of key partnerships -- this time with American Express (NYSE:AXP) and Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq:DELL) American Express and Ariba said they will work together to develop "new advanced electronic payment servic...

In a deal that underscores the notion that many Internet-oriented technology companies are wildly overvalued by the market, business-to-business (B2B) software giant i2 Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:ITWO) has agreed to purchase supply chain services company Aspect Development (Nasdaq:ASDV) for $9.3 billion (US$) in stock. Aspect reported $95 million in revenues and $8.9 million in earnings for its fiscal ended December 31, 1999...

Online auctioneer eBay, Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY) and used car listing service AutoTrader, Inc. unveiled a used car marketplace Tuesday for consumers and dealers The deal gives eBay's 10 million customers immediate access to AutoTrader's inventory of 1.5 million used vehicles, which come from 40,000 participating automobile dealerships and 250,000 private...

Kevin J. O'Connor, the 38 year-old Chairman and CEO of controversial Internet advertising company DoubleClick, Inc., must feel like Sherman McCoy, the fictional star of Tom Wolfe's famous novel The Bonfire of the Vanities When he went to bed last week, O'Connor was a "master of the Internet universe." His company was worth about $9.3 billion (US$),...

Travel trade association The American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) has formally requested that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) block the sale of airline tickets by 27 U.S. and foreign carriers on an industry-wide Web site The Alexandria, Virginia-based group claims that the new site, which is slated for launch in the second quarter, would v...