Articles by Nora Macaluso

E-commerce companies that are looking to go public can still raise money in current market conditions, although recent events suggest that these firms may not be able to get the sky-high prices for their shares seen just a couple of months ago Companies that sell to consumers have been particularly hard hit of late, as high stock prices and rosy fo...

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has announced an agreement with CheckFree Holdings Corp. (Nasdaq: CKFR) to provide electronic billing and payment services to customers through its USPS.com Internet portal Effective immediately, customers who sign up for the Postal Service's e-commerce site can use the eBillPay service to make payments to an...

By taking advantage of sophisticated video and e-commerce technology, adult-oriented businesses leapt onto the Net far ahead of their tamer counterparts and established a mammoth base of repeat customers In fact, Forrester Research found in 1998 that online sales of adult material accounted for eight percent of all e-commerce. While the firm no lon...

Handspring Inc., a maker of handheld computers started by Palm, Inc. alumni Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky, plans to sell shares in an initial public offering The company filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sell $300 million (US$) of stock, though it did not list the number of shares it plans to sell or give an estimate...

Confirming what has already been reported by company auditors, failing online grocer Peapod, Inc. has acknowledged in its annual report that "limited capital resources" make its viability as an independent concern "uncertain." Peapod "probably runs out in a week or two," said Barry Stouffer, who follows the company for J.C. Bradford & Co. The compa...

Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL), the number one direct seller of computers in the United States, has announced that its Dell Ventures unit will broaden its scope of operations to include equity investments and incubation services for new e-commerce companies Thomas J. Meredith, the company's chief financial officer for the past seven years, has ...

As competition in the online auto sales space continues to grow fierce, Internet car-shopping services Autoweb.com and CarsDirect.com have teamed up to try to capture a larger share of the market The alliance, announced late Monday, will include the launch of a co-branded direct buying service on Autoweb.com, placement of exclusive links between th...

ReplayTV, Inc., one of several set-top box manufacturers at the forefront of the coming interactive television age, is preparing to go public The company is attempting to target consumers that do not have or want personal computers by enabling them to pause a television program, record it to a hard disk, use the screen for e-commerce or other appli...

Kozmo.com, a regional e-tailer that promises one-hour delivery of videos, pizzas and other convenience items, filed Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sell shares to the public in an initial offering aimed at raising $150 million (US$) The news comes shortly after Amazon.com said it invested $60 million in the company...

When E.phiphany, Inc. (Nasdaq: EPNY) announced that it would pay $3.18 billion (US$) in stock for privately-held Octane Software, Inc., analysts and market watchers were left shaking their heads over the price The deal followed another lofty announcement in which i2 Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: ITWO) agreed to pay $9.3 billion for Aspect Development...

Demand for horror novelist Stephen King's 66-page new release -- available only by download -- has been so high that such e-tailers as Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com have been swamped "All the servers have reached 100 percent capacity and gone over several times today," said Pat Eisemann, a spokeswoman for Scribner, the co-publisher with King's ...

After putting 22 million shares up for sale Friday at an asking price of $12 (US$) per share, HomeGrocer.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: HOMG) is facing widespread industry speculation that it will fail to attract investor enthusiasm in much the same way that rivals Peapod (Nasdaq: PPOD), Streamline (Nasdaq: SLNE) and Webvan (Nasdaq: WBVN) have faltered All thr...

Internet Capital Group, Inc. (ICG) and Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. have partnered to develop business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce in Asia The $62 billion (US$) Hutchison Whampoa is controlled by Asian billionaire Li Ka-shing. His group of companies makes up 16 percent of the Hong Kong stock market's total capitalization and his personal wea...

CheckFree Corp. (Nasdaq: CKFR) has announced that it will team up with application service provider Derivion to offer an e-billing service to small and medium-sized companies. The agreement will give CheckFree access to Derivion's inetBiller and enable Derivion to gain access to a wider number of users The Atlanta, Georgia-based Derivion provides s...

Name-your-price pioneer Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) announced Tuesday that it is bringing its service to consumers in Australia and New Zealand by forming a new company Down Under The new company -- to be called MyPrice -- will be led by former Telstra Corp. Ltd. CEO Frank Blount and will start by offering leisure airline tickets. It plans to expa...