Articles by Paul A. Greenberg

Business-to-business (B2B) online trading community operator VerticalNet, Inc. has formed a joint European venture with global communications company British Telecommunications (BT) and venture capital fund Internet Capital Group (ICG) The joint venture, to be known as VerticalNet Europe, is funded with $227 million (US$) in cash and assets from th...

Kmart, the second-largest discount retail operation in the U.S., has announced that it will offer shares of its common stock directly to its 180 million shoppers on its recently-launched BlueLight.com Web site. Most stocks normally must be purchased from brokerages The first shares were offered yesterday through Kmart Stock Direct, which was develo...

Chicago, Illinois-based Arthur Andersen has become the first of the "Big Five" accounting firms to take direct aim at Internet startup companies by launching a $500 million (US$) venture capital fund The announcement comes one month after sister company Andersen Consulting unveiled its own $1 billion worldwide initiative to fund Internet startups.

X.com, a Palo Alto, California-based online bank, recently allowed customers who were setting up new accounts to specify the account number from which funds were being transferred. Unfortunately, X.com did not verify whether the person who was setting up the account had the right to transfer those funds This sort of security breach brings into seri...

Simon Wright, the chief financial officer of Virgin Megastore, said this week that music distribution over the Internet could erode his company's profits enough to drive it out of the business Wright's comments came in response to the proposed merger of Time Warner's Music Group and EMI. He is concerned that such mergers could hasten online record ...

Many e-tailers across the industry are growing concerned that would-be buyers of high-tech and high-ticket items are backing away from online purchases because of concerns about follow-up service and a lack of long-term warranties In response, a number of online companies are devoting their efforts to selling and managing extended warranties on all...

Medtronic, a $4+ billion (US$) provider of medical devices, has announced plans to invest a total of $330 million in two deals that are designed to take its cardiovascular and neurological stimulation devices into the world of e-commerce One deal is a partnership with IBM and Microsoft to develop online monitoring systems that will connect patients...

Japan is taking business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce to a new level by introducing a system that allows customers to order goods online but pay cash for them in brick-and-mortar convenience stores The Land of the Rising Sun has long incorporated convenience stores, known as "konbini," into its national culture. The stores sell a massive variety of...

E-Stamp and Ticketmaster.com became instant rivals today as both companies introduced new systems to allow consumers to purchase tickets online and print them at home on their PCs The systems, if adopted by entertainment venues, would shorten ticket lines for consumers. However, ticket holders would experience greater delays in getting into these e...

Powerful Hong Kong businesses HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd, Hang Seng Bank, Cheung Kong Ltd., and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. have formed a joint venture to bring more businesses online The new venture, which is backed by combined resources of $385 million (US$), is called iBusinessCorporation.com and will focus on both business-to-business (...

In what could represent a boon for e-commerce in the world's most populous nation, newly-released figures from the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) show that online users in China grew more than four-fold from 2.1 million in 1998 to 8.9 million last year The report indicates that more than 75 percent of Chinese users are under age ...

Giant e-tailer Amazon.com announced deals today and on Friday that are expected to bring in $187.5 million from equity partners that will promote their products to Amazon's 16 million online shoppers In making the deals, Amazon announced that it will receive $105 million over the next three years from online pharmacy Drugstore.com, Inc and $82.5 mi...

E-commerce is set to explode in Japan from about $4 billion (US$) in 1999 to $693 billion in 2003, according to a new report from Andersen Consulting and Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) The study reports that business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce in Japan skyrocketed to $3.2 billion in 1999, a 420 percent increase from t...

Software giant Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) has announced plans to invest $100 million (US$) in VerticalNet, Inc., an owner and operator of 55 industry-specific Web sites that function as online business-to-business (B2B) vertical trade communities. The new partnership is intended to help small and medium-sized businesses do business online As pa...

Consumer fears of online credit card security were reinforced this week, as hackers infiltrated the credit card database of health products supplier Global Health Trax, Inc On Monday, the company's old Web site became vulnerable to the hackers, who gained access to home phone numbers, bank account numbers, and credit card account numbers of several...

Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce was a paltry two percent or so of overall retail sales in 1999. Nevertheless, industry experts are telling brick-and-mortar companies in the $2.7 trillion (US$) retail industry that they must jump online quickly or risk being left behind At the National Retail Federation's (NRF) 2000 Conference in New York, con...

IBM, which announced a weaker-than-expected fourth quarter today, has unveiled two major e-commerce initiatives First, IBM announced that it is setting up a $500 million (US$) fund for e-commerce ventures. The fund is part of a larger $1 billion funding initiative for new ventures.

The traditionally tight battle for U.S. auto sales is moving to the Web in full force, as top automakers are now clamoring for position in a crowded e-commerce landscape Earlier this month, U.S. automakers General Motors and Ford Motor Company announced alliances with AOL and Yahoo!, respectively, leaving little doubt that other deals are soon to f...

Insurance industry giant American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is introducing a series of comprehensive liability insurance offerings that are designed expressly for e-commerce companies AIG's netAdvantage Pro will provide coverage for companies that provide traditional products and services via the Internet, or companies that service e-clients....

The battle over paying taxes on Internet purchases has kicked into high gear this year, as members of the National Retail Federation prepare to vote on the issue today. The vote will determine the NRF's formal position The NRF, the world's largest retail trade group with 1.4 million retail establishments as members, represents one in five American ...