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The Internet has completely reshaped customer relationships. The transformation began with the dot-com boom, which spawned a new type of company whose entire business model was predicated on Web acceptance and usage. These companies -- Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and Google -- took advantage of the Web in all aspects of their business. Soon, traditional "brick-and-mortar" enterprises realized that to survive, they too had to satisfy customer expectations to procure goods and services over the Internet...

One of the benefits from the explosion of sales effectiveness solutions has been the effect on the marketing process. For too long, selling was regarded as a pseudo science while marketing was regarded as an art that needed to be tightly controlled to prevent waste. So it was no surprise to hear discussions of marketing ROI or to see marketing automation defined as a product set that had a lot in common with accounting...

Well before search titan Google released its tool to help developers scour the Web for code and connected information, Koders was serving up software search results, starting with open source software and now spreading out to include closed code repositories as well Since launching its first beta in 2004, Koders has expanded its search to include m...

Tired of lugging around both an out-of-date cell phone and a wireless-impaired PDA? Haven't found a smartphone that is classy enough to do both jobs? Check out the Nokia E62, which is available exclusively in the U.S. from Cingular Wireless. The Nokia E62's e-mail, Web-surfing and document-reading features are definitely best of breed, and its phone connections are loud and clear...

Intel this week began selling quad-core Xeon and Core2 Extreme chips, making good on its promise to deliver four-core computer processors ahead of rival chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Market uptake of the new chips may be limited to customers who need improved performance over that of dual-core processing, which is still relatively new. No...

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) will cease manufacturing the money-losing Personal Internet Communicator (PIC) in the third quarter of 2006, according to a fiscal report filed with the SEC last week. The line of inexpensive PCs was designed to help consumers in developing countries gain Internet access Introduced in 2004, the PIC was supposed to be a ...

Even the current upbeat forecasts for continued strong growth in estithe Internet advertising sector undermate its true potential because they fail to account for the impact of Web-based video ads, mobile Web ads and social networking opportunities, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel said Tuesday Speaking to an audience at the Internet Advertising Bureau's Enga...

Siebel led a list of top CRM applications ranked according to their size and expertise in eight vertical markets in a recent IDC report. Not surprisingly,Oracle's other CRM solutions -- thanks to multiple acquisitions over the last several years -- also dominate a majority of the categories However, in the communications and auto manufacturing vert...

Bidding to stake a claim in the move toward IPTV, TiVo Tuesday launched a series of upgrades meant to enable its digital video recorder (DVR) to be used as a central control panel from which viewers can receive and manage cable and broadband Internet video TiVo said its broadband strategy is meant to "put even more control in the hands of consumers...

Measuring a Web site's performance isn't what it used to be. Site operators are increasingly turning to outside sources for the components of their Web pages. That can muddy the metrics for companies trying to get a handle on how their sites are really performing Gomez Inc., though, believes it has a solution to that dilemma. The Lexington, Mass., ...

Save those voice mails. That's the legal takeaway regarding new e-discovery amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that will become law on December 1, 2006 The amendments make significant changes to the rules of discovery with regard to electronically stored information (ESI), including e-mail and voice mail, as well as Word, PowerPoint...

Internet telephony, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is well beyond the "what's that" phase, but not yet into the mainstream phase Companies like Skype and Vonage have raised awareness of this next-generation telephone option, but only a relative handful of enterprises have adopted the technology....

Despite a somewhat clumsy history with the free and open source software community, Sun Microsystems Monday opened Java to software developers under the general public license (GPL) The long-rumored move was a departure from the company's expected plan -- to release Java under the same license that governs its OpenSolaris operating system, the comm...

Cingular, Samsung and Microsoft have launched a new smartphone that leverages the latest functionality in Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system and takes advantage of consumer demand for the ultra slim form factor Called "BlackJack," this is Samsung's first full-keyboard phone in its ultra slim product line -- its answer to Verizon's incr...

Nintendo plans to invest at least US$200 million inmarketing its new Wii video game console in an effort to regain the market crown fromSony's PlayStation The company is going to what it called "unprecedented lengths" to let people see, feel and experience the Wii system. The marketing campaign is designed to convince the masses that the Wii can be...

Eyeing a growing interest in nuclear power as an environmentally friendly energy source, General Electric and Hitachi announced a partnership that will combine their nuclear power units The deal -- financial terms were not disclosed -- brings together two of the largest industrial and commercial companies in the world, with the common goal of devel...

In a major boost for the world's number two maker of mobile handsets, Motorola said Monday it landed a deal worth US$1.6 billion to sell mobile phones in the Chinese market Motorola said it would supply handsets to China Telling Communications, which is based in Shenzhen. The deal calls for Motorola, which trails Nokia for the worldwide market shar...

For those who can't resist chatting in the midst of a movie, Lycos Cinema is offering a way to help them express themselves -- to folks who will listen Lycos on Monday unveiled a "watch and chat" video experience. Lycos Cinema brings the social networking aspect to movie consumption with its Screening Room platform. The Web 2.0 project combines vid...

The power of music to bridge national boundaries and cultural divides has long been recognized, but perhaps has never been as starkly clear as it is today. One need only look at the phenomenal growth of MTV channels in countries around the world during the past decade The commercialization and spread of satellite and fiber optic cable broadcasting ...

The distaste and distrust of the Microsoft-Novell partnership announced last week among some free and open source software supporters has grown to include allegations the deal may violate the GNU General Public License (GPL), which governs Novell's Suse Linux operating system The free and open source software (FOSS) community's largest legal figure...