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A judge has given Microsoft a reprieve from an order that required it to begin including Sun Microsystems' Java software with its Windows operating system by the end of April. But even though the stay buys Microsoft some time and virtually guarantees that its epic legal battle with Sun will continue, Microsoft said it has already drawn up a plan t...

Nearly 20 years ago, two guys set up mail-order businesses, one from his dorm room, the other from a barn in South Dakota. Dell had a paper route and rooted for the Texas Longhorns; Waitt had a pony tail. They both had a dream of changing the way computers are sold Fast forward to today. Michael Dell's eponymous company has a market cap of US$62 bi...

One company started as an incubator to hatch fledgling onlinecompanies. The other invested in new and already-established Internet firms. They both had two things in common. First, they were among the most widely praised models of the New Economy.Second, they were hit, and hit hard, by the implosion of the dot-com sector. Now, incubator Idealab an...

Though it is widely praised for its cost-efficient online and phone sales model, Dell now plans to try its hand at selling computers in retail stores. The company said it will install sales kiosks inside Texas Sears locations and will make permanent a shopping-mall experiment. However, Dell noted, the moves do not indicate a change in its overall ...

The tale is familiar: Enterprises are generating massive amounts of data -- e-mail, Word documents, video, audio and databases -- and IT managers are scrambling to identify and purchase the most cost-effective, easy-to-manage storage solutions available. There are many choices, ranging from traditional direct-attached storage (DAS), which still co...

After reporting that it ended its fiscal year an unprecedented US$99 billion in the red, AOL Time Warner said Wednesday that Ted Turner also will step down from his post as vice chairman in May. The company's fourth-quarter earnings statement revealed a $45.5 billion charge as a result of depreciation in its America Online division. Its net loss o...

Bad things happen to good software. In particular, security transgressionshappen to very popular software, more because it presents a big target thanbecause of an inherently frail constitution. Such is the case with Microsoft's widely installed enterprise e-mail solutions, Exchange and Outlook Both Exchange on the back end and Outlook as the front-...

Hoping to extend its popularity into the small and mid-size business arena, eBay has formally launched a new section called eBay Business. The section currently features about 500,000 product listings, focusing heavily on office technology products, such as computers and networking devices, as well as wholesale lots of consumer goods and services,...

The U.S. economy was not kind to offline retailers during the 2002 holiday season:They saw the smallest revenue gains in more than 30 years. But e-commerce, which tended to overpromise and underperform during the Internet bubble as many Web-only outfits stumbled over fulfillment and customer service hurdles, showed considerable strength in the same holiday period. Is online selling in the midst of a renaissance, and will it emerge with a new starring role as the economy recovers?...

Venture investing plunged nearly 50 percent in 2002, dipping to levels last seen in 1998, according to the latest MoneyTree Survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers, Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). During the year, venture financiers invested just US$21.2 billion, compared with $41.3 billion in 2001.

In yet another effort by the recording industry to capture the elusive hearts of the music-swapping public, six brick-and-mortar record store chains have formed a consortium to provide consumers with online and in-store access to digital downloads. Best Buy, Tower Records, Virgin Entertainment Group, Wherehouse Music, Hastings Entertainment and Tr...

The squeeze is on, as unstoppable forces meet immovable objects. On onehand, enterprise storage needs are increasing exponentially year after year.On the other hand, IT costs are controlled more fiercely than ever, often bynon-IT executives. A Gartner report predicts 2003 will be the third consecutive year in which companies will remain cautious buyers, opting to wring usefulness from aging equipment rather than invest in new technology...

After announcing its .NET initiative in mid-2000, then backing it up with a slew of releases and hype, Microsoft clearly was hoping 2002 would be the year Web services took off. But the calendar has flipped to 2003, .NET is nowhere near as far along as anticipated, and some observers are wondering if the software giant might have gotten ahead of itself in making such bold predictions.

Marius Haas, vice president of worldwide e-business mindshare at Hewlett-Packard, worked for Compaq for seven years before that company merged with HP. He also led efforts to integrate both companies' e-business groups during the nine months preceding the official merger. According to Haas, that integration has gone well For example, Haas' divisio...

Total security for a corporate network may be a goal of many IT executives, but no matter how much a company invests in security systems, breaches -- originating either outside or inside a corporate network -- are a fact of life in the information age. Given that security incidents are inevitable, how can IT executives budget for them, earmarking ...

In a ruling hailed by some as a major victory in the recording industry's epic battle against online piracy -- but decried by others as a threat to Web privacy -- a judge has ordered an Internet service provider to turn over the identity of a voracious file-swapper to an industry group U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates ruled that Verizon Inte...

The dot-com bubble burst may have dampened the market for pure-play e-commerce ventures, but it has not slowed the number of companies seeking to automate their core business processes over the Internet Increasingly, Fortune 500 enterprises are turning to e-business software to enable real-time transactions and data exchange both internally and wit...

Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft will combine marketing and training efforts in hopes of expanding their share of the US$1.8 billion-a-year market for network-attached storage (NAS). Although specific financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed, both companies said they have pledged "significant investment" in marketing efforts and training...

As tenures at companies go, Steve Case's trajectory at AOL was similar to that of a bullet fired straight up -- it ascends at a fast rate but eventually plummets Case is widely credited as a visionary who grew AOL from a run-of-the-mill Internet service provider into a tech bellwether. But on the heels of the much-touted merger with old-media giant...

U.S. consumers' confidence in Internet products and services remains high, and they plan to spend US$4.8 billion online during the first quarter of 2003, up from $4.6 billion in the year-ago period, according to a survey released Friday. In addition, the number of consumers who said they plan to shop online in the first three months of this year increased 9 percent compared with last year, to 56 percent...