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According to a new study by Forrester Research, the Internet healthcare industry is poised to explode in the U.S. and become a $370 billion (US$) business by 2004 To get to that point, the report says, firms will organize around a healthcare e-business network that will serve consumers, providers, distribution chains and payers.

Q How did your company get started selling over the Internet? A There's a great Silicon Valley story here about a gentleman named Pierre Omidyar. He was working as a software developer here in Silicon Valley, and he had always been fascinated by how you can establish marketplaces to buy and sell goods and services. He had also been fascinated by how you can bring together fragmented audiences. Because of his interest in the Internet, and his background in software, he developed a software program that allowed people, in one spot, to list items of various interest and various degrees. It allowed people to be able to come to that very same site and look at what's for sale and bid on and buy those items. He used the auction process as the method for establishing how merchandise is valued and eventually how it is exchanged between buyer and seller.

As the holiday e-nickels are counted, an Ernst & Young survey indicates that the total e-commerce take will surpass estimates by reaching between $10 and $13 billion (US$). If the figures do hold, 1999 will deliver a tally that is 300 percent higher than 1998's $4 billion The survey of 1,283 Internet users shows that average online shoppers spent $...

Now that 2000 has arrived -- and we are all still in one piece -- I would like to suggest several New Year's resolutions for all startup and established e-commerce companies: Dispense with the fluff, jargon and cliches If these companies adopt my proposal, it would get their messages to the public efficiently and clearly, and make it easier for peo...

Lycos, Inc. (NASDAQ: LCOS), which saw the number of shoppers on its network increase 450 percent during the 1999 holiday season, has announced that is taking a 14 percent stake in Internet Commerce Services Corp. (iCOMS) and is forming a strategic partnership to build both companies' e-commerce businesses iCOMS provides electronic commerce applicat...

Just weeks after forming an alliance with America Online, retail behemoth Wal-Mart Stores unveiled its revamped Web site on the first day of the new year Wal-Mart and AOL announced a wide-ranging strategic alliance on December 16th, which included a new co-branded online service and numerous cross-marketing initiatives between the two companies.

If you have ever received a desperate call from someone who needs you to wire money right away, you know how inconvenient it can be. Or if your son calls from college and needs tuition money transferred to his account, the necessary trip to the bank can be quite an interruption Wouldn't it be great if you could simply put the caller on hold and con...

Despite massive advertising campaigns undertaken by pure-play e-tailers during the holiday season, online shoppers gravitated toward brick-and-click sites, according to the latest figures from Media Metrix Nearly half of the 50 most visited Web sites have a strong brick-and-mortar presence, according to the report, while few of the pure-play Web si...

Online shopping reached its peak during the week of December 6th through 12th, according to a Goldman Sachs / PC Data Online survey that was released today. Spending then fell from $1.25 billion (US$) to $495 million during Christmas week (December 20 - 26), as online visitors turned to greeting cards and computer game sites Additionally, a Media M...

With the new year upon us, America Online (NYSE: AOL) is claiming that its more than 20 million members rang up $2.5 billion (US$) in sales this holiday season, a total that more than doubles last year's figures The Dulles, Virginia-based online giant said that the total spent by its members at merchant sites on its Shop@AOL channel comprised 60 pe...

Network Associates (Nasdaq: NETA) has announced that it will offer Y2K-related computer virus information and support to the CyberAssurance National Information Center effort that is being coordinated by the President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion Information Coordination Center (ICC) The utility software solutions vendor will lend the reso...

According to a new report by Forrester Research, Linux hysteria will give way to pragmatism in the new year Despite the fact that Linux-related companies such as VA Linux Systems and Red Hat have recently taken Wall Street by storm, Forrester says it sees no sign of CIOs abandoning existing platforms for Linux any time soon. However, the firm does ...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based USABancShares.com (NASDAQ: USAB) announced Wednesday that it will launch a private banking site to specialize in serving the financial needs of the business-to-business Internet community The new site, to be called B2Banc.com, will offer a variety of customized financial packages, including Internet access service a...

Ricardo.de, a small challenger for Germany's online auction business, has parlayed a live auctioneer and other services into a formidable 400,000 person-strong subscriber base According to Ricardo.de, the site has now surpassed eBay Germany as the most popular online auction site in that country. The local start-up is actually competing with severa...

While vigorous holiday traffic and subsequent respectable sales figures are encouraging, smart e-tailers with an eye toward longevity are taking a second look at their marketing and sales strategies Many e-tailers are realizing that the honeymoon period of trial and error in online sales is over. Shoppers have made their priorities known and have b...

Earlier this week, I wrote a column about the boycott of Amazon.com that has been called for by Richard Stallman, an early developer of the Linux operating system My opinion was that Amazon should not be boycotted, which touched off a flurry of debate and commentary. Now, after having examined some of the letters and e-mails, I would like to revisi...

According to IDC senior vice president Frank Gens, 2000 will see dot-coms looking for brick-and-mortar presences, free services and software abounding, and profits finally becoming important to Internet companies Wednesday's report also foresees a broad Internet stock correction coming to e-commerce stocks, shifting focus from growth to profitabili...

The deafening roar of silence in e-commerce may soon give way to an explosion of sound, as an Internet telephony revolution grows more likely every day Chief among the leaders is Net2Phone, a New Jersey-based concern that counts American Online among its powerful investors. Net2Phone's principals firmly believe that voice communication is about to ...

It now appears inevitable that regulation is coming to e-commerce In the last week alone, the E-Commerce Times has run across four different issues that will involve some type of government regulation: Taxation, prescription drug regulation, potential FTC sanctions for violating mail order rules, and online insurance sales regulation.

Pervasive Software (Nasdaq: PVSW), a provider of e-commerce application development solutions, has released a version of its Tango 2000 Application Server for Linux The Tango 2000 development studio, which enables developers to create and deploy database-driven Web applications, is being developed for the Caldera OpenLinux, Red Hat and SuSE Linux d...