Business

An American's first impressions of India often include images of alternate approaches to trash management, intermittent electrical power supplies and issues of environmental sustainability. In this interview with Trudy Heller, those approaches are seen from the perspective of Heller's work designing...

If history were a reliable guide, a job hunter would stay as far away from the telecom field as possible. Ten years ago, telecoms could not hire enough people to keep up with the demand. The industry was investing millions, if not billions, in telephony and Internet infrastructure. Then the dot-com ...

The year-long U.S. recession has started to take its toll on the telecomm sector. AT&T and Verizon shares were hit hard Monday after being downgraded by Bernstein Research. The firm downgraded Verizon from market perform to underperform and AT&T from outperform to market perform. Verizon sto...

Dell, the No. 2 PC maker in the U.S., has fired two top executives as part of a major restructuring designed to help close the gap with its largest competitor, HP. Chief Marketing Officer Mark Jarvis has stepped down; President of Global Operations Mike Cannon will retire, effective Jan. 31. Cannon ...

Advanced Micro Devices said Monday that it cut 600 jobs in the third quarter -- 100 more than it indicated in the guidance provided to Wall Street early last fall, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 100 extra job cuts resulted in $70 million in restructuring costs...

For those who like to feel like they've gotten a bargain whenever they make a purchase, 4Sale4Now.com could be a dream come true. The site lets retailers discount their products and services regularly, and it lets buyers to monitor these discounts and buy when they're deep enough to suit their fancy...

Microsoft first talked about pay-as-you-go computing years ago, but a recent patent publication suggests the software giant is moving ahead with an alternative strategy for expanding PC access around the world. The application, filed on Dec. 25 with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, provides a...

A small networking company is suing three tech titans for patent infringement. Cygnus Systems has filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Arizona, alleging that Microsoft, Google and Apple have all violated a patent Cygnus received in March 2008 on the use of document preview icon, or so-called thu...

It is no secret that "retail therapy" -- whether in the form of shopping at a designer boutique, visiting a favorite online retailer, or even purchasing a preferred brand of shampoo from the grocery store -- can evoke feelings of happiness and well-being. A fascinating new study by marketing guru M...

Celebratory excess marks the holiday season, with its freewheeling use of credit cards, mountains of new toys, and piles of discarded packaging and wrapping paper after it's all over. The tree is green, the money's green, but the overall effect of the season is not particularly, well, green. So what...

GateHouse Media, a chain of local newspapers, has sued the New York Times Co. for copyright and trademark infringement. Fairport, N.Y.-based GateHouse, which owns 125 local newspapers, alleged that Boston.com, the Web site for The Boston Globe, violated copyright law by linking to GateHouse stories...

Struggling smartphone maker Palm just got a $100 million shot in the arm from private equity group Elevation Partners. In an investment agreement announced Monday, Elevation acquired new issues of preferred stock in Palm for $3.25 per share, a 31 percent premium over the closing price of Palm's stoc...

Lorrie Thomas does not "sell, share or whore out" the personal information of any visitor who comes to her Lorrie Thomas Web Marketing site -- and she backs up this no-share promise in her privacy statement. Indeed, the entire document is a straightforward description of what the company will and wi...

Warner Music Group has started pulling some of its songs from YouTube, a move that apparently reflects a breakdown in the renegotiation of a licensing agreement between the two sides. Warner licensed its entire music catalog to YouTube just before the latter was acquired by search engine powerhouse ...

That the term "carbon offset provider" has become part of the business lexicon may be an indicator that companies are finally getting serious about neutralizing their impact on the environment. Consumers are finding that the Internet can be a valuable resource in their own smaller-scale efforts to f...