Business

The European Union (EU) has been slowly and steadily gaining strength and momentum and has today become a major financial challenger to the U.S. Of late, however, most of our economic focus has been on China, due to the enormous current-account deficit that the U.S. has created with that country. It...

Most great, successful corporations do not own a single global iconic name brand identity, clear and free of conflict or confusion. Finding a name to be yours as a solid intellectual property asset is vital to coping with all the confusion surrounding new positioning and new borderless marketing. As...

A new call center just opened in Navi Mumbai, India. It won't be making the headlines for being a new monster facility with impressive clients and well-known managers. But this modest business, Purple Support Services, has more to teach us about call center operations and IT outsourcing than any oth...

Seeing potential to merge entertainment with e-commerce, MTV Networks today said it would buy the parent company of the wildly popular youth Web site Neopets.com. Financial terms were not disclosed, but published reports suggested the purchase price was around US$160 million. MTV Networks is a unit ...

Chief risk officers aren't just for banks anymore, but analysts say the position still is only necessary for certain companies. A position that first appeared in the financial services industry to deal with a bundle of compliance and security issues, chief risk officers, or CROs, are now spreading t...

In a bid to strengthen its data protection portfolio, network storage solutions provider Network Appliance announced yesterday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a private storage security firm. Network Appliance will purchase Redwood City, Calif.-based Decru for approximatel...

Intermix Media said it has struck a tentative agreement with New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to settle charges that the company used its network of Web sites and freeware downloads to distribute adware and spyware programs to unknowing consumers. Intermix said it agreed to pay US$7.5 m...

Ericsson and Napster said yesterday they will step into the emerging service of offering music over mobile phones. The announcement follows a deal made public yesterday between Sirius radio and Sprint, in which music-enabled Sprint phones will offer streaming content from Sirius. Ericsson, the world...

Microsoft yesterday said it has filed four lawsuits against companies in Virginia and California for allegedly distributing counterfeit or illicit software. The software giant filed suits in U.S. District Court against CEO Microsystems of Irvine, Calif., Wiston Group of Walnut, Calif., #9 Software o...

Months after it first signaled its intentions to merge fixed wireless Bluetooth technology with WiFi 802.11 mobile wireless in one handset, UK telecom giant BT said this week that it is readying its BT Fusion brand for purchase by UK consumers. The company hopes to merge devices and services with th...

The majority of U.S. states are moving to end the tax-free ride for most online shoppers, a development that is facing opposition from some members of the public, businesses and a number of federal lawmakers. At present, 43 states have joined a states-led coalition called the Streamlined Sales Tax P...

A California appeals court ruling clearing the way for tax collectors in that state to pursue sales taxes from online sales from out-of-state merchants could have wide-ranging impacts for the e-commerce industry. For now, observers say it's too soon to tell how important the ruling, which the First ...

Microsoft yesterday released 12 new security patches for its Windows operating system and other programs as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday event. Today's batch marks one of the largest bundles of patches since Microsoft rolled out its monthly schedule. Eight bulletins affecting Windows are includ...

Is your brand worth a billion dollars today? Maybe yes or maybe no, but it surely is worth something pretty big. At the end of the day, all the work you have put in pushing your name identity and your range of products and services in your marketplace adds up in an abstract space of the consumer's m...

Adding yet another wrinkle to the emerging music-on-mobile-phones trend, satellite radio provider Sirius has announced a partnership to provide some of its streaming programming directly to Sprint users. Sirius and Sprint said they struck a deal to make select programming available to certain phone...