Business

As more corporate users add instant messaging to their arsenal of communications tools, IT and security experts face the challenge of managing, securing and archiving this data. More than one-quarter of the 4,510 people polled use instant messaging in the office, according to a survey conducted over...

Looking to accelerate the development of mobile technology devices in ways seen previously mainly in spy movies, Motorola said today it would work with sunglass maker Oakley on technology to make wearable communications devices. Motorola said it had formed a joint venture with Oakley, which makes a ...

EBay sellers are up in arms over the online auction giant's plan to raise the monthly fee it charges sellers by 60 percent. EBay notified sellers about the pending increase via e-mail on Wednesday. Effective midnight on February 18, the fee for the basic eBay Store subscription will be raised from U...

In a bid to boost efficiency, Hewlett-Packard today said it has merged its Imaging and Printing Group and its Personal Systems Group, forming the HP Imaging and Personal Systems Group. HP said the goal of the merger is to accelerate profitable growth, leverage the power of its portfolio and strength...

On December 27, 2004, President Bush did something that made Microsoft -- and probably every other software maker in the world -- very happy. Bush signed into law the Anti-Counterfeiting Amendments Act of 2003, also known as H.R. 3632. The new law criminalizes the distribution of genuine authenticat...

Napster today said its bid to turn what was a legendary brand in the underground music world into a contender in the legitimate online music space gained ground last year, fueled by a year-end spurt of new subscribers. Napster said its subscriber base was up 50 percent in the quarter that ended in D...

Revisiting a tactic that has been hugely successful in the past, especially when it bought home WiFi gear maker Linksys, Cisco Systems said it would acquire wireless local area network (WLAN) switch maker Airespace for $450 million. Cisco said the all-stock purchase of privately held Airespace would...

Like thousands of other online retailers, 2004 was a banner year for PearlParadise.com. And, like thousands of other online retailers, much of the company's success came during the holiday shopping season that many are calling a turning point for e-commerce. Numbers don't lie. The online pearl purve...

Longtime Microsoft Chief Financial Officer John Connors is quitting the company to become a partner in a Seattle venture capital firm, ending a 16-year-run with the software giant, much of it spent as the financial spokesperson while the company underwent major changes. Microsoft did not immediately...

In their search for ways around anti-spam legislation, some spammers are using unregistered domains to distribute unwanted messages, a tactic experts say is putting additional strain on servers at Internet service providers and on corporate networks. Illegal commercial spammers, wary of being tracke...

The Internet revolution has had the unintended effect of decreasing the use of oral communication and increasing the importance of text -- particularly e-mails -- as the primary means of business communications. Why has e-mail become so popular? Why use e-mails instead of phone calls? It is harder t...

Cable television giant Comcast plans to roll out a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to all of its customers by the end of 2005, arriving to the party later than some competitors but bringing with it the type of deep pockets and market reach that could speed adoption of the technology. Eve...

Telephone service provider Alltel has finalized a deal to buy fellow niche carrier Western Wireless for US$4.4 billion in cash and stock as the merger activity in the wireless field moves into the regional space. As part of the deal, Alltel will take on about $1.5 billion in debt that Western Wirele...

Analysts predicted that online shopping would increase 20 percent over the last holiday season. Don't they know that you should never underestimate the (spending) power of a woman? There is no denying that female shoppers are flexing a lot more monetary muscle on the Internet these days. E-commerce ...

Bidding to capitalize on the mobile services trend by extending its powerful brand beyond the bounds of the Internet, MapQuest has launched a service that enables users to send the company's maps to cell phones. The Send to Phone service will be offered as part of the monthly subscription plan to Ma...