Business

In a first for the PC industry, Gateway has announced it will entice holiday shoppers with a "buy one, get one free" PC deal. Specifically, Gateway customers who purchase the company's high-end machines -- the 700XL desktop and 600XL laptop, which retail for $3,499 and $2,399, respectively -- will r...

Aiming to parlay its soaring popularity as a search engine into e-tail glory, Google has launched a shopping search site, quietly releasing a beta version of Froogle during the busiest shopping week of the year. Merchants need not pay to be listed on Froogle. The beta version refers shoppers to merc...

Technology giant Hewlett-Packard and Japanese telecommunications firm NEC have announced they will provide joint outsourcing services for organizations in China, Japan and the United States. The offering eventually may extend to other areas, including Southeast Asia and Europe. Ann Livermore, execut...

The information technology industry is emerging from what many are calling the worst downturn in the sector's history. In an effort to weather the storm, high-tech companies have cut prices and even introduced special financing deals to help move inventory and generate revenue. But when the purse st...

EBay sellers in eight states have been hit with lawsuits filed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), claiming they sold pirated DVDs through the auction site. The lawsuits mark the first time that the industry group, whose members include most of the large movie studios, has targeted...

The dot-com landscape is littered with the wreckage of e-commerce companies that did not survive the Internet shakeout. The bright side of this bleak reality is that those e-businesses still standing are far more likely to be profitable than their deceased brethren were. The question now is: What li...

Online sales continue to impress as the holiday season enters its home stretch, according to two new reports. ComScore/Media Metrix said consumers spent $2 billion during the week after Thanksgiving, marking an all-time one-week sales record for the Web and representing an increase of 34 percent ove...

Each year, a different shining jewel helps define holiday e-commerce. Two years ago, it was PlayStation2. Last year, the DVD player ruled the day, on its way to becoming the fastest-selling electronic appliance ever. What product will be the hallmark of holiday 2002? It may be too early to tell, but...

The world's most-trafficked Web site has announced it will begin offering Web hosting packages aimed at small businesses. For between $11.95 and $39.95 per month, small businesses will receive 10 to 35 e-mail accounts, 50 to 350 megabytes of storage and 20 to 35 gigabytes of data transfer. "We see t...

The general malaise in the economy and in the high-tech sector in particular has been especially hard on the telecommunications industry. Recent signs, though, have pointed toward a slow but welcome recovery for high-tech, raising the question of whether the uptick will spell relief for the telecom ...

IBM has struck a deal to buy Rational Software for $2.1 billion, continuing a lengthy acquisition spree that has focused on the software industry in recent months. Rational makes development tools that are used to customize software running a host of devices, ranging from mobile phones and routers t...

Buoyed by stronger-than-expected flash memory sales, number two semiconductor maker AMD has raised its fourth-quarter sales forecast by 15 percent. The company said it is now on track to book sales of $700 million in the fourth quarter. Such a result would represent an increase of nearly 35 percent ...

For enterprises that want to cut IT costs, one answer is to ship some high-tech work overseas, to places like India, Singapore, the Philippines and even Russia or China. "A lot of companies that haven't looked at this already are starting because it is hard to ignore -- especially in this economy --...

Offering a bleak outlook for 2003, AOL Time Warner said advertising and commerce revenue in its AOL online unit could drop as much as 50 percent as it weans itself from old contracts and tries to jump-start growth with new initiatives. Calling 2003 a "transition year," AOL said its bellwether Intern...

With more people adopting broadband, and larger national ISPs swallowing up smaller regional ones, some industry observers think independent ISPs are on the ropes. But executives at small ISPs see a bright future for those that survived the industry consolidation of recent years. Although giant ISPs...