Business

3D e-commerce is a pair of jeans seen from every angle. It is the ability to mix and match shoes, dresses, coats or belts; to explore the nooks and crannies of an entire home; and to capture the most realistic, detailed view possible. It is also entering the mainstream as companies strive to win con...

Saying it has cleared the way for even more innovation, Microsoft hailed a ruling that an antitrust settlement reached with the U.S. Department of Justice is punishment enough for its past misbehavior. Investors seemed to agree, sending Microsoft shares up 7 percent in early trading to $56.84, after...

"Where there's a will, there's a way" could be the motto of messaging provider Critical Path, which in just two years dumped its management team, shed its considerable debt, extracted itself from extraneous business pursuits, rid itself of shareholder lawsuits, brokered a lucrative financing deal an...

Up to 78 million taxpayers will have the opportunity to file their 2002 tax returns online for free, thanks to an agreement signed between the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and a coalition of tax preparers that includes TurboTax maker Intuit and H&R Block. The agreement between the government an...

What do you do when the going gets tough? If you are IBM, you make "on demand" computing a focus of your strategy. Big Blue CEO Sam Palmisano has announced a new on-demand initiative at the company, in which IBM will institute more flexible pricing for businesses whose need for computing power fluct...

U.S. online sales fell in the third quarter, marking the first quarterly decline in the history of e-tail as economic realities finally found their way onto the Web, according to a Forrester Research report. Forrester said sales in the quarter totaled about $17 billion, down from nearly $20 billion ...

Venture capital investments tumbled another 26 percent in the third quarter, with quarterly funding levels falling below $5 billion for the first time since 1998, according to a new report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association. The number ...

Aiming to capture a market focused on form and size, the number one computer manufacturer has released its smallest desktop PC to date. The Optiplex SX260, weighing in at less than eight pounds, is half the size of other Optiplex models. It can fit under a desk horizontally or vertically or can be m...

The forecast for 2002 holiday online shopping is promising -- especially in Europe. With European online holiday sales expected to top $15.77 billion, the continent will be the number one region for global online sales in the fourth quarter of 2002, according to research firm GartnerG2. "Retailers n...

E-tail giant Amazon.com said sales grew 33 percent year-over-year to $851 million in the third quarter, fueled by its free shipping offer in the United States and by dramatic expansion in overseas sales. Amazon's net loss shrunk to $35 million from $170 million in the same quarter in 2001. The compa...

It may be an overused phrase, but it is still a fact that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and this rule certainly has held true in e-commerce. But there is still abundant opportunity for less-established e-commerce sites to trumpet their existence to the world -- or at least the part of the worl...

The war between Microsoft and AOL for Internet users is extending to a new battleground today: New York's Central Park. That is where Microsoft is scheduled to hold a star-studded launch event for MSN 8, the latest version of its Internet browser and online services. Microsoft has long run a distant...

Microsoft has announced it will pay $96 million in cash to acquire Vicinity, a firm that helps customers find information about a company's nearest outlet and its hours via the Web, telephone or wireless devices. The software giant will merge Vicinity with its own MapPoint unit and will customize Vi...

Once upon a time, the performance of bellwethers like Cisco told the economic fortunes of the technology sector as a whole. But Cisco's dismal financial showings over the last two years have left some industry observers wondering whether the company still wields much influence, even though it is sti...

Few companies would be likely to admit it, and even fewer would be willing to talk about it publicly, but layoffs can have business benefits that go well beyond short-term cost savings. When done right, they can even help improve morale by reassuring employees that their employer can make tough deci...