E-Commerce

Hoping to keep its edge in software in part by producing a torrent of technological innovations, Microsoft is planning to push hard to secure more patents in the coming year. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates told analysts at the company's annual meeting yesterday that Microsoft plans...

IBM today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Cyanea, a provider of software that monitors and manages the performance of Web-based business applications. Cyanea is a privately held company based in Oakland, California. Financial terms were not disclosed. Upon closing, Cyanea's ope...

DreamWorks today filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing it intends to make an initial public offering of shares in, and split off, its animation unit, DreamWorks Animation. The studio, formed in October 1994 by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and D...

The online finance industry needs a makeover. Like any product or service presented to consumers, it's all about image. A new report by Javelin Strategy and Research shows that the online finance industry is suffering from an image problem. According to the latest Javelin Online Finance Update, cons...

European regulators have approved the merger between Sony Music and Bertelsmann Music Group, leaving only U.S. approval before the two companies can come together to create the world's second-largest music business. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed and the merger excludes some act...

Discount brokerage Charles Schwab today announced the immediate replacement of CEO David S. Pottruck by board Chairman Charles R. Schwab in the face of continued sagging profits. In the same statement, the San Francisco, California, company also reported that its net income for the quarter ended Jun...

Apple Computer on Monday introduced an upgraded version of its popular iPod digital music player, adding more features and lowering the price in a bid to ward off competition from the likes of Sony. Apple said the new model iPod features up to 12 hours of battery life, compared with 8 hours on the p...

A new consortium called the Trusted Electronic Communications Forum (TECF) has brought together top companies in the financial and technology industries to tackle phishing and spoofing attacks aimed at stealing personal information. Phishing and spoofing are a kind of bait-and-switch often used for ...

With online sales surpassing US$100 billion last year and continuing to grow at double-digit rates, retailers are seeing greater profitability with their online operations. With this good fortune comes the added burden of protecting the personal data of customers. As the list of regulations coming f...

The United Nations has launched a push to curtail the vast majority of spam e-mail within two years. The push by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the telecom arm of the UN, began this week with a meeting of scores of regulatory agencies from around the world in Geneva, Switzerland.

Many companies understand that, to be successful, they must be aware of political environments and regulations, cultural and labor considerations, national and international economic pressures, and technological developments, but perhaps one factor affecting companies most intensely in the new mille...

Microsoft's long-rumored push deeper into the search-engine business officially kicked off Thursday when the company unveiled an upgraded search "portal" it says will return better results. The company also did away with paid inclusion and suggested that sweeping technology improvements to the overa...

Hoping a narrow focus on product development and customer service will help it turn itself around, Nortel Networks sold most of its major manufacturing plants to Flextronics, which will make Nortel's hardware on an outsourcing basis. Nortel said the sale, which involves plants in Canada and Brazil, ...

Companies jostling for top billing in the crowded Internet search space are spending more and more money on pay-per-click sites. In addition to investing in search engine advertising, many companies are delving into search engine optimization to build the volume of traffic to their sites. By 2005, a...

One of the great promises of the Internet has always been that it can bring people together, no matter their location or technology. Social network sites like Friendster, Orkut and LinkedIn are making this promise into a reality every day by attracting millions of members that spend hours chatting w...