E-Commerce

As the new year swings into high gear, e-business seems to be better positioned than it has been for years, with a rosy economic outlook ahead and a strong holiday season just past. Of course, 2004 will bring challenges too, including legal issues that will have to be addressed or at least closely w...

Digital music has been around for years, but the legitimate online music industry did not attract a critical mass of consumers until the launch of Apple's iTunes Music Store. Now, Apple has spiffed up iTunes by releasing new versions of its iPod digital music player, making iTunes available to Windo...

Following the lead of high-profile Linux vendors HP and Novell, Red Hat has announced it will offer legal protection to all existing and future customers of its enterprise installations of the open-source operating system. Novell's decision last week to indemnify customers of its newly acquired SuSE...

Signaling that 2004 likely will be a year of solid growth for the technology industry, IBM has raised its hiring forecast, saying it plans to hire 15,000 new employees in the coming year. The new outlook represents a 50 percent increase in the amount of hiring Big Blue envisions. IBM has said it exp...

Many e-businesses, whether they sell physical goods or more intangible services, are casting a covetous eye at the vast potential of the international market. As more people and businesses around the globe connect to the Internet, a growing percentage will come to view it as an alternate -- and perh...

Intel has revealed that its fourth-quarter revenues reached a record $8.74 billion, with net income of $2.2 billion, or 33 cents per share -- more than double the year-ago tally. "[Those numbers are] telling me that corporate enterprises are now loosening the purse strings on capital expenditures," ...

Several bellwether U.S. technology firms got a major boost as Chinese telecom firms dished out more than $2 billion worth of contracts. Motorola emerged as the biggest winner, signing a $556 million deal with China United Telecommunication, known as China Unicom, and a $510 million contract with Chi...

A few years ago, micropayments seemed like yet another brilliant idea in the midst of the Internet revolution. Then the bottom fell out of the market. Although many e-businesses in other industries have come back from the dot-com brink with stronger models and clearer goals, micropayment specialists...

In the six years since Musicmatch opened its virtual doors, the online music business has seen some significant changes. Musicmatch CEO Dennis Mudd spoke with the E-Commerce Times about what lies ahead. "Things now are like we expected them to be in '97," he said. "When we put the original business ...

Optimism about the tech sector abounded at this year's CES event in Las Vegas, as more than 110,000 attendees gathered to gape at computers embedded in refrigerators, hear about new offerings from Microsoft and watch rhinestone-studded singers belt out selections from the musical "Chicago" at the Sa...

Hewlett-Packard has shaken up the high-tech industry, saying it will work with Apple Computer to build its own version of the Apple iPod and will include Apple's digital jukebox software on its new PCs. The partnership provided the biggest surprise so far during a hectic week of one-upmanship at the...

Reviving one of the pioneering brands of the Internet boom in an effort to stop cost-conscious customers from jumping to discount ISPs, America Online has unveiled a cut-rate Internet access option bearing the Netscape brand. AOL said its Netscape access service will feature unlimited dial-up access...

Underscoring the potential it sees in positioning computers as entertainment devices, Intel has announced it will establish a venture capital fund to back startups that develop home entertainment hardware and software. The chipmaker's venture wing, Intel Capital, will oversee the Digital Home Fund, ...

In his latest Macworld keynote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has announced a music-creation program called GarageBand, which Jobs described as a pro music tool for everyone, and a 4-GB mini iPod that sports sherbet colors. Perhaps most impressive is the Mini iPod's size: It is approximately as big as a busi...

Yahoo is poised to end its long-time relationship with search-results provider Google, setting the stage for the two leaders in paid and traditional search to begin competing more fiercely for market dominance. The breakup has been expected for a while, as Google has become more of an all-around thr...