Spotlight Features

Trying to find anyone willing to forecast a vigorous rebound in 2003 technology spending is like searching for a nonexistent needle in a haystack. But it is nearly as hard to find someone who thinks tech spending has anywhere to go but up. "There is no technological innovation that everyone is clamo...

As more companies pursue ever-scarcer revenues in this slow economy, they are putting more emphasis on getting the word out about their presence. And although the Internet is not the only marketing channel a business should examine, it definitely should be part of the plan. "The Internet makes up a ...

Even in a world of overstuffed e-mail inboxes and jaded recipients, advertisers continue to find value in e-mail marketing campaigns. The difficulty, of course, is finding a way to stand out amid a sea of spam. "If it's relevant, timely and from a trusted source, consumers will be glad to receive a ...

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...

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...

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...

Since IT budgets have been slashed in the economic downturn, many businesses are seeking ways to reduce the burden on overworked staff. One way to do this is to use a SAN, or storage area network, which lowers data management costs, increases hardware efficiency and improves data recovery capabiliti...

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 --...

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...

The weak economy and a shorter-than-usual holiday shopping season have led analysts who focus on the overall retail market to say the only foreseeable aspect of this year's holiday sales is that they will be unpredictable. The same cannot be said of forecasting online holiday sales revenue, however....

When Novell reported fourth-quarter earnings recently, the financial press pounced on the company's sizeable loss of $96 million. But most of that loss was a result of one-time charges. Novell actually beat both its own and Wall Street's revenue targets, with $300 million in sales. How has the compa...

In the wake of massive denial-of-service attacks on the Internet's DNS root servers, the likelihood of an attack that could crash the Internet -- and bring e-commerce to a screeching halt -- seems far greater than it once did. Every 24 hours of Internet downtime theoretically could mean more than $1...

IT pay has been hammered by the reversal of stock option fortunes, increased overseas outsourcing and the dismal economy in general, but experts say technology workers can still command a decent salary in some fields without becoming a CIO. Giga Information Group vice president Craig Symons told New...

Wall Street has battered tech stocks for more than a year, so one might think the Nasdaq would be littered with bargains. But recent gains in the tech sector have wiped away many of the best opportunities. "Few [stocks] are undervalued. We had that huge snapback, and now they're all grossly overvalu...

As the battle for online revenue extends into 2002's shortened holiday-shopping season, some e-commerce firms may be considering whether to post uncensored reviews of the products they sell, as Amazon does. To be sure, it is a risky proposition -- e-tailers risk losing product sales by having negati...