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After a somewhat half-hearted effort to compete with Apple and the other digital music player makers, Dell signaled Wednesday that it will halt production of its DJ Ditty MP3 player. The move comes as Apple continues to enjoy dominance in the digital audio player space -- it owns as much as 80 perce...

A major auto manufacturer spends four years and more than US$200 million to install a Web-based enterprise resource planning system from an industry leading developer, then pulls the plug and goes back to its legacy system. An IT industry pioneer launches a leading vendor's customized order manageme...

Microsoft's efforts to build out its advertising network received a considerable boost with the announcement that Facebook has signed on with the company to receive online advertising services. As part of the multiyear contract, Microsoft will be the exclusive provider of banner advertising and spon...

Former eMachines owner Lap Shun Hui has offered to buy the retail operations of PC maker Gateway, to whom he sold his firm in 2004, for US$450 million. Gateway saw its stock price rise more than 22 percent Wednesday following news of the offer and said its board of directors, as well as financial an...

IBM is making yet another splashy acquisition, this time in the data security arena. The computing giant will pay US$1.3 billion to acquire Internet Security Systems, it announced Wednesday. The deal, which values ISS at $28 per share in cash -- an 8 percent premium over the previous day's closing p...

Microsoft on Tuesday launched a legal campaign against parties that register Web addresses designed to attract visitors by using trademarked terms and common misspellings of more popular domains. The software giant filed three lawsuits this week against alleged "cybersquatters" and "typosquatters." ...

To some observers, it may seem like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped, but next month a group of high-tech companies -- including leading notebook computer makers Dell, Lenovo, Apple and Hewlett-Packard -- will be holding a summit meeting in San Jose, Calif., to get the ball rollin...

In a move that could spark a price war in the emerging video download marketplace, Guba Tuesday slashed prices for purchasing and renting newly released films and television show episodes. Guba cut prices on new release movies from US$19.999 to $9.99, said it would make older movies from its catalog...

Two employees were fired and a top executive has voluntarily left AOL, the direct result of the public disclosure of millions of supposedly private search records. AOL said Chief Technology Officer Maureen Govern is leaving the company and reports suggested that two other employees were dismissed. O...

The debate over net neutrality is getting a bit belligerent online. A senior executive at cable company Comcast is challenging the CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, to a debate on the topic. A copy of a recent e-mail between David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast, and Whitman has surfaced on the ...

Infineon Technologies said Monday it had landed an order for millions of data storage chips from the U.S. government, which will be featured in a new generation of electronic passports. The exact size of the contract was not disclosed, but Infineon said it received a "multimillion piece purchase ord...

E-tail industry leaders are crowned -- and laggards exposed -- in a new Web site study conducted by Keynote Systems, a San Mateo, Calif.-based Web performance and measurement firm. A large consumer panel ranked sites in three verticals -- electronics, apparel, and books and music -- according to cus...

Microsoft on Friday said it added US$16.2 billion to its ongoing share buyback plan, nearly doubling its repurchase authorization to $36.2 billion through June 30, 2011. The software giant is sitting on a stockpile of cash. Microsoft had $34.16 billion in cash and short-term investments as of June 3...

As a company grows, so do its accounts receivable. Growing pains often involve a shortage of cash, creating inadequate cash flows. So, wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to wait for your customers to pay you? Actually, that is what factoring does for you; it turns your invoices and your receiva...

Persuading a company's brass to buy tools to analyze Web traffic is an easy sell these days, but that's not the case when it comes to hiring bodies to interpret the data produced by the tools. Those were among the findings in a report released last week by Forrester Research. "Because Web analytics ...