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Traditional retailers plan to offer steep discounts, longer store hours and other incentives this week, hoping to lure shoppers into malls and stores to salvage a shopping season during which the lion's share of gains has been seen in online sales. The International Council of Shopping Centers said ...

The game lover on your holiday gift list can be the easiest person to shop for. Just pick the latest, greatest sequel game and you're set. Not so this season. That's because new releases of this generation's game consoles -- Microsoft's Xbox, Nintendo's GameCube and Sony's PlayStation 2 -- are on th...

Search leader Google has launched a mobile-friendly version of its popular Web-based e-mail service, Gmail, offering a streamlined interface meant to be more compatible with small screens. Anyone with a Gmail account and a Web-enabled phone can access Gmail remotely. Google said the service detects ...

Continuing its legal war against piracy of its popular software titles, Microsoft said it filed 10 more lawsuits against companies accused of selling illegal copies of its products, with some of the software giant's own partners and re-sellers named in the suits. Seven lawsuits filed against nine in...

Cingular Wireless yesterday became the latest provider to announce an on-demand streaming video service. Dubbed Cingular Video, the service debuts with a partnership with HBO and promises viewers personalized access to high-quality clips on high-speed-capable phones. Cingular Video plans to begin of...

Targeting yet another vertical in the search landscape, Google has introduced a music search feature that will return relevant information about artists, including links to sites where their music can be purchased. The feature does not represent a move by Google toward becoming a music retailer, but...

Mobile software maker Visto Corp. has filed suit against Microsoft, claiming that the push e-mail built into the new version of its Windows Mobile software violates patents the firm has held for nearly a decade. Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Visto is seeking a permanent injunction against Microsoft t...

As the holiday shopping season starts its last leg today, online merchants are smiling and offline retailers are preparing for the annual Saturday surge. Shopping on the Net has been brisk since Thanksgiving. Shopping.com reported yesterday that every day since Black Friday traffic at its site has e...

Eyeing the sweet spot of the digital music market now all but cornered by Apple's iTunes Music Store, Microsoft said it would partner with Viacom's MTV Networks to release a new online music service known as Urge. Urge is slated to launch early in 2006 and will be integrated into upcoming versions o...

The search war continues to heat up as Amazon.com subsidiary Alexa Inc. has begun to offer third parties the ability to use its data to create specialized, or vertical search engines and results. Alexa said it would offer tools to enable developers to seek specific information when doing Web crawls,...

'Tis the season to read about e-tailers' dreams of record-breaking profits during the holiday shopping frenzy. Meanwhile, amid anxious promotions and analyst promises, there are plenty of credit card companies with their own holiday hopes. Remember, merchants pay tiny transaction fees that add up to...

Microsoft and long-distance company MCI will test a co-branded Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calling service meant to help the two companies have a hand in the massive shift of voice-based calls from traditional land lines to the Internet. MCI Web Calling for Windows Live Call will be integrat...

Online holiday sales are on a pace to crack US$26 billion this year -- an 18 percent leap over last year, according to JupiterResearch in New York City. "Reports we've seen from Mastercard and Visa indicate that online transactions are up sharply during this period relative to last year," Jupiter Se...

The roles of customer relations managers have been made more complex by both globalization and the virtualization of organizations. Clients initially encounter customer relations managers during the sales cycle. In some outsourcing firms, the chief executive officer is also the main client relation...

State-run venture capital funds are increasingly financing early stage technology companies, picking up some of the slack left by private venture capitalists in the wake of the stock market bubble's burst, experts tell the E-Commerce Times. Thirty-six states have venture funds, and the largest is Ma...