eWEEK EDITORS

The next time you look at an annual report, consider its size, especially if you own shares in the company. Stocks of business services companies with smaller annual reports performed substantially better on average than those with larger reports, says Merrill Lynch. Analysts at the investment bank reviewed the 10Ks of such companies as Keane, […]

Some companies have no business plan or no product. Others have a product, but we hope theyre not banking their profitability on it—no matter how creative their press release is. Take Learning Worlds Attacher, a utility that reminds a forgetful user to send an attachment with an e-mail. It works by scanning the text of […]

When RealNetworks announced earlier this month that it was starting MusicNet, a music subscription service, as a joint venture with three major record labels, Rob Glaser, RealNetworks CEO, said he would be happy to open the service to the music players of rivals — including Microsoft. Glaser could afford to make the magnanimous gesture because […]

When finance professor Cecelia Ricci looked at start-up Winstar Communications balance sheet last year, it took her about three hours to decide. “This company has absolutely no chance of survival,” she remembered thinking. Financed by a rogues gallery of junk bonds and seven rounds of preferred stock, the fixed broadband wireless companys numbers flashed more […]

Its a far cry from the Victorias Secret webcast last year — instead of skimpy, diaphanous outfits, picture Wall Street gurus with market forecasts and pie charts. Merrill Lynch & Co. has launched a broad new streaming media initiative, and in doing so, it is in effect becoming more like a media company. The financial […]

Millions of streaming media files are sitting out on the Internet and corporate networks, waiting to be played. How are you supposed to find the stuff you want? Portals like AltaVista, Lycos and Yahoo! already have extensive areas devoted to finding multimedia content. Now, several specialized multimedia search providers are promising to greatly improve the […]

Online energy trading is on fire. And software makers — armed with products to help companies manage their risk and keep track of their trades — are happily stoking the flames. Last week, Enron, the biggest energy trader on the planet, reported that the amount of electricity traded in the first quarter surged by 109 […]

Whether or not Cycore ABs suite of products leads the way, three-dimensional objects with embedded behaviors and interactive environments will characterize the Web in the not-so-distant future. Doubters who dismiss the value of 3-D models with embedded behaviors should consider, for example, the benefit to medical education or aircraft maintenance. Despite usability concerns, eWeek Labs […]

You can tell a lot about the state of an industry by the kinds of parties it throws. Computer security conferences historically have been relatively small, low-key, training-focused events with a minimum of the glitz and marketing frenzy you expect at shows like Comdex, PC Expo and NetWorld+ Interop. That is not to say those […]

Matcher.A Not a Heartbreaker Anti-virus software companies said a new virus that disguises itself as a program for finding romance partners is spreading quickly among companies in Europe. The virus, known as Matcher.A, is less potent than the ILoveYou virus, which ravaged computer systems last May, but it could pose a nuisance by overloading mail […]

Intel is taking a bit of its own medicine. The chip maker, which has repeatedly advised its integrator partners to differentiate themselves, is now taking that advice to heart. In a move to cast a wider net of opportunity, the company is adding 100 new consultants to its in-house consulting group to work more closely […]

If you heard any of the speakers at the recent RSA Security Conference, you may have concluded that we should abandon doing e-business altogether, since nothing can ever be absolutely secure. Hows this for gloom and doom? “Our current security systems are failing catastrophically. We have a lot of technical challenges ahead of us, and […]