eWEEK EDITORS

Napster Offers $1 billion Deal Napster, the online music-swapping service trying to stay alive despite a recent court ruling against it, last week offered $1 billion to the recording industry in hopes of bringing an end to legal proceedings. The company offered to pay major record companies $150 million per year in licensing fees over […]

Its advice about as old as the practice of computer security. Though typically offered as a sarcastic comment on the impossibility of “100 percent security,” it does represent a recognition of the primary source of security problems: the network connection. I know—its counterintuitive. Almost all of the hype and technological development of the past few […]

If peer-to-peer applications become ubiquitous, they could break the existing business models of many Internet service providers and force them to raise their prices, experts said. Peer-to-peer computing, which lets networked computers act as both clients and servers, is the next great innovation on the Internet, according to some marketers. Napster is the best-known P2P […]

An eerie blue “X-Files” glow has alarmed residents near downtown Denver ever since Qwest Communications replaced the discreet US West logo on its high-rise headquarters with a garish neon monstrosity. The sign glares all the way to the Rocky Mountain foothills 15 miles away. Its as bright as a Las Vegas casino—without the rest of […]

Collective Communications offers channel partners a novel pricing model and recurring revenues. Collective charges nothing up front for its ePDA software. “They give away the razor, but you have to buy the blades,” explains channel partner Bill MacMullin. Customers contract for ePDA on either a per-transaction or bundled-package basis. On a transaction basis, the Collective […]

If Heaven is the absence of Hell, then E-government could be a glimpse of paradise on earth. Imagine never again languishing in line at your local Department of Motor Vehicles, or waiting in the pouring rain to vote. Dont you feel reborn already? E-government—providing government services via the Internet—is just part of an overall effort […]

The independent e-marketplace is officially dead. Any remaining doubts were put to rest last week by some very bad news from Ventro and Internet Capital Group. Ventro, a onetime operator of vertical industry marketplaces, and ICG, an incubator that heavily invested in independent exchanges such as MetalSite, both reported huge quarterly losses. Ventro reported a […]

First web integrators revamp their businesses to look like old-school systems integrators. Now theyre considering pushing one step farther back in time, taking title to products and reselling them as part of a solution. Vendors and Web integrators alike say theyre in talks to resell high-end hardware and software, a move that would both supplement […]

Forget all that spy stuff. Ever since the government put the kibosh on $900 hammers, vendors have discovered the real money is in the commercial market, particularly for apps formerly developed for government agencies. One of the hottest applications these days is one that can manage all varieties of data, allowing companies to use it […]

For many of the e-business consulting firms competing in a tighter market, the manner in how they execute their strategies this year will define their ability to stay alive. Already, the early stages of Q1 have been streaked with the shadows of a slowdown in corporate spending. Many solutions provider companies have reported revised earnings, […]

Theres nothing like the roar of traffic—web site traffic, that is. Sure, content, functionality, timeliness and value are crucial, but without traffic, and lots of it, few Web sites can be considered successful. But getting it takes work. You can get traffic from links on portal sites, advertising links within a vertical industry segment, and […]

No Offense The Supreme Court last week left untouched a 1992 law that limits the number of subscribers a cable operator can sign on. Time Warner Entertainment, arguing that rules limiting the number of households a cable operator can reach to 30 percent nationwide may offend free-speech protections, had also hoped the court would overturn […]