eWEEK EDITORS

Adriano Marconetto, Vice President at an Italian online music company called Vitaminic, acknowledges the head start enjoyed by U.S. counterparts to his firm and other European companies that provide music over the Internet. Europe has been struggling to catch up to the U.S. lead in utilizing and developing the Internet for the past few years. […]

Video didnt kill the radio star, and online music downloads are not expected to extinguish traditional music stores. In fact, some studies have shown that downloading music actually drives CD sales. Last June, Yankelovich Partners and the Digital Media Association did a survey that revealed nearly half of the nations music fans are turning to […]

The clock is running out for Netpliance, a pioneering Internet appliance start-up that was unable to sustain its original business model. The companys stock has been trading at less than $1 since mid-December and is in danger of being delisted by Nasdaq. Last month, a small group of investors led by John McHale, Netpliances chairman […]

E-marketplaces are cutting deals with electronic bill presentment and payment vendors, rather than wait for exchange vendors such as Ariba and Commerce One to add online payment functionality to their offerings. Customers have been pushing the B2B exchange vendors to add invoice payment capabilities to their procurement software and services. So far, none has delivered. […]

The folks at Borland finally realized that when you have a good thing, you dont change it. When Borland fell on hard times during the e-business craze, the company dumped its distinguishable name and took on a new moniker: Inprise. But branding is no easy task. Just ask Novell, which dumped NetWare for IntranetWare in […]

Its getting increasingly difficult for second- and third-tier component vendors to stay alive. Both Tech Data and Ingram Micro, the only healthy mass distributors, have been systematically slicing out product lines to make room in their warehouses for newer technologies. Over the past year, both distributors have cut hundreds of vendors from their line cards […]

Forget about whats in a name. The bigger question is who owns the URL. Just ask Solutech Inc., which this week will change its name to Quilogy Inc. because it was too late in registering its Web address. The www.solutech.com URL was grabbed by Solutech Consulting Services, which launched a couple of years after Solutech […]

A new breed of coupon clippers is upon us. Gone are the Sunday newspaper clippers; behold automatic cost savings directly from a Safeway Club card. Planet U (www.planetu.com) is a still-surviving Internet startup in San Francisco, banking its future on the theory that shoppers will always look for the best prices for their food. Thats […]

Amazon.com Changes Rules Amazon.com is requiring its auction sellers to offer the companys proprietary payment service to bidders. Previously, the Amazon Payments service was available only to sellers themselves. Now, sellers will be required to offer the service—along with other payment methods such as checks and money orders—to bidders. The move, in effect, closes out […]

Ever wish you had a guardian angel to take on those IT demons while you sleep? Tommer Catlin, MIS manager for general contractor Webcor Builders, prayed for one. “Were in business to build buildings, not to take care of computers,” he says. What Catlin needed was a cost-effective and reliable way to install, support and […]

The PC industrys top two players are taking markedly different tacks in addressing slumping sales. Dell Computer Corp., in announcing its earnings, last week said it will continue to aggressively slash prices, sacrificing profit margins in pursuit of greater market share. Compaq Computer Corp., the worlds top PC vendor, afterward said it would not compete […]

Some people suggested Bear Stearns PC analyst Andrew Neff went off the deep end with his recent “manifesto” that urges major computer makers to give up the fight and consolidate. Neff wants Dell to buy Gateway as well as IBMs PC division. He thinks Hewlett-Packard should purchase Compaq, and he urges Apple to forget about […]