eWEEK EDITORS

Sun Spot You may have noticed that some of us out here in California are a little caught up in this whole “electricity crisis” thing. Other than the hefty boost in my bill from Pacific Gas & Electric, I hadnt experienced any outages — that is, until I was listening in on Cobalt Networks coming-out […]

Earnings reports last week swooped down like an Alberta Clipper, suggesting the economy is headed for the deep freeze. Refreshingly, IBM, one bright spot and an accurate gauge of future IT spending, brushed aside this nonsense with a 28 percent rise in fourth-quarter earnings from a year ago. More important, IBM, according to Chairman Louis […]

Pervasive computing and distributed computing. Chances are, your customers have been using both of those terms a lot lately. But its up to you to set the record straight and identify how they can make the most of both computing architectures. IBM coined the term pervasive computing shortly after Lou Gerstner took over in 1993. […]

The Toysrus.com/Amazon.com store came out on top, preferred over 85 percent of our test shoppers. Toysrus joined forces with Amazon in August to open the co-branded toy site, which is officially part of the Amazon family of stores. The result seems to please online shoppers who value the combination of the Toys “R” Us brand […]

Java developers are welcoming the stronger XML support expected in the next version of the Java 2 Enterprise Edition standard. Sun Microsystems Inc. expects J2EE 1.3 to debut in the third quarter of this year, with increased support for Extensible Markup Language and upgrades to Enterprise JavaBeans, JavaServer Pages and servlets. “The point of using […]

Peer-to-peer computing might be the hottest technology brewing on the internet, but can it put food on the table? Hotline Communications launched its file-sharing and chat software in 1997 — well before Napster achieved celebrity status. Hotlines peer-to-peer (P2P) software, which allows anyone to set up a PC as a multipurpose Internet server, became a […]

In a bid not to fall victim to commodity pricing pressures, Snap Appliances next week will launch a developer release of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) for its top line of network-attached-storage servers. The Java play is in its early stages, as the company looks to round up resellers to write feature-specific code for the Snap […]

Wrong Turn So now General Motors wants to be an application service provider — as if the industry doesnt have enough trouble. Make that both industries, application services and automobiles. Comments made by GM Chief Information Officer Ralph Szygenda that the people who brought you the Chevette may also get into the business of renting […]

Cement Boots MobShop joined the growing list of companies in the group- buying space that are being forced to scale back their operations. MobShop said it would eliminate its consumer service just a week after rival Mercata said it would cease operations, and a third company, called LetsBuyIt.com, filed for bankruptcy. MobShop will still offer […]

Checking Names Free-speech organizations called on the Department of Commerce to hold a hearing before approving seven new groups of Internet domain names. In a Jan. 16 letter signed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, among others, activists said the process the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers […]

When Computer Associates International Inc. showcased its entry into the application service provider field last summer, the project was said to be symbolic of a new effort to highlight hidden gems under the $6 billion CA umbrella. It was, according to CA officials, to come out of the gate with experienced employees, a handful of […]

Two friends of mine were injured in car wrecks recently. Jerry, the lucky one, was rear-ended by an SUV that put him on workers comp for months. Laura will spend at least a year in a wheelchair, thanks to the guy who swerved across the yellow line and into her Taurus grille. The ignorant morons […]