eWEEK EDITORS

Two major application service providers specializing in vertical markets will become one later this month when Agilera Inc. acquires Applicast Inc., Agilera officials confirmed last week. Agilera CEO Paul Rudolph said the company will acquire Applicast in a stock-for-stock transaction. “It is technically called a merger, but its an acquisition,” Rudolph said, declining to give […]

At this time last year, the IT outlook was ebullient if not giddy. Demand for IT skills was off the charts, with the backlog of unfilled jobs approaching 1 million, according to government estimates. Now that 2001 has arrived, the forecast is decidedly bleaker, with IT spending trending down, driven by doubts about the economys […]

A major PC pricing shake-out is in the making as OEMs, reeling from the first slump in fourth-quarter sales in five years, move to clear out warehouses full of unsold computers and revive sales. But while price cuts and rebates—some up to $300—may lure consumers, PC makers shouldnt look to corporate buyers to help shore […]

Network Associates saw its stock take a 68 percent nose dive the week of Dec. 25, after it forecast fourth-quarter losses of $130 million to $140 million, laying most of the blame on a backlog in sales inventories fueled by shrinking IT budgets and a shaky economic outlook. The same week, the companys top three […]

The disappointing pace of adoption of the Windows 2000 platform has caused Microsoft Corp. to halt its volume licensing program on older versions of Windows in a bid to drive business to the 2000 software suite. So far, however, the process is only serving to alienate many of the companys customers. Late last month, Microsoft […]

Just when you thought it was safe—when there would be no more ERP implementation debacles in your future because, well, big ERP projects are history—along comes Web-based application integration. I mean, were talking a major nightmare of ERP-like proportions. Youd think it was a software industry conspiracy to keep all programmers and, especially, all consultants […]

Companies Neglect E-Procurement For many fortune 500 companies, its all talk and no walk when it comes to e-procurement. In fact, fewer than one-third of Fortune 500 companies order strategic goods from online suppliers, and many have no idea how well their e-procurement systems perform, according to a study from Hurwitz Group Inc., in Framingham, […]

With the time frame for delivering the ebXML standard pushed up two months, companies working on the initiative say they already have plans to support the specifications in their products and services. Last week, 16 vendors gathered in San Francisco to prove Electronic Business Extensible Markup Language is real and works. The group announced that […]

As we pause at the end of the year to catch our breath from the whirlwind that is this industry, it has become a tradition for us to look back over the past 12 months and reflect on what weve said. Here are the most important positions weve advocated on your behalf in 2000. Uncle […]

Upgrades to Entigo Corp.s online selling and service management software will reduce the time it takes to get products to dealers and distributors and increase customer management efficiency, company officials said. The Pittsburgh-based company will roll out Version 2.0 of its Order, Catalog and Warranty applications this week. Order 2.0 and Catalog 2.0 both have […]

Desktop accounting veterans Intuit Inc. and Peachtree Software Inc. are focusing new products around a hosting model, hoping to close a technology gap created this year by newcomers such as NetLedger Inc. and other Web-based services. Intuit this month announced QuickBooks for the Web, which is designed “for people who think General Ledger was a […]

HP Ranks High for Women Hewlett-Packard and Lucent were among four high-tech companies listed as good places for women who have executive-level hopes. In its annual survey, WorkingWoman.com also ranked IBM and SBC Communications in the top 25 companies for women. Criteria included the number of women in management and mentorship programs for women. Companies […]