John Moore

Is it the end of end-to-end? Web integrators were once keen on spanning the services spectrum from branding to back-end integration. An emergence of companies able to develop an online brand, design a Web site, and integrate relevant applications seemed a promising trend. But MarchFirst had been an end-to-end standard bearer only to end up […]

Pascal LeTiec, a longtime integration executive in France, had a notion that the application service provider (ASP) model would be the next big thing. So last year, he started talking to executives at New York-based Mi8 Corp., an ASP specializing in messaging. The discussions first focused on partnering, but ultimately the parties decided that LeTiec […]

Tried and True With visions of dot-com dollars dancing in their heads, some solutions providers were all too eager to dump the old ways of doing business. Reseller business models were abandoned with gusto for the latest xSP variant. That was not the case for Forsythe Solutions Group Inc. The Chicago-area company was launched in […]

The alarming numbers come from Jupiter Media Matrix: Online buyers will return 90 million items worth $5.8 billion in 2005. Enter reverse logistics, the science of handling returned merchandise. Jupiter asserts that retailers must improve their “entire reverse logistics systems” to recoup the cost of returned items. Logistics providers, not surprisingly, are ready to offer […]

Four states this month will go “Live” with pilot systems for calculating and remitting sales and use taxes for both Internet and brick-and-mortar purchases. You can bet that partisans on both sides of the e-commerce tax debate will be closely watching the technology trials in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan and Kansas. Why the interest? The […]

Chris Formant is only one of a number of Big Five consulting partners who have left to head struggling Internet-based firms. So far, according to industry observers, these former Big Fivers have had mixed success. “Its an age-old truism: Great consultants dont always make great executives,” says Tom Rodenhauser, a veteran industry analyst. “A Big […]

Services Turnabout While many integrators frolicked in the easy money of the Web craze, Primix was enduring what euphemistically could be called a character-building experience. The company, which went public as OneWare in 1996, hoped to make its money in Web-enabled application-development software but soon found the product business wasnt all it was cracked up […]

With payrolls declining at the highest rate in 10 years, it seems a bad time to be pursuing human-resources applications. But thats just what a few solutions providers are doing. Brand-name integrators, Web-services firms and smaller consultancies are cultivating partnerships with software vendors offering HR specialty apps. Consider the following: Accenture last week entered an […]

Old reliable has done it again. While many other IT services companies flopped in 2000, Accenture—the consultancy formerly known as Andersen Consulting—returned to its accustomed double-digit growth rate. The company recently reported annual revenue of $10.3 billion, which represents a 10 percent increase over 1999 sales and a 14 percent boost if one excludes the […]

Tired of the press and their bad news about your company? You could do what MarchFirst recently did: block access to press releases. Visitors attempting to see news at the bankrupt companys Web site (www.marchfirst.com) are greeted with a box prompting them for a user name and password. The site doesnt appear to provide information […]