Dell: Top PC Dog
Dell Computer was the No. 1 PC vendor worldwide for the first quarter of 2001, beating out archrival Compaq Computer, which has consistently held the top sales position for seven years, according to research firm IDC. For the quarter, Dell had 13.1 percent and Compaq held 11.9 percent of the worldwide PC market, IDC said. But analysts said its something of a dubious honor: PC sales are slowing and vendors — led by Dell — are slashing prices in a fight for market share.
Microsoft, NBC Merge $ Site
Microsoft and NBC last week said they would merge MSN MoneyCentral and CNBC.com into a single personal finance portal, to be called CNBC MoneyCentral. The companies said the two sites combined have about 16 million unique visitors per month. The new site is expected to launch this summer; financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Napster Dusts for Fingerprints
Embattled music-sharing service Napster has licensed technology that will let it identify the “digital fingerprint” of a song, with the aim of improving its system for filtering out copyrighted songs. Napster plans to use the acoustic fingerprinting technology from Relatable in the subscription version of its service, to be launched this summer. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Ads Inch Up
Online advertising for the fourth quarter of 2000 was $2.2 billion, up 9 percent over the previous quarter, according to a report last week from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade group formerly called the Internet Advertising Bureau. However, that increase was much lower than historical quarter-over-quarter increases. The IAB said total online ad revenue for 2000 was $8.2 billion, a 78 percent increase over 1999.