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Santa-Clara, California-based Intel Corp. has furthered its move into the e-commerce equipment market by purchasing privately-held IPivot for $500 million (US$) in cash. This acquisition is the third Internet commerce equipment purchase for the chip giant over the past three years Poway, California-based IPivot designs and manufactures equipment th...

Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard's newly-appointed CEO, held court for Wall Street analysts last week and tried to put the brakes to her company's sliding stock price In a conference call, Fiorina -- who took the job in July for a compensation package valued at a hefty $80 to $90 million (US$) -- told analysts that HP's fourth-quarter revenue could f...

Linux vendor and Wall Street sensation Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq: RHAT) has announced the launch of version 6.1 of its open-source operating system (OS) distribution. The updated release, which focuses on ease-of-use and installation features, is aimed at pushing business-level Linux adoption Red Hat Linux 6.1 will include Apache Web server support enh...

In an attempt to maintain and expand its base of nearly 20 million subscribers, business-to-consumer e-commerce powerhouse America Online will introduce the much-touted 5.0 version of its online service today Despite the fact that many analysts predicted a decline in AOL's fortunes as more people came online, the opposite seems to have occurred. AO...

Network Associates, Inc. (Nasdaq: NETA) is taking an e-commerce security seminar series on the road this month, bringing product demos and security advice to 26 American cities According to Network Associates, the tour will feature two focused tracks -- "Active Security Solutions for E-Business" and "Sniffer Total Network Visibility Solutions for E...

Less than a week after Amazon.com muscled into the online shopping mall market with its new zShops feature, other online portals have begun to fight back with a variety of creative strategies One established shopping portal reacted immediately by lowering the price of its hosting contracts. Shortly after Amazon's announcement, Malls.Com declared th...

Retail powerhouse Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has taken direct aim at eToys and Amazon.com by focusing its redesigned Web site on toys, books and consumer electronics The company also indicated Friday that it is still considering entering the online auction business through its Sam's Club site. The site is based on Wal-Mart's Sam's Club wareho...

Concentric Network Corp., a leading provider of network services, announced today that it has agreed to buy Web hosting company 9 Net Avenue, Inc. for $54 million (US$) in stock and cash Company officials feel that the acquisition will beef up Concentric's e-commerce capabilities and also "significantly increase" its customer base. Once the deal is...

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has continued his push to combine Internet content with state-of-the-art delivery networks by investing $1.65 billion (US$) in RCN (Nasdaq: RCNC), a Princeton, New Jersey-based telecommunications company With the investment, Allen's Vulcan Ventures has raised its stake in RCN from four to 27 percent. The transaction ...

Pensacola, Florida-based G & L Internet Bank is set to launch a new service that will take advantage of Internet anonymity to help gay and lesbian banking customers avoid the "financial bashing" that founder Steven Dunlap argues is rampant in the business community. The new site, set to launch on October 11th, will offer Internet and telephone banking, personal and business checking and savings accounts, and a variety of related financial services...

According to a recent study by the Annals of Internal Medicine, high drug prices and low accountability are pervasive on Internet pharmacy sites. The report was slated for the December 1999 issue, but editor Dr. Frank Davidoff felt that the study's public health implications warranted an early release The study was conducted by Drs. Bernard S. Bloo...

Seeking to widen its presence in the already-expanding Japanese Linux market, Linuxcare, Inc. announced Friday that it has entered into a certification, service and support-based strategic partnership with Inter Space Planning Corporation (ISP) The Linuxcare Labs, central to the agreement, will test ISP-deployed AQUILA servers in order to provide L...

According to a new report by Forrester Research, Inc., America Online's new Shop@AOL is the only portal worth the hassle Forrester noted that other portals resemble suburban strip malls when compared to AOL. Shopping areas at Yahoo! , Lycos, Excite and Go Network are described as "little more than indexed search sites renamed 'shopping,' with littl...

Online travel sites Travelocity.com and Preview Travel (Nasdaq: PTVL) announced a merger today that will create an e-commerce entity with more than 17 million registered members and more than $1 billion (US$) in projected 1999 sales. The companies say that the merger will create the largest e-commerce site in the travel category and the third largest e-commerce site overall...

E-tail giant Amazon.com announced today that shoppers will be able to use 3Com Corp.'s Palm VII electronic organizer to make purchases on its Web site Amazon.com's move coincides with 3Com's announcement that it is cutting the price of its Palm VII -- which goes on sale nationwide today -- from $599 (US$) to $499. 3Com has also cut deals with eBay,...

DrDrew.com, a newly launched online community for young adults, announced today that it has secured a $7.5 million (US$) round of funding led by Softbank Venture Capital Dr. Drew, also known as Dr. Drew Pinsky, has made his name largely as the co-host of Loveline, MTV's popular sex and relationships advice show.

Winstar Communications, Inc., has announced the launch of Office.com, an online business service and product site for small and medium-sized companies CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS) holds a one-third equity position in the Web site, which offers small business content, commerce, community and communications delivered by a group of partners and in-hous...

Consumer Reports, the venerable 63 year-old magazine that rates products and services, will begin evaluating electronic commerce companies on its consumerreports.org Web site The new service, to be known as e-Ratings, will reportedly rank e-commerce sites in terms of customer service, usability of the site, return policies, number of product choice...

According to a study by Sage Software, 29 percent of small U.S. companies who currently have a Web site are using it for e-commerce activities Of the remainder, 37 percent plan to launche-commerce capabilities in the future, with 75 percent of those ventures expected to become reality within the next 12 months.

Earlier this week, I came home from a well-earned vacation in Las Vegas to find an e-mail waiting for me from my editor, which had the following message in the subject box: "Open this after you've had a few drinks." Upon reading his missive, I discovered that a Viewpoint I had written about Sun Microsystems' new office software suite StarOffice has...