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The growing consensus among top industry leaders is that the standard e-commerce model of click and buy with no live interaction is going the way of the Commodore 64. In a word, e-commerce with a human touch is "in." "E-commerce's dirty little secret was the use of call centers to field questions from customers," said David Hsieh, founder and CEO o...

Industry giant Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) will unveil a new shopping center tomorrow that will allow any retailer, large or small, to pay a fee and market its wares from a personalized page within the Amazon.com site. The new center, to be known as "zShops," is designed to help Amazon.com customers find everything on their shopping lists without ever having to leave the Amazon.com Web site...

Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), the world's largest chip maker, announced yesterday that it has a launched a new Internet services hosting business. The new billion-dollar venture, known as Intel Online Services, will provide "second-generation" Web hosting to companies worldwide In addition to providing and managing the facilities and network, Intel w...

After an extended period of bickering and in-fighting, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and Network Solutions, Inc. have reached a series of agreements that will privatize the Internet domain name registration system ICANN and Network Solutions will finally sign a registry agreement that will ...

Lineo, Inc., formerly known as Caldera Thin Clients, has announced an agreement with MeterNet Corp. that is designed to power the set-top TV Internet access market with the Linux operating system (OS) MeterNet's new wb8680L set-top product, designed for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), will run Embrowser, Lineo's graphical embedded micro We...

Powered largely by an investment in community site GeoCities, Internet incubator CMGI (Nasdaq: CMGI) handily exceeded analysts' expectations yesterday by reporting record net income of $452.7 million (US$) or $4.74 per share for the fourth quarter. It had widely been expected that the company would report income of only $4.08 per share Fourth-quart...

Nike, which had previously prevented online-only retailers from selling its products, announced yesterday that it has changed its stance. Beginning with the 1999 holiday season, online sporting goods retailer Fogdog Sports will offer Nike products to its customers as part of a strategic relationship with the shoe giant According to Nike, Fogdog wil...

Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard's new chief executive, appears to be one of the highest paid chief executives in the world It has recently been disclosed by the Palo Alto, California-based computer manufacturer that Fiorina, who took the job in July, has been rewarded with a compensation package that is valued at a hefty $80 to $90 million (US$).

Seeking to leverage its e-commerce ties with some of America's leading sporting goods retailers, Global Sports, Inc. (Nasdaq: GSPT) announced today that it plans to launch a sporting goods auction site in the fourth quarter of 1999 The King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based company said that it will launch the auction as part of the Sports Authority.c

American Express announced Friday that it has developed an exclusive online shopping program that will steer its cardholders to special deals with selected online merchants who accept the American Express Card The new Just 4 Cardmembers service is similar to the printed flyers that American Express and other card companies frequently enclose with m...

CyberTrust, a GTE company and provider of secure business-to-business e-commerce solutions, has received U.S. government approval to export its brand of digital certificate technology to eligible companies in 45 countries worldwide The CyberTrust certificate authority (CA) product will allow non-U.S. companies to issue and manage digital certificat...

Internet infrastructure company InfoSpace.com, a provider of content and e-commerce services to affiliate Web sites, announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Seattle, Washington-based company Union-Street.com. Union-Street.com offers a variety of business-to-business services and community features, including private label e-mail, address books, calendars, chat, personal home pages and message boards...

Caldera Systems, Inc. has entered into a strategic partnership with MacMillan Publishing USA to market the OpenLinux operating system (OS) to the corporate world The new imprint, Caldera Press, will publish business-related materials that are based upon the Caldera Systems OpenLinux distribution. MacMillan expects the advanced instructional content...

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Akamai Technologies, a cutting-edge Internet content delivery service, announced Monday that Microsoft Corp. has made a $15 million (US$) investment in the company and will integrate its software into Akamai's expanding network According to the two companies, the goal of the strategic relationship is to help further t...

Fresh on the heels of a $16 billion (US$) strategic agreement signed last March, direct computer systems company Dell Computer and IBM have announced a seven-year pact that will make IBM Global Services available to Dell's corporate, government and education customers Although terms were not disclosed, this additional deal has the potential to be w...

Earlier this week, Ford Motor Co. and Microsoft announced a joint venture that will enable Ford to build cars to meet online orders. This cooperation between the two giants exemplifies how e-commerce is bringing the high-technology and manufacturing industries together, but I think it is also a precursor of a soon-to-come revolution that will drastically change the way new cars are sold...

Earlier this week, Ford Motor Co. and Microsoft announced a joint venture that will enable Ford to build cars to meet online orders. This cooperation between the two giants exemplifies how e-commerce is bringing the high-technology and manufacturing industries together, but I think it is also a precursor of a soon-to-come revolution that will drastically change the way new cars are sold...

Diversinet Corp. (Nasdaq: DVNT), a provider of security solutions for wireless e-commerce, has announced a strategic partnership with BellSouth Wireless Data to develop and offer secure end-to-end e-commerce solutions based on its Passport security software Customers of the BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Network will have access to Diversinet's ser...

Online gift registry Della & James announced today that it has secured $45 million (US$) in funding from a consortium led by Amazon.com. As part of the agreement, Della & James' wedding gift registry will be available on Amazon's Web site Joining Amazon.com in the financing are upscale department store Neiman Marcus, home furnishings retailer Crate...

Children-oriented Web site MaMaMedia, Inc. announced today that it has raised $50 million (US$) in its most recent round of equity funding The company said that the investment was $30 million more than it had intended to raise, but that "enthusiastic response from prominent venture capital and investment management organizations, corporations and i...