Online Shopping Expected to Increase over Holidays
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the threat of more to come, e-commerce companies are counting on consumers to help boost online holiday sales.
The good news is that even though online spending took a dip immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, the category made a strong recovery. Online commerce sales were up 17 percent for the week that ended on Oct. 8, from the previous week, according to BizRate.com, a comparison Web site and research firm that tracks 2,000 online sites.
Sales at brick-and-mortar stores, meanwhile, have recovered from the post-attacks dive, but remain a bit below what is normal in a recessionary environment, retail analysts said.
BizRate, which doesn't track travel-related sales, projects a 31 percent gain in holiday online sales over a year ago to $6.3 billion, from last year's $4.8 billion.
Microsoft Updating Systems to Push XP
Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced plans for new versions of its MSN Internet access service and Web portal that will more heavily promote the company's paid Internet services and be closely tied to its new operating system, Windows XP.
The Redmond-based software giant also said it hoped to expand its offer of high-speed Internet access--fr as low as $39.95 per month--to most of its customers by early 2002.
The new version of MSN will more heavily emphasize Microsoft's instant messaging and other free services, the company said--products that will are also key to its plan to market a set of paid subscription services called ".NET."
Still in its initial stages, .NET will notify users, for a fee, of such developments as a flight delay, the availability of concert tickets or the status of an online auction bid. Through .NET, users will also be able to store personal calendar or financial information online and access it remotely from any computing device.
The new MSN Internet access offering also will link to new offerings in Windows XP, such as its souped-up music and video player. The two will be launched separately on Oct. 25.
Handspring Developing All-In-One Handheld
Handspring Inc. will soon offer new handheld organizers with built-in cell phone, Web-browsing and e-mail features.
The all-in-one devices, which the company will introduce Monday but won't put on store shelves until early 2002, could help revitalize the sluggish market for personal digital assistants, analysts say.
There are two models: the Treo 180 has a tiny keyboard similar to those used in e-mail pagers, and the Treo 180g, which uses Palm's Graffiti handwriting recognition system.
Each model weighs 5.4 ounces and is 4.3 x 2.7 x 0.7 inches. Each has a flip-up cover that doubles as the ear piece for the phone, and has a monochrome display. Each will cost $399, the company said.
Report Claims China Breaking Up Phone System
China's government has approved a long-awaited breakup plan for China Telecommunications Group, in an effort to spur competition in the Chinese telecommunications industry, a state-run newspaper said Tuesday.
The plan will split China Telecom into a northern unit, comprising 10 provincial networks, and a southern company with 21 provinces, the China Daily said. The northern firm will merge with China Netcom Corp., a data communications company, the paper said, quoting Ministry of Information Industry sources that it did not identify.
The State Council, China's Cabinet, recently approved the breakup, the paper said. The protracted wrangle over China Telecom's restructuring had delayed the former monopoly's plans to sell shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and created uncertainties about the future shape of China's telecommunications industry.
Internet Firm's Bankruptcy Methods Turn Heads
As the economy crumbles, some Internet companies are going out of business the same way they ran their businesses--unconventionally.
They're filing bankruptcy in a way that has angered investors and creditors who worry that company insiders are positioning themselves for one last windfall.
In the past year, a wave of hopelessly insolvent dot-coms have filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11-- an option usually reserved for companies trying to resurrect their business--instead of auctioning off their assets under Chapter 7, the traditional route for dead-end companies.
Most failed dot-coms still file Chapter 7 bankruptcies, according to statistics compiled by BankruptcyData.com, a Web site that tracks filings across the country.
Through late September, Chapter 7 petitions accounted for 79 of the 139 bankruptcy filings made by businesses with a "dot-com'' in their corporate names, according to BankruptcyData.
The statistics don't include the bankruptcies of many other Internet businesses that don't contain a dot-com in their names.
'.biz' TLD on Hold
A judge in Los Angeles has placed 53,000 applications for the new ".biz" domain names on hold pending a decision on whether NeuLevel, the ".biz" registry, ran an illegal lottery when allocating the names.
Where there was more than one applicant for the same .biz domain name, that name will be placed on hold, according to the ruling by the court. Authorised sellers of the names have begun trying to reassure their customers that the action will likely affect less than 20 percent of all applications. More than 200,000 ".biz" domain names will be activated as scheduled on October 23.
NeuLevel was chosen by the Internet's technical co-ordination body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), to deal with the registration of the new ".biz" domains. The allocation process adopted by NeuLevel was based on parties paying a small fee to reserve a particular domain name during a specified period ending in September.
However, applicants were not given any domain name rights until the end of that period and if more than one request was made for the same domain, then the rights to that domain will be determined randomly.
Government Loses Battle of Domain Name
A small software firm based in Bournemouth, England now seems set to prevail against the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in a battle over the domain name fsa.co.uk. Findlay Steele Associates, the current owner of the domain name, was last month the losing party in a decision by Nominet, the national registry for all domain names ending in .uk. However, an independent expert appointed by Nominet at the request of Findlay Steele Associates has recommended that Nominet should revoke its decision.
Findlay Steele Associates registered the name fsa.co.uk in good faith some six months before the FSA, holder of the domain name fsa.gov.uk, came into existence. However, Nominet initially reasoned that some confusion had occurred between the two names. Findlay Steele had received confidential business correspondence intended for the FSA as a result of a spelling error made by the sender, the FSA's solicitors.
Settlement Reached in SMS Spam Case
In one of the first cases of its kind, a settlement has been achieved in the U.S. aimed at protecting mobile phone users against receiving unsolicited commercial text messages--also known as SMS spam.
Verizon Wireless yesterday announced it has reached a settlement with Acacia National Mortgage Company that stops the lender from sending repeated, unsolicited commercial text messages to Verizon's mobile phone customers.
Full terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Trial In Singapore will Test Payment Options Through Mobile Phones
A trial payment scheme will be launched in Singapore within five months enabling people to use their mobile phones to shop and pay for restaurant bills, film tickets and car park charges.
Starting in March 2002, 10,000 trial users will be able to shop, buy fast food and film tickets and pay library fines and car park charges using their mobile phones, personal digital assistants and other wireless devices.
The trial will cost $20 million (about HK$85.82 million) and is part of the city-state's ambitions to become a launch-pad for wireless technology, industry regulator Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) said.
The payments would be directly debited from the users' bank accounts or paid via cash-cards and credit cards, IDA said.