Beth Cox

BEA Systems Inc. signed product integration deals with business portal provider Epicentric Inc. and Fundtech Ltd., which sells e-payment and Internet banking solutions. That was the good news. Financial details were not disclosed for either deal. The bad news? Salomon Smith Barney reportedly cut its 12-month price target on BEA Systems Inc. as well as […]

In a significant case for online auction operations, a federal judge has ruled that eBay Inc. is not liable for copyright infringement in an incident in which bootleg copies of a movie were sold on the auction site. The lawsuit, brought by filmmaker Robert Hendrickson, is one of the first to test whether a Web […]

A new report says that teenagers in the United States and Europe are spending nearly half a billion online, and forecasts call for teen spending power to top $10 billion in online purchases by 2005. The report from independent market analyst Datamonitor, entitled “Online Teen Payments,” looked at teenage online spending across the U.S. and […]

In what is widely seen as a coup over its rivals, IBM struck a broad-based deal with auction giant eBay Inc., which will use IBM’s WebSphere infrastructure application as the basis for its next-generation trading platform. Armonk, N.Y.-based International Business Machines Corp. also will make San Jose, Calif.-based eBay Inc. a key sales channel for […]

The battle over e-book sales heated up today as Internet portal Yahoo! Inc. signed an e-book sales deal with four major publishing houses. E-books are a tiny part of the current online book market, but both publishing companies and online retailers clearly are expecting significant growth in this sector. Both Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com have had […]

Visa International, moving to combat fraud and reduce the number of disputed e- commerce transactions, approved commercial incentives “to provide protections and guarantees for e-merchants” that were previously only available in the physical world. The decision to promote the worldwide rollout of Visa Authenticated Payment was made at the board of directors level. A spokeswoman […]

About-to-be-acquired online travel company Expedia Inc. is bolstering its European presence with a joint venture deal with SNCF Grandes Lignes in France, the state-owned railways group. Expedia said that as a result of the deal French travelers will be able to book flights, hotels, rail and car rentals via an enhanced SNCF site, which claims […]

Ten days after acquiring the assets of a home health care service provider, drkoop.com Inc. said it has received a $5 million cash infusion and changed its focus from an Internet pure play to a “a diversified health and wellness company.” The troubled company, named for the former Surgeon General of the U.S., had been […]

New York-based wedding site operator The Knot Inc., which was delisted by Nasdaq last week, said that it has won a court victory against five Weddingpages franchisees who are attempting to sue over the company’s acquisition of Weddingpages Inc. The Knot, which acquired publisher Weddingpages Inc. in March of last year for $8.5 million in […]

Moving to bolster the bottom line in a hard drive kind of way, Amazon.com launched a new computer store on its site and said that Ingram Micro Inc. will provide enhanced logistics and product fulfillment. Seattle-based Amazon , which has seen its stock drop below $10 recently, said the store also will offer refurbished computers. […]

Continuing with its push to monetize the franchise, Yahoo! Inc.’s GeoCities unit launched two new fee-based packages — GeoCities Pro and GeoCities Webmaster. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! said GeoCities remains a free service at base, but the premium packages “give consumers access to advanced page-building tools and features including personal domain names that offer greater storage […]

Broadband provider Qwest Communications International Inc. and Loudcloud are teaming up to market an end-to-end, scaleable managed services solution, from the network through to the hosted Web application. Denver-based Quest said the five-year agreement is expected to produce about $260 million of incremental service sales over the next five years. Loudcloud and Qwest will co-market […]