Colin C. Haley

Notching its fourth government contract, Ask Jeeves has been tapped to provide natural language search and navigation for the District of Columbia’s municipal Web site. Financial terms were not disclosed. The company’s JeevesOne product will help residents, business owners, government employees and tourists find information about the nation’s capital through www.dc.gov. Emeryville, Calif.-based Ask Jeeves, […]

The 3Com executive team will move from the company’s California and Illinois facilities to its Marlborough, Mass., office. Located 25 miles west of Boston, Marlborough is home to 3Com’s enterprise networking business which will be its focus after the sale of CommWorks, a maker of Internet protocol telephony equipment. The $100 million deal with UTStarcom […]

Padding its tech client roster, search specialist iPhrase has landed a contract from home and small business networking equipment maker U.S. Robotics. Financial terms were not disclosed. iPhrase’s OneStep offering will help U.S. Robotics customers find information about DSL modems and other products online, deflecting service center calls. For example, a user could ask, “How […]

Making an aggressive play for broadband customers, Verizon has cut its monthly DSL fee $10 to $34.95, a move that could prod rivals to follow or develop new services to justify higher prices. The rate, currently offered to new customers as part of a promotion that includes Microsoft’s MSN 8 software, is expected to be […]

IBM and Akamai are teaming to help customers boost IT infrastructure capacity on a pay-as-you-go basis. A joint offering ties IBM’s WebSphere middleware to Akamai’s edge server network. It can be hosted by a customer, business partner or IBM Global Services, the company’s integration and consulting arm. Pricing will be announced later this quarter. The […]

After months of delays and legal wrangling, MercExchange’s high-stakes patent infringement claim against eBay is finally being tried in U.S. District Court in Virginia. MercExchange, of Great Falls, Va., filed the lawsuit two years ago, which also named eBay’s Half.com subsidiary as a co-defendant. The firm lays claim to patents covering the process of using […]

Verizon violated federal competition rules by taking four months to connect upstart carrier Core to its network, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said. In ruling on Core’s complaint, the agency said Verizon allowed the capacity of equipment in its Washington, D.C., area network to run down and remain exhausted for an extended period. It also […]

Responding to demand for high-speed Internet and bundled communications services, Qwest will invest $75 million to expand its digital subscriber line service in the 14 states it covers. The initiative will boost the telecom’s DSL footprint by more than 20 percent, to nearly 1,550 new neighborhoods. Approximately 900,000 additional homes and businesses will become potential […]

After just four months of work, search specialist Ask Jeeves today unveiled a new version of its Ask.com site. But the overhaul was anything but rash. Developers at the Emeryville, Calif., company pored over server logs and user surveys to ensure that the changes served a purpose. “This is the first step in a new […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday ruled that SBC blocked competitors from accessing its long-distance lines, opening the door for two rival telecoms to pursue monetary damages. In their complaint, Core and Z-Tel alleged that SBC’s actions in 13 states violated SBC/Ameritech merger terms as well as the Communications Act. In the Illinois, Indiana, […]

Continuing to outsource to save money and improve customer service, AT&T will pay Accenture $500 million over five years to manage its residential billing operations. It’s the second big-money deal between the companies. Previously, the communications giant and consulting firm inked a $2.6 billion contract to develop and integrate help desk systems using voice-recognition technology. […]

Telecom equipment maker Enterasys Networks has bought the technology assets of multiservice switch maker Tenor Networks for an undisclosed sum. Tenor folded in February after using up $123 million in venture capital over four years. Its last round came in August 2000. The deal advances “our current core routing development path, and speed time to […]