Gavin McCormick

E Ink Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., has laid off 37 of 137 workers after shifting its product emphasis from large, updatable signs for retail stores to screens for handheld electronics. Those laid off on Thursday from the Cambridge facility have been marketing, shipping or otherwise involved with E Ink’s original product — large, easy-to-read electronic […]

The slowing Net economy has claimed another victim from the professional Web services sector, as privately held NetNumina Solutions of Boston has laid off 23 of its 200 employees. NetNumina, which has won awards for its work developing the Massachusetts Port Authority site, still has cash remaining from its $25 million venture round of last […]

Not two weeks after being acquired by a French company, and just two months after launching the games portal Games.com, the Beverly, Mass., interactive and online divisions formerly owned by Hasbro Interactive have laid off 52 employees. Infogrames Entertainment of France, which on Jan. 29 completed its $100 million acquisition of the interactive division of […]

The torrent of data unleashed by the Internet has created a whole new set of problems for those that depend on it — how can we make sense of the vast troves of available information? And how can we use them efficiently? Such questions have given rise to one of software development’s new hot spots […]

All parties have approved a settlement in the Toysmart.com customer privacy case, with the failed Waltham, Mass., online toy seller agreeing to destroy its customer list and its parent, Walt Disney Co., agreeing to pay $50,000 to creditors. The negotiated settlement was filed Wednesday with a federal bankruptcy court in Boston. It includes approvals from […]

Planet Interactive, a 7-year-old Boston company that develops Web sites, CD-ROMs and multimedia installations, has been acquired by Jack Morton Worldwide, a New York interactive advertising agency that’s part of The Interpublic Group of Companies Inc. Financial terms were not announced. All 30 Planet Interactive employees will remain in Boston. Interpublic also is the majority […]

Engage’s plans to lay off 550 employees will have “minimal” effect on the company’s Asia operations, an Engage spokesperson in Asia told asia.internet.com Friday. “The announcement in the USA will have little affect on the Asian operations. It is largely about dealing with the legacy of the previous acquisitions,” said Ross Hughes, marketing manager, Engage […]

Suffering mightily from the Web ad sector’s decline, CMGI-owned ad network Engage is renegotiating customer contracts in a bid to improve operating margins. New Engage CEO Tony Nuzzo’s primary concern is the company’s low gross margins. In its most recent quarter margins totaled less than 20 percent overall, and only 9 percent in the business […]

In the largest merger to date of online human resource outsourcers, Interlynx Technology, a 6-year-old Boston company whose Web-based services are used by more than 2 million employees, has been acquired for $60 million by ProAct Technologies Corp. Formerly known as CFN, ProAct is a New York City-based portal that focuses its online benefit and […]

Engage Inc., the CMGI-owned online advertising firm, released weak quarterly financial results Tuesday, and its new CEO warned that it would have to “create a simpler, more efficient company” to survive the downturn in ad revenues. Before amortization, stock compensation and other costs, Engage lost $48.7 million in the three months ending in October, or […]

Ellacoya Networks Inc., a Merrimack, N.H., startup aiming to help telecom carriers make cash from high-bandwidth data networks by letting them target services at specific customers, has received a second round of venture funding totaling $52 million. The news led a quartet of announcements today from Boston-area startups making telecom infrastructure products. AstralPoint Communications Inc. […]

When Devin Hosea started Predictive Networks nearly two years ago, he wanted to take advantage of the Internet’s promise as the “Holy Grail” of advertising and marketing, able to target all consumers who used it and personalize every ad they encountered. But, building on his background in artificial intelligence studies both as a Princeton undergraduate […]