John Lewell

More than fifty Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are launching a new, non-partisan e-policy think tank on Tuesday this week called the European Internet Foundation. Any MEP can join the foundation, which is intended to mobilize political leadership by addressing all the issues that are emerging in the network society revolution. Financed by a […]

Two former executives of Excite International Monday launched Eos Internet Ventures, an Internet development company that is already working on a new online gourmet food business named Foodoo. The two former Excite executives are Dafna Ciechanover, who was Excite’s European business development and marketing director, and Jed Simmons, once managing director of Excite International and […]

Freeserve has acquired a 19.5 per cent shareholding in digital entertainment company XPT Ltd. The deal values XPT, a producer of online dramas, games, and what it calls “spoof services,” at £1.8 million ($2.9 million). John Pluthero, Freeserve’s chief executive officer, described XPT’s offerings as “innovative, amusing and frankly extraordinary content.” Formed in January 1999, […]

Top Germany ISP T-Online International and Commerzbank’s online broker Comdirect announced a joint venture Thursday, as well as a stake swap deal said to be worth $1.2 billion for each partner. The strategic move comes a few days after Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria announced it was going to develop Internet projects with Telefonica. “With […]

North European telecoms operator Telia has taken a stake in First National Holding/Telecominvest, the third largest telecoms and IT group in Russia. Telia will be paying 700 million SEK ($81.7 million) for a 29.5 per cent share in the holding company First National Holding, the majority shareholder in Telecominvest. Hans E. Golteus, executive vice president […]

Deutsche Telekom and French media group Lagardère Wednesday merged the two companies’ respective ISPs, T-Online and Club Internet. After the deal, Lagardère becomes the second largest shareholder of T-Online International with 6.5 per cent of the authorized capital. The two companies say they envisage international cooperation in content and publicity, subject to existing contracts held […]

Great Universal Stores (GUS) subsidiary Experian Tuesday formed a joint venture with MyPoints.com to provide Internet loyalty solutions to clients in Europe. Together, the two companies will develop and operate loyalty infrastructure services, with GUS putting up $13 million to finance the venture and MyPoints.com contributing its Digital Loyalty Engine to power the rewards programs. […]

Online travel specialist ebookers.com has inked a two-year alliance with AOL Europe extending across nine countries. In exchange for certain guaranteed levels of advertising and promotion on AOL Europe’s services, ebookers.com will pay £15 million ($24 million), spread over the two-year period. The deal will give a measure of exclusivity to ebookers.com’s presence on AOL […]

Financial information systems provider FirstQuote Monday launched of FirstQuote.net, a new business unit that will provide browser-based investor content to European businesses. Using the new service, banks and brokerage institutions will now be able to offer their clients both desktop and wireless access to market data, news, analyses, brokerage reports, and other services. FirstQuote’s Chief […]

International voice, data and Internet service provider World Access announced Monday it has agreed on mergers with two companies and completed the acquisition of another. World Access says it has signed a definitive merger agreement with Communication TeleSystems International (“WorldxChange”), a telecoms provider with a $600 million revenue from international operations. In a second move, […]

Cap Gemini Group Friday formed a global alliance with Microsoft to deliver a range of e-commerce and other Windows 2000-based solutions to businesses. Cap Gemini says the alliance will help the group to speed up the delivery of complex systems with relatively low risk. Pierre Hessler, one of Cap Gemini Group’s Executive Board, said that […]

Nokia announced this week that it is working with Hewlett Packard, IBM and Scandinavian e-commerce company Nocom to develop a solution for easy access to e-commerce sites from mobile phones. The four partners say they plan to bring out a new over-the-air WAP solution during the first half of 2000. Pertti Lounamaa, vice president of […]