John Lewell

Vavo.com has announced that it will become the official channel for seniors on Lycos.co.uk. “Lycos is committed to providing a wide range of services for the 11 million people in the UK and Ireland who have access to the Internet,” said Charles Walker, managing director of Lycos UK & Ireland. “Our partnership with Vavo.com is […]

In an effort to increase the number of small businesses on the Net, Richard Branson’s Virgin group Thursday launched a new company called Virgin Biznet. The company’s avowed aim is to double the number of the Web-present small businesses in the UK from 100,000 to 200,000 in a year. Incredibly, despite the enormous growth of […]

Global Crossing, which is building a worldwide IP-based fibre optic network, has reached an agreement to acquire Racal Telecom for £1 billion ($1.65 billion) in cash. The acquisition is intended to strengthen Global Crossing’s business in Europe, especially in the UK, adding the very extensive IP-capabilities of Racal Telecom to complement Global Crossing’s worldwide reach. […]

Far from being over, the European Internet boom is just beginning, said Nortel Networks, quoting a new report prepared for it by Ovum. The new research forecasts that the number of Internet users in Western Europe will grow from 38 million today to 150 million within six years. John Roth, president and CEO of Nortel […]

Coinciding with this week’s launch of the interactive digital TV service Open, The Henley Centre predicts that TV and not the PC will come to dominate e-commerce. There are three main reasons for suggesting that television will be the interactive medium of choice, say the researchers. First, most people associate television with leisure time, but […]

Excite UK has signed a two-year content deal with Interactive Investor International (iii) for a new “Money & Investing” channel to run on Excite UK’s portal. The deal means that Excite UK’s existing “Money & Investing” channel is effectively being re-launched with new content and state-of-the-art personal finance functionality. “Learning to deal with the different […]

Jobshop, Europe’s leading online recruitment firm, is changing its name to StepStone and will receive $100 million in additional investment over the next 18 months. The firm aims to capture 25 per cent of the European online recruitment market. Giles Clarke, the founder of Majestic Wine and Pet City who has had a major impact […]

Two of the UK’s top commercial sites, eBay.co.uk and lastminute.com, have partnered to launch a global auction. The two companies are offering to highest bidders a selection of all-in packages to see the forthcoming Lewis/Holyfield boxing match in Las Vegas. It is expected that the new auction will be the first of many collaborations between […]

Internet virus protection company Trend Micro announced Friday the opening of its new European headquarters in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The company also announced that senior VP Dennis Tsou has been placed in charge of the European region. Trend Micro, which also has a European support unit in Munich, employs over 640 people worldwide and in 1998 […]

Global telecommunications company Teltran International and the UK’s Norweb Telecom are about to launch Voice-over IP (VoIP) services in the UK. The collaboration between the two companies means that traffic can be originated in the UK for worldwide distribution over Teltran’s VoIP network — or originate overseas and terminate in the UK. “Our alliance with […]

QXL.com, the largest Internet auction company in the UK, has set the offer price of its shares near the top end of the range at 195p each (approx. $3.20). As part of the offering, QXL.com has allocated 28 million new shares to institutional and retail investors, announcing Thursday that they were more than eight times […]

ScottishTelecom, the subsidiary of Scottish Power that includes Demon Internet, announced over the weekend that it has decided to change its name. Thus, from now on, it will be called — Thus ltd. The change of name has been supported by an elaborate Web site, entitled www.let-it-be-thus.com, which explains the rationale behind the name change. […]