Randy Scasny

Upstaging Tuesday’s unconfirmed reports that Internet consultant marchFIRST, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRCH – news) is laying off half of its 7,000-employee workforce is a new report that the specter of bankruptcy looms for the troubled firm. In addition, The Nasdaq Stock Market today announced that trading was halted on marchFIRST stock, citing that they need additonal […]

Chicago-based Universal Access Inc. (NASDAQ: UAXS) and global-network services provider 360networks (NASDAQ: TSIX and TSE: TSX) today announced an agreement that promises to provide more broadband network connections to telecos, ISPs and ASPs in North America. While not disclosing the details, the companies said the initial phase of the agreement is valued up to $25 […]

Responding to the anticipated growth in the Voice over Digital Subscriber Line (VoDSL) market, broadband services provider Focal Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: FCOM) launched today its new VoDSL service in Chicago. The company will introduce the new service in selected markets in the future. The VoDSL market is viewed optimisitcally by industry analysts because the technology […]

In an important step forward in combining all competing markup languages in a common standard, Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Siemens and other industry leaders have today announced their support for the XHTML markup language (Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language) as the format for mobile Internet services. The support for XHTML has the promise of narrowing the […]

It’s no secret that the U.S. Federal Government spends beaucoup money on information technology–to the tune of $38.5 billion last year. But the “secret” apparently blinded many Internet- and IT-related firms, who spent their time cultivating the dot-com customer. There was one exception to this rule, however; and the exception is taking advantage of the […]

Measurable benefits and highly usable products win supply chain application vendors exclusive agreements, especially in the auto industry. Those seem to be the lessons learned in today’s deal between Covisint and SupplySolution. The software firm SupplySolution, Inc. today said it signed an exclusive provider agreement with Covisint, the e-business exchange for the automotive industry. Under […]

There was a time when hulky brick-and-mortars needed a certified e-consultant to give them “click-and mortar” credentials. Not any longer, says Chicago-based Leapnet, Inc. Leapnet claims that many firms now do Web work in-house, rather than outsourcing it to Internet consultants — such as itself. In response to the new trend, it let go about […]

The short-term economic downtown in the wireless sector, exhibited by recent news from Ericsson, Motorola and Nextel, is not dampening Sprint’s enthusiasm or changing its newly announced “data-driven” business strategy. Today, the company launched an m-commerce consulting business, called Sprint E|Solutions’ Enterprise Mobile Practice, at Spring Internet World. The new Mobile Practice will deliver a […]

CRM solutions provider Interelate, Inc. announced raising $45 million in its fourth round of funding. Boston-based Great Hill Partners managed and led the round with additional investments from The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS); Carlson Marketing Group; Dell Ventures; C.E. Unterberg, Towbin; and William E. Simon & Sons. It plans to use these funds […]

Last week the Management Service Provider association (MSP) held its second quarterly meeting in Chicago to discuss plans and activities for 2001, as well as having presentations by guest speakers Corey Ferengul of the META Group, on market trends, and Ian Clayton of IT Service Management Institute, on Service Level Agreements. Important stuff for an […]

A wide range of voice-enhanced services will be within easy reach of ASPs, ISPs, ITSPs and Enterprises with today’s launch by Chicago-based Verascape, Inc. of its VeraServ voice server platform. The VeraServ voice platform is easily integrated with existing IP network and PSTN equipment, and allows developers and application hosts to quickly add voice support […]

While most physicians have pagers or traditional answering services to keep them connected while in the office or at home, as a group, they have been slow to adopt new technology tools such as standard hand-held wireless devices. Today’s deal between healthcare tech provider Allscripts and Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) hopes to change the status […]