Spotlight Features

I was in Chicago for a few days of R&R when Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, spoke at the Microsoft partner meeting in Boston. As a result, I got news of the company's latest projected delivery dates for its on-demand CRM not from Microsoft, but from Paul Greenberg's blog: "On Demand Means Righ...

In buying a U.S. company, liabilities do not cease once a seller has completed a deal. The allocation of liabilities is usually determined in the acquisition agreement. Acquisition agreements are described in the previous article in this series. The role of indemnifications in mergers and acquisi...

Of all the weeks for me to pick to take a vacation, last week was probably the worst. There was so much going on that my "vacation" became busier than a normal work week. Microsoft, for one, was the subject of some positive buzz as news bubbled up around its so-called "iPod killer." On the negative ...

eBay's recent decision to ban Google Checkout as an acceptable payment method raised the eyebrows of some in the online community who cried that the restriction is unfair to consumers. Yet the move opens up a debate as to how online merchants should balance the risks and benefits of accepting altern...

This week, European Commission regulators fined Microsoft about US$356 million, adding to the $630.7 million the company has already been forced to pay. Noncompliance with a mandate to disclose technology documents is the official reason for the fine, yet the deadline for such compliance has not yet...

It seems rarer than ever these days that a majority of Americans can get together, rally round a common cause, hash out their differences, and forge a consensus in support of a durable and lasting approach to a pressing and vital public issue. Yet that is what is happening as a groundswell builds fr...

Business intelligence applications have always delighted company executives -- at least as they watched simulated exercises on a sales rep's laptop. Real-world execution, though? Until recently, that has left much to be desired. To be sure, it is not entirely the fault of the vendor. Earlier generat...

Two weeks ago CNBC asked me to cover problems that blogs pose for companies. To prepare I read official and unofficial blogs from a number of firms, and I found them fascinating reading. Google employees, for example, seem to be as outspoken about their management's lack of capability as anyone e...

In January 2005, I wrote an article for the E-Commerce Times entitled "VoIP Here to Stay." In that article, I stated, "The future of VoIP is, to a significant extent, now!" It's hard to imagine that the column was written only about a year and a half ago. At that time, Vonage had about 350,000 custo...

Although the Department of Veterans Affairs may be able to relax slightly now that the laptop containing sensitive information on millions of veterans and military personnel has been recovered, the incident highlights the role government plays in ensuring data security. "It is a hot political issue ...