Spotlight Features

Some friends of mine are considering setting up a new company around an e-commerce idea and asked me to research the cost of the IT infrastructure needed. As part of that, I went Web shopping for a low end server to get them started, and found some surprises. Note that all pricing data shown below i...

Your logo is not that important these days, as most customers have no motivation to remember the subtle intricacies or bizarre approaches to logos that are intended to stimulate demand. They are already flooded with colorful graphic look-alikes and continuously regenerated blasts from every corner.

Open source is undeniably on the march. Linux continues to grow at a torrid pace -- now forecast by IDC to represent a US$35 billion market by 2008 -- though it has yet to significantly breach the desktop market. Mozilla's Firefox browser debuted with much fanfare recently, with over ten million d...

Ninety-one percent of American consumers will walk out of a store and shop elsewhere if they cannot find the particular gift they want, according to a recent Sun Microsystems survey on consumer shopping patterns. Adults who shop online are equally unforgiving of online retailers that do not have the...

The e-mail mistake. Anybody using a computer has been there and done that. You add your name to a business message and click the Send button. The message leaves your screen just as your eye catches a glimpse of an error. It used to be too late; that message was gone for good -- the Uh-Oh e-mail! No ...

Using e-mail for personal and business correspondence has become as commonplace today as the VCR and the office water cooler. All three items are often taken for granted. Consumers have come to expect certain constants when it comes to computing: antivirus and firewall software are must-have securit...

For any corporation with plans to hit the markets with an IPO in 2005 or beyond, here are some key points. Just as how your latest technology and other corporate assets are essential to develop great financials for a potential IPO, your corporate image and brand name recognition are equally importan...

Popular style guides such as Strunk and White's 1918 classic The Elements of Style and the original 1906 Chicago Manual of Style were published before the advent of computers or e-mail. As such, their rules are not always relevant to the exigencies of e-commerce and electronic business communication...

You probably remember what happened to the tech bubble when it burst in 2000. It was quite a disaster. How could a sector that showed so much promise become so decimated? Exactly what went wrong? And, why does the future now look promising for this once devastated sector? In a previous article, I ta...

For a technology company, intellectual capital is one of the most important, if not the most important asset. Intellectual capital is more than intellectual property as it is commonly understood in that it also includes a company's trade secrets, know-how, problem-solving methods, customer informati...