Spotlight Features

In part 1 of this story, "Inside the Hidden World of Motherboard Manufacturers," we examined the inner workings of the motherboard industry. Overall, the sector is healthy, but there are several challenges facing it as well. Jeremy Smith, a spokesperson for motherboard maker ABIT, told the E-Commerc...

New growth in scorched earth might be the best metaphor to describe the state of the high-end router market at present. When the Internet was booming, a bevy of startup suppliers rushed to build the top-of-the-line network devices called core routers. It was thought that products operating at gigabi...

As chips are inserted into all manner of everyday appliances, from refrigerators to phones, the semiconductor industry is not the only one that will heat up. The market for motherboards, which link all the components of a computing device, including processors, chipsets, memory and peripheral cards,...

Consumers finally are gaining more widespread access to WiFi high-speed wireless networks as vendors install this technology in airports, hotels and restaurants across the United States. The main challenge faced by these vendors is economic, rather than technical, in nature. The consumer market is n...

I spend a lot of time listening to lots of folks complain that they don't have a choice, that big, bad Microsoft has come in and made their lives a living hell and that someone should do something about it. If you are one of those folks, today is your lucky day. I'm going to start telling you how to...

In Part 1 of this story, The Mac Observer publisher Bryan Chaffin told the E-Commerce Times that the market standing of Apple's iPod will play a critical role in determining iTunes' success. However, the iPod faces increasing competition. Dell recently announced a new hard drive-based music player, ...

Before the year is out, Apple plans to launch a Windows version of its well-received iTunes Music Store. However, iTunes' success thus far -- Apple has sold 10 million songs through the Mac-only version -- has galvanized other sellers of digital music, which are launching Windows-based services at a...

Internet security experts are divided on the source and purpose of computer viruses and worms like Blaster and SoBig. But some government agencies are investigating a possible connection between the increasing spread of infected computers and organized crime. Recent trends are leading many experts t...

Windows is often the whipping boy when it comes to server platforms. But many in the industry now admit that Windows Server 2003 offers some significant breakthroughs over earlier versions of Microsoft's server software -- a change that could help Microsoft compete more effectively against Unix and ...

Computer hobbyists for years have tweaked their computers' innards to squeeze out extra bits of performance. Known as overclocking, the practice has long been a holy grail to users who demand maximum performance from their systems. But overclocking a system poses hazards to the hardware, making the ...