eWEEK EDITORS

The application server market continues to bustle, with new releases on the horizon from BEA Systems Inc., Borland Software Corp. and IBM. BEA, of San Jose, Calif., late last month started shipping WebLogic Server 6.0, which company officials say is more powerful, yet easier to use, and meets the requirements of J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise […]

At this time last year, the IT outlook was ebullient if not giddy. Demand for IT skills was off the charts, with the backlog of unfilled jobs approaching 1 million, according to government estimates. Now that 2001 has arrived, the forecast is decidedly bleaker, with IT spending trending down, driven by doubts about the economys […]

Two major application service providers specializing in vertical markets will become one later this month when Agilera Inc. acquires Applicast Inc., Agilera officials confirmed last week. Agilera CEO Paul Rudolph said the company will acquire Applicast in a stock-for-stock transaction. “It is technically called a merger, but its an acquisition,” Rudolph said, declining to give […]

A major PC pricing shake-out is in the making as OEMs, reeling from the first slump in fourth-quarter sales in five years, move to clear out warehouses full of unsold computers and revive sales. But while price cuts and rebates—some up to $300—may lure consumers, PC makers shouldnt look to corporate buyers to help shore […]

Network Associates saw its stock take a 68 percent nose dive the week of Dec. 25, after it forecast fourth-quarter losses of $130 million to $140 million, laying most of the blame on a backlog in sales inventories fueled by shrinking IT budgets and a shaky economic outlook. The same week, the companys top three […]

The disappointing pace of adoption of the Windows 2000 platform has caused Microsoft Corp. to halt its volume licensing program on older versions of Windows in a bid to drive business to the 2000 software suite. So far, however, the process is only serving to alienate many of the companys customers. Late last month, Microsoft […]

Just when you thought it was safe—when there would be no more ERP implementation debacles in your future because, well, big ERP projects are history—along comes Web-based application integration. I mean, were talking a major nightmare of ERP-like proportions. Youd think it was a software industry conspiracy to keep all programmers and, especially, all consultants […]

Companies Neglect E-Procurement For many fortune 500 companies, its all talk and no walk when it comes to e-procurement. In fact, fewer than one-third of Fortune 500 companies order strategic goods from online suppliers, and many have no idea how well their e-procurement systems perform, according to a study from Hurwitz Group Inc., in Framingham, […]

With the time frame for delivering the ebXML standard pushed up two months, companies working on the initiative say they already have plans to support the specifications in their products and services. Last week, 16 vendors gathered in San Francisco to prove Electronic Business Extensible Markup Language is real and works. The group announced that […]

As we pause at the end of the year to catch our breath from the whirlwind that is this industry, it has become a tradition for us to look back over the past 12 months and reflect on what weve said. Here are the most important positions weve advocated on your behalf in 2000. Uncle […]