Articles by Rob Spiegel

Consumers have long felt victimized by new car sales teams that manipulate, deceive and cajole buyers into one-sided deals. Now, as new cars sales rush online, the consumer stands to fight back through new programs developed by priceline, Ford and CarPrices.com The auto industry could wind up wishing it had never met the Internet. Detroit has alway...

China's Internet and technology stocks soared yesterday following news of a U.S.-China trade deal that may pave the way for China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) The deal lifts China's ban on foreign investment in Internet stocks and clears the way for U.S. companies to enter China's online market, which is expected to mushroom over...

Online brokers Charles Schwab, Ameritrade (Nasdaq: AMTD) and TD Waterhouse (NYSE: TWE) announced today that they will join three prominent Internet venture capital firms to open an Internet-based investment bank by early next year The companies say that the yet-to-be-named bank will be based in Silicon Valley and will focus on initial public offeri...

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, I never would have predicted that Internet usage would become completely mainstream by November 1999 Internet time, which is roughly judged to move at four times the normal rate of business progress, has rushed us to a place where the average Internet user looks almost exactly the same as the avera...

Survey results from PC Data Online and Ernst & Young indicate that Internet buying increased in October for the second consecutive month, removing any doubt that the 1999 holiday gift-buying season has arrived "Our October numbers confirm the jump in both shopping and buying in September was no fluke," said Cameron Meierhoefer, Internet research an...

Unfazed by impending restrictions to foreign investment, Boston, Massachusetts-based International Data Group (IDG) announced today that it will pour much of a $100 million (US$) risk fund into Internet sites in China IDG intends to slip through a gray area in current restrictions by investing in application services providers (ASPs) rather than co...

Just as ancient ships were misguided to a rocky death, the seductive siren song of Internet research can muddy the waters of e-commerce Over the past few weeks, we've seen a flood of research reports and Internet surveys supplied by a mix of respectable research firms and Internet wannabes who are struggling to get attention on the hot Internet new...

Rainbow Technologies (Nasdaq: RNBO), a provider of security systems for the Internet and e-commerce, announced today that it has forged a joint venture with Goldensoft Co. Ltd of Beijing to create a channel for domestic and international companies to market software in China while minimizing the risk of software piracy The announcement comes as the...

The e-commerce boom has turned countless caffeine-addled GenXers into near billionaires. One day, they're running up cash advances on 17 different credit cards while setting up shop in mom and dad's basement, the next day, they're meeting with Benchmark and Sequoia, securing the capital to race down IPO road The sober crowd down on Wall Street expe...

With Halloween behind us, holiday shopping is about to break. Marketing managers ate-tailers around the world are wringing their hands and watching their click-throughs. Careers across hundreds of e-tailers may hang in the balance. With that sobering thought in mind, I decided to study some Forrester Research survey results of "likely" places that...

Internet heavyweight Yahoo! announced agreements today with broadband Internet access providers Covad (Nasdaq: COVD) and NorthPoint (Nasdaq: NPNT) that will attempt to encourage Internet users to adopt DSL (digital subscriber line) broadband access Additionally, Yahoo! and NorthPoint will develop, market and distribute a co-branded My Yahoo! servic...

The daily barrage of e-commerce developments can make one dizzy, as the entire developed world embraces the Internet at a fever pitch It's seeping into all aspects of our lives. First our shopping went online. Then our stock portfolios. Now it has entered our homes, sneaking into our appliances and our food.

Boston, Massachusetts-based Inc. Magazine announced today that it has launched a Web site that is designed to deliver management resources to small business owners. As part of a cross-marketing agreement, the new portal will showcase content from the E-Commerce Times, and the E-Commerce Times will feature Inc.com material in its Small Business Advisor section...

IBM and Internet service provider Conxion Corporation announced today that 13 dot-com companies have joined the first class of its joint incubator program scheduled for launch on November 16th Additionally, another 12 dot-coms are set to launch the second class of the program on January 15, 2000.

How will you do your Internet holiday shopping in 2002? Will it be sitting in your living room, remote control in hand? And how will GM parts dealers restock inventory? By walking up and down the parts aisles telling a handheld device how many replacements are needed? ...

As we wait for U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to announce his factual findings in the Microsoft antitrust case, it seems almost peculiar that Microsoft could be viewed as a monopoly. The whole concept of antitrust laws applying to Internet companies seems almost silly now that a year has passed in the Justice Department's case A year i...

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced today that it has acquired Entropic, Inc., a provider of software and toolkits for speech recognition, in an effort to integrate speech interaction technology into the Windows platform The acquisition comes at a time when the voice services technology market is about to expand dramatically. A report released...

What does it take for an offline company to successfully launch an e-commerce site? A new report from Forrester Research, "Organizing for eCommerce," reinforces the emerging belief that brick-and-mortar corporations stand a better chance for success if the e-commerce initiative is organized as a dot-corp or dot-com. These independently managed busi...

In an effort to reverse its recent lackluster financial performance, computer services supplier Unisys Corp. (NYSE: UIS), announced yesterday that it will embark upon a three-year plan that will result in more than 50 percent of its sales coming from In making the announcement, company CEO Lawrence Weinbach detailed an Internet-based package of new...

After a year of fits and starts with its Web strategy, Toys "R" Us has announced partnership agreements with LinkShare, Tutornet.com and employeesavings.com that the company hopes will resurrect its flagging e-commerce efforts The partnerships will launch an affiliate program, deliver tutoring benefits to customers, and offer discounts to the emplo...