Electronic Business articles from January 2002

Electronic Business archives from January 2002

Layoffs have become a nasty business. (Editor's Note).
January 1, 2002... Human resources--the name of this corporate department is supposed to reflect the understanding that people are a company's best and most-valuable asset. Sadly, in this time of business contraction I see many companies instituting what I feel...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2002... BUILDING A $1-BILLION IP COMPANY NOT A 'PHANTASY' I read with interest the article from Bill Roberts ["Intellectual Phantasy: With visions of ARM dancing in their heads, IP companies dream of impossible revenues," November 2001, page 66]....

The lighter side of urban combat. (The Chip Advisor).(Column)
January 1, 2002... I attended Comdex in November. Normally that would provide plenty of inspiration for this column, but not this year. The show was small and quiet, and most of the interesting new products were consumer-electronics devices. My favorite?...

Weighing no-cost software protection. (On the Law).
January 1, 2002... I In these days of cost cutting, it's useful to know that software automatically is protected against copying by the law of copyrights. The copyright does not even have to be registered prior to its infringement, nor is a copyright notice...

Expect modest recovery by mid-year. (Analysis).
January 1, 2002... The United States has plunged into its first full-blown recession in more than 10 years. What we all hope will be a mercifully short and shallow downturn began sometime during the third quarter of last year. After increasing by a scant 0.3%...

Prize fight for round two: Start-ups face uphill battle for second-round financing. (Finance).
January 1, 2002... Preparing for the second round typically is as tough for entrepreneurs as it is for the underdog in a prizefight: The odds are heavily stacked against them even in good times, suggests data from San Francisco-based researcher VentureOne Corp....

Forecast: Mostly cloudy with a slight chance of visibility: New factors are changing the way analysts do their job. (Finance).
January 1, 2002... Forecasting stock market activity always has been an inexact science, but in 2001 not even a crystal ball would've helped. The battered high-tech market and expectations of a recession already had the market wobbly when the horrific events of...

Woes remain the status quo. (Business Barometer).
January 1, 2002... This month's polling of purchasing managers shows a belief that the woes of the electronics industry most likely will continue for the next 30 days. Building of inventories is at an all-time low, and order volumes for memory and...

Rethinking the Internet: Companies re-evaluate the "e" in e-business. (Business Trends).
January 1, 2002... The economy already was entering what Princeton University economist Paul Krugman called the "fear economy" when the Sept. 11 attacks shocked the nation's business confidence to its core. Re-evaluation of every business practice immediately...

SEC warning on pro forma. (Business Trends).
January 1, 2002... The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has put companies on formal notice that they could be sued for touting pro forma numbers in their earnings press releases without providing sufficient detail on how those pro forma calculations were...

Exactly where is USB 'On The Go' going?: Some think OEMs already got up and went with other connection methods. (Business Trends).
January 1, 2002... In theory, a new version of USB designed for peripheral-to-peripheral connection has a ready-made market. In practice, however, that market is crowded with several entrenched connection methods that USB may have trouble displacing. ...

Satellite radio takes flight: Equipment makers are hoping for a warm consumer reception. (Business Trends).
January 1, 2002... It's taken satellite radio more than a decade to get off the ground in the United States. But with the first service now under way, and a second scheduled to begin next month, investors and electronics suppliers are eagerly waiting to see how...

The year of working conservatively: Tech companies lead the way in Power conservation. (Business Trends).
January 1, 2002... About a year ago, Silicon Valley Power--Santa Clara, CA's municipal electric utility--set up a "power reduction pool" to fend off rolling blackouts during periods of peak power consumption. The state of California ended up with six rolling...

Being shown the door: Management must weigh pros and cons of this touchy layoff procedure. (Business Trends: Management).
January 1, 2002... It's one of the harsher realities of layoffs: Fearing security breaches or trade-secret theft, a company cuts workers and literally shows them to the door. Folks who have been through this process frequently say they feel "like a criminal"...

Making Their Mark: Electronics companies seek recognition, attention and protection amid a stampede of trademarks and branding campaigns. (Cover Story).
January 1, 2002... SiPix Inc., a digital-imaging start-up with a mere 12 months of operation under its belt, already owns a fistful of trademarks--its name, of course, variations on it, plus its Internet domain name and any obvious variations. Most importantly,...

After the Tech Wreck. (M&A Special Report).(Company Business and Marketing)
January 1, 2002... ARMANDO GEDAY, CEO of Red Bank, NJ-based Globespan Semiconductor Inc., started talking with officials of Santa Clara, CA-based Virata Corp. about a possible merger in 1999, but the idea seemed destined never to get past the discussion stage....

Everything Under the Sun: Two weeks in the life of Sun's 'gatekeeper' make it clear: These days the supply chain links all parts of the business. (Manufacturing & Logistics).
January 1, 2002... At Sun Microsystems Inc., the buck often stops with Marissa Peterson. As executive vice president of worldwide operations, Peterson decides everything from when a product is ready to ship to how (and who) will build it and from where the parts...

What Recession: Revamped EDS poised to reap benefits from economic downturn. (Company Profile).
January 1, 2002... ON A BLEAK BUSINESS LANDSCAPE, with the technology industry in deep recession and the nation plunged in a war against terrorism, many electronics companies are finding it hard to survive, much less prosper. But amid this turmoil stands an...

Disk-Drive Jockeying: With four standards for recordable DVD drives, applications determine OEM choices. (Consumer Electronics).
January 1, 2002... IT SHOULDN'T TAKE A SOOTHSAYER to see that recordable DVD is going to be the next big thing. DVD-video, for watching pre-recorded movies, quickly is replacing the household VCR. Compared to tape, hard disk or even CD-ROMs, recordable DVDs,...

Security means big opportunities for small companies. (Venture Pulse).
January 1, 2002... For venture capitalists, IT security is one of the brighter technology sectors in a turbulent entrepreneurial economy. Long before Sept. 11, CIO conferences buzzed with talk of new designer viruses and teenage hackers spoofing corporate...