Stories about: Infoseek

Hewlett-Packard Co. tomorrow will launch a new line of entry-level Unix servers, part of a broader effort to earn the vendor a bigger slice of the estimated US$10.8 billion worldwide market for such computer systems, company officials said today.

Remaining nimble in the Information Age is no easy feat. Witness the ever-expanding EIP (enterprise information portal) market. Geared toward helping companies access buried enterprise resources and quickly sift enormous volumes of information, enterprise information portals aim to improve a company's decision-making aptitude by improving resource availability.

Reuters Group PLC Tuesday unveiled its long-awaited plans to move the company to an Internet-based business model, saying it would invest $799 million over four years to significantly expand its online and wireless ventures in the U.S. and Europe. It might also take public two separate business units with strong Internet plays.

Seemingly destined to play second fiddle in the general-interest portal race, Go.com is recasting itself as a destination for a broad but potentially lucrative niche: recreation, leisure and entertainment.

Jim Barksdale might have made his zillions at the helm of companies based on the West Coast, but when it came time to give away some of his money, he gave the early word to the East Coast media.

Yahoo Inc. released a stellar fourth-quarter report yesterday, announcing a two-for-one stock split and stealing America Online Inc.'s spotlight with a rash of positive press. "By any measure, Yahoo's fourth quarter looks exceptionally strong," gushed the New York Times' Alex Berenson. As Berenson reported, the company's revenue rose from $91.3 million in the fourth quarter of 1998 to $201.1 million in the last quarter. Its audience doubled to 120 million worldwide, while pageviews were up to 465 million a day in December 1999, as against 167 million a year before. Wired News said that Yahoo's quarterly report "serves as a bellwether for the rest of the industry. In past quarters, strong earnings reports from Yahoo have boosted shares in the overall Internet sector."

No sooner had the surprising news of America Online Inc.'s $190 billion purchase of Time Warner Inc. hit the street than pundits started speculating of a rash of Internet companies buying media firms. Don't count on it.

It's not clear whether Tuesday's market drubbing is the start of something bigger for Net stocks. Few would argue that Internet stocks will avoid a large correction in 2000, but when the market is roaring upward, it's hard to give that idea more than lip service. Hot markets such as we've seen since October can obscure the obvious. Getting clear about what's obvious is the first step to being prepared for it.

With the help of the Internet, markets are taking over from governments. Allowing freedom of choice among competing alternatives has proven better than centralised planning, even by democracies. But those who would govern the Internet are not about to slink off.

Disney has acquired a majority stake in Toysmart.com, thrusting the entertainment giant headlong into the wide open $US1.1 billion educational-toys market.

America Online Inc. and Microsoft Corp. continued their "cat and mouse" battle over instant messaging today, even as they separately issued high-minded calls to set messaging standards. Since last week Microsoft has continued to release messaging software to allow its Microsoft Network (MSN) users to communicate with users of AOL's Instant Messenger Service (AIM). AOL, in turn, keeps blocking the software, company officials said.