Archive for May 14th, 2007
Move over PCs. Apparel has dethroned you as the e-commerce sales king. So says The State of Retailing Online 2007, the 10th annual Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research.Last year, Americans spent more online on clothing than they did on computers for the first time in history. The report found the apparel, accessories, and footwear category reached $18.3 billion in 2006 and is expected to hit $22.1 billion in 2007. This year, 10 percent of all clothing sales is expected to occur online.
“The online retail industry has come a long way,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org. “Apparel becoming the top category really is a milestone in evidence of online retail becoming mainstream.”
Click here to read the rest of this story on NewsFactor.
May 14th, 2007
It’s a headline that many corporations have feared would make ink: Microsoft 
has identified open-source code that infringes on its patents. Redmond claims that there are more than 200 infringements in the world of open-source software.Microsoft is tightlipped about which of its patents are being infringed, but it claims the grand total of violations is 235. The Linux kernel itself allegedly violates 42 of the company’s patents, according to a Fortune magazine article that includes an interview with Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith.
Smith told Fortune that the Linux graphical user interfaces infringe on 65 of the company’s patents, OpenOffice.org programs violate 45, open-source e-mail applications from several vendors infringe on another 15, and other unnamed open-source software applications trespass on 68 additional Microsoft patents.
Click here to read the rest of this story on NewsFactor.
May 14th, 2007
What language would you prefer to do your shopping in? Don Depalma, chief research analyst at Common Sense Advisory, has an interesting insights on global e-commerce. Even for consumers who feel comfortable in English, many prefer buying in their own language, he says, and most want customer support that is similarly accessible.
“With sites lacking local currency or transaction support, many non-native speakers discover that buying from English-language sites is literally an impossible undertaking. Global e-commerce adds a ‘localization’ concern to navigation and forms. Visitors who decide to buy may find that data forms on the site haven’t been adapted to their country.”
Some of the logical structure or functions of the English-language site are missing or not translated, he explains, and consumers might discover, after filling out a form, the site won’t accept their credit cards or ship to their country. Global firms investing in English-only sites should have no trouble seeing what is not working — it’s the assumption that people in other countries will use English, he concludes.
English is still the dominant business language, but Depalma makes a good point: it’s not necessarily the dominant shopping language. E-commerce vendors who want to cash in with international shoppers may need to go global in more than one sense of the word (no pun intended).
May 14th, 2007
The analyst speculation is over. Google has admitted that it is planning to go head-to-head with Microsoft in the software market. Analysts are now discussing whether Google could actually win.In the annual shareholders’ meeting at Google headquarters on Thursday, CEO Eric Schmidt told reporters that the search titan has changed its tagline and its target. The new tagline will be “Search, Ads, and Apps.” It’s that last word in the trio that might concern Microsoft.
Google launched Google Apps in August 2006 as a suite of free applications that competed, at least partially, with Microsoft Office. It includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and a Start Page feature for creating a customizable home page on a specific domain.
In February, Google took another step into Microsoft territory when it launched a premier edition for $50 per user account. Google Apps now supports Gmail on BlackBerry handheld devices. And it also incorporates Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
Click here to read the rest of this story on Sci-Tech Today.
May 14th, 2007
