SMB

It's good to be small and specialized on the Internet these days, especially because the all-things-to-everyone sites are dropping off the map, one after another. While being a niche player is not for every type of online businesses, focusing on a niche can keep a business running long term. Th...

Microsoft announced Monday that it is now offering e-commerce capability to its FrontPage 2000 Web design software -- but the storefront options are only being made available to subscribers of bCentral, the software giant's online service center for businesses. The Microsoft bCentral Commerce Ma...

Net euphoria has given way to Net-phobia. According to a report released Wednesday by The Conference Board, fear of e-commerce is preventing many small and mid-sized companies from selling online. "For all the cyberspace ballyhoo, many small and mid-sized firms are still scared to death of the ...

Microsoft announced a new alliance with Partner America on Friday designed to help small businesses venture into the world of e-commerce. Partner America, a public-private partnership between the United States Conference of Mayors and American Management Services, will be co-sponsoring a series...

Looking to give their small business e-commerce services a boost, America Online and PurchasePro unveiled 10 new services Wednesday through a host of strategic partners. The deals, aimed at beefing up the offerings that AOL extends to small and medium businesses through its Netscape Netbusiness...

Despite the ongoing dot-com shakeout, Web merchants who follow a five-part plan to satisfy customers have a chance to succeed and reach profitability, according to a report released Monday by the Boston Consulting Group. The report, "Winning the Online Consumer 2.0: Converting Traffic into Prof...

U.S. lawmakers are considering the launch of a federally funded e-commerce pilot program designed to help small and mid-sized manufacturers take their businesses online. The Electronic Commerce Enhancement Act, if passed, will require the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to ...

Few people quibble over smart card functionality. The cards -- embedded with a memory chip that can store everything from bank balances to prescription information -- are expected to increase the level of trust in e-commerce transactions for credit card companies, Web merchants and online shoppers a...

Small businesses in the United States are now more likely to use the Internet for advertising and promotion than for selling their products and services online, a survey released Wednesday found. The report from SuperPages.com and Gallup disclosed that the number of small businesses using the W...

Although many Internet firms are slashing advertising budgets in favor of direct marketing campaigns, a new study released Wednesday by Andersen Consulting and Online Insight warns that e-tailers often miss the mark when it comes to marketing initiatives. "Companies are ignoring the basic marketin...

For the sixth month in a row, dot-com layoffs have reached record numbers, according to a report released Monday by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CGC). The Chicago, Illinois-based firm said that during the month of November, 8,789 dot-com employees lost their jobs -- an inc...

If you think it's a bad time to be a stuck-in-the-mud dot-com, imagine holding the bag for about 70 of them. That's the situation that high-tech incubators Internet Capital Group (ICG) and CMGI find themselves in right now.

Half of small and midsize businesses that implement and supervise their own network security will fall prey to a successful cybercrime by 2003, according to new research released Tuesday by Gartner Group.