e - commerce

Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability that could allow remote-code execution on systems with supported editions of its Microsoft SQL Server products.

Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine, and Windows Internal Database are affected. Systems with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are not affected by this issue.

Getting the mobile channel to where enabling CRM through accessing applications or web sites a.k.a. mobile CRM is as seamless from desktops is akin to taking young children on a long ride who then inevitably ask: "are we there yet?" The answers will depend to some extent on the nature of the journey being taken. If the trip is for work, such for field sales staff and support reps, the destination is in sight.

With an unstable economy and the biggest holiday shopping season of the year upon us, many consumers are expected to stay at home, using their computers and wireless devices to do their holiday shopping. More people are expected to shop online this holiday season to do comparison shopping, take advantage of free shipping, and search for gifts using search engines instead of driving from store to store.

With the proliferation of the Internet, consumers have discovered the ease and fun of shopping online. No longer is it necessary to burn gas and precious time to find the latest fashions, food or device. Consumers only need a way to connect to the Web.

The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative published a report called Smart 2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age that outlines how the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector can dramatically cut global emissions and energy costs by 2020.

The day after I spoke to Rich Barton by phone last week, he laid off 25 percent of his staff at Zillow.com.

According to New York Times blogger Damon Darlin, Zillow "has been the envy of many a Web entrepreneur because it has a healthy $87 million in financing (about $540,000 per pre-layoff employee)."

The company, founded in 2006, boasts 5.4 million monthly visitors, but has yet to turn a profit.

What do the super-wealthy do with their money when both stocks and bonds take a nose-dive? Buy antique artifacts, of course. From goblets to jewelry, manuscripts to menorahs, connoisseur collectors of antiques are still raiding the treasure trove of the past. They are doing so, however, with modern tools, as the long lost world of antiques comes alive on the Internet.

When the e-commerce giant eBay emerged from the last U.S. recession seven years ago with an aura of invincibility, its chief executive, Meg Whitman, boasted that "eBay is to some extent recession-proof."

As the online auctioneer's revenue and stock price kept climbing, one of its main rivals, Amazon.com, just limped along.

How times have changed.

One of the Internet's long-running success stories, global auction operator eBay, announced Monday that it is laying off 10 percent of its workforce in the coming weeks. Roughly 1,000 permanent employees and several hundred temporary employees will lose their jobs.

The company also announced that it expects its third-quarter revenues to be on the low end of previous estimates. Ebay's report will be released on Oct. 15.

As the head of a company that sells used consumer electronics, David Chen follows sales of the iPhone with the precision of a mathematician. At the outset, the price of the first version of Apple's music-playing wireless device behaved as expected: When the newer iPhone 3G hit store shelves, demand for the earlier iteration plummeted. Then the unexpected happened.