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On the Net
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Foundry Networks Inc., which designs devices
to manage Internet traffic, hit Wall Street like a bomb this week. In its initial
public offering, shares of the 3-year-old company rose 525 percent, to $156.25 from
the $25 offering price. It is the second biggest IPO gain in percentage terms after
theglobe.com, which went public last November and saw shares jump 606 percent, from
$9 at opening to $63.50 at its first day close.
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The coming holiday could be a major test for retailers on the Internet. Online shopping
is expected to nearly double to $6 billion from $3.1 billion in the 1998 holiday
season, with some 10 million new online shoppers. For some e-retailers it will be
a first-time experience but for veterans like amazon.com it will show whether they
learned from the 1998 turmoil. Shoppers last year were plagued by unfulfilled orders
and site outages. According to Forrester Research the 1998 missteps have taught e-retailers
about the need to focus on logistics. As reported in Internetweek some of the major
e-retailers are bringing the logistics in-house. Amazon.com has launched construction
of 3 million square feet of warehousing space. Others, such as Sears and J.C. Penney's
are counting on their catalog sales experiences to answer their online needs. Some
companies are going to third parties to fulfill their logistics needs. Federated,
which owns Macy's and Bloomingdale's department stores, spent $1.7 billion to by
the catalog sales company Fingerhut to handle its online business, and that of several
smaller Web companies such as eToys and Pier One.
According to Internet researchers Greenfield Online, 79 percent of the 5,000 people
it surveyed online will shop on the Internet exclusively. Amazon.com, CDNow.com and
4Toys were listed as the favorite shopping sites. The only thing most will be going
to the local stores for are holiday cards, according to the report in the E-Commerce
Guide.
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Amazon.com says it is opening zShops to give any business access to its 12 million
customers. The company says it will charge zShop members $9.99 a month and will get
a percentage of each sale. Amazon.com will make available to participants its 1-Click
payment system, which retains customer credit card information so they only need
to enter it once. Amazon.com will handle the credit card processing and direct deposit
the sales price to the seller's account. The announcement is expected to give a major
boost to Amazon.com's bottom line, which has been mostly red ink. And it sent its
stock prices up better than $16 in afternoon trading to $86.
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Physicians working under less than ideal conditions in Kosovo and Turkey are getting
help over the Internet from MD Consult. The Web-based clinical information service
has donated 100 subscriptions to the International Medical Corps, International Rescue
committee and Northwest Medical Teams International which are working in both areas.
The service gives doctors access to more than 35 medical reference books, articles
from 50 medical journals and other reference materials to help patients.
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Send an e-mail to a German company and sometimes you may wait a long time for a reply.
Markt & Daten, a market research company in Berlin, sent e-mails to 543 German
companies, according to International Data Group, and got responses from 54 percent.
It initially drew up a list of 640 companies, many with revenues nearing $1 billion.
But nearly 100 had no e-mail address or Web site, including Coca-Cola Deutschland
and Philip Morris. They also sent e-mails to Internet companies. Markt & Daten
says more than half of the companies that did answer responded on the same day. An
online mail order catalogue company, asked about Internet security, got the prize
for the wackiest response when it said, "Nothing is 100 percent certain, except
for death."
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When the World Trade Organization meets in Seattle in November the Clinton administration
will ask members to keep the ban on taxes and tariffs for Internet commerce. However,
U.S. Trade Rep. Charlene Barshefsky told the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday some
countries where Internet commerce has little effect will be reluctant to go along.
Barshefsky said those countries not very experienced in e-commerce will hesitate
to commit themselves. At the November meetings the Clinton administration will try
to open up world markets to U.S. products and services.
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Koreans are taking to online stock trading like ducks to water. The Korea Securities
Dealers' Association, reports Asia Internetnews, says that online trading accounted
for 29 percent of the $162.6 billion in trades in August. The number of online accounts
has risen from 220,000 at the end of 1998 to 1.18 million at the end of August. And
analysts expect that sometime next year fully half of all trading in Korea will be
done online. Online traders are being attracted by the lower commissions being charged
by online brokers, roughly one fifth of the charges for regular trading.
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India is rapidly getting hooked to the Internet. Although there are just 1.5 million
net users now, turnout at the recent India Internet World show in New Delhi exceeded
expectations, with some 95,000 visitors in three days. One Indian Internet official
estimated that only 5 percent of the visitors already had Internet accounts. But
that could soon change with the completion of the first stage of the national Internet
backbone, expected Jan. 26, 2000. Silicon Graphics India is installing high-performance
computing systems to connect 45 cities with 105 access points.
Looking at the potential growth of the Indian Internet, Yahoo! is planning an India-specific
portal and search engine and Lycos is making plans for a portal to serve India and
nine other Asian countries, in a $50 million joint venture with Singapore Telecom.
Microsoft is also planning an Indian portal. The World Wide Web Institute is setting
up an Indian subsidiary to offer its online training services.
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In a tip of the hat to Major Boothroyd, the technowhiz known as "Q" who
supplied James Bond with special firearms and life-saving devices, the Central Intelligence
Agency has set up In-Q-It, a not-so secretive company to help the agency stay on
top of Internet technology. In-Q-It is establishing itself as a non-profit venture
capital company with offices in Washington and Silicon Valley. Hasbro toy company
executive Gilman Louie will head the company, which has $28 million in funding. Louie
told the New York Times they will focus on technology to integrate Internet technology
into CIA functions, to provide security and privacy systems, to develop data mining
systems for CIA records, and to modernize the agencies computer systems. The idea
is to get the technology to the agency faster, but it will also seek commercial applications
so that it can bring in enough money to support itself.
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(Compiled by Harold H. Martin)
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Copyright 1999 Afrocentricnews
Copyright 1999 United Press International
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