How Money Talks

Time to learn another acronym. Later this month, a new version of xBRL, a subset of the XML Internet language intended to standardize how financial data is shared among Web-based applications, will be released. Leading makers of accounting software say they will incorporate xBRL-tagging capabilit...

By Scott Leibs and Alix Stuart • Oct. 1, 2001

Everything Must Go: Business Process Outsourcing

Last year, General Motors was the world’s leading travel agent — or so it would seem. The automaker sent more than 100,000 employees on the road, and that’s just in the United States. Its peripatetic workforce racked up an eye-popping array of expenses for airfare, hotels, fleet transportation, e...

By Russ Banham • Oct. 1, 2001

Explore the Trendline➔

The CFO Strategy for Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence’s impact on the office of the CFO continues to evolve, and finance chiefs must be aware of the opportunities it will create for growth. 

By CFO.com staff

No Hiding Place for Anyone

In today’s information age, everybody leaves an electronic trail in their wake. With every credit-card purchase, ATM transaction, telephone call and Internet logon, they create an electronic portrait of themselves that grows clearer at every step. Perhaps the only items that are still untraceable...

By Economist Staff • Sept. 20, 2001

Venture Capital: Another Round, Please

Based on data from Venture Economics, the high-tech venture capital industry has just weathered the first 12-month loss in its history. But don’t expect sober reassessments and anxious hand-wringing; the outlook, VCs say, is bright. Whether that’s accurate or merely a reflex remains to be seen. B...

By John Berry • Sept. 17, 2001

If They Only Had a SportBrain

Few people would want to walk a mile in SportBrain’s shoes. The maker of a Web-enabled pedometer that not only clocks a wearer’s mileage but also allows her or him to compete against others and track results on the Internet has finally gone belly-up, but not without a fight. And those doing most ...

By Karen Bannan • Sept. 17, 2001

Web Advertising: Under Dogs

An advertising blitz has touched off a war over ratings, one that would be almost funny if it weren’t for the tenuous state of Internet advertising.X10.com, a Seattle-based seller of electronic gear, has gone all out with a new form of Web ad: a “pop-under.” The ad doesn’t appear on top of a Web ...

By John Berry • Sept. 17, 2001

Computer Viruses: As the Worm Turns

The Code Red virus may have garnered all the headlines this past summer, but companies should also beware of the lower-profile Sircam worm. Designed to attack vulnerabilities in Microsoft Outlook, the worm will choose a file on local hard drives to infect and randomly send it off to unsuspecting ...

By John Berry • Sept. 17, 2001

Peering into ISP Traffic

This summer’s railroad tunnel fire in Baltimore posed much more than a commuting nightmare; it had plenty of Web users choking, too. That’s because WorldCom’s (www.worldcom.com) UUNet Internet service lost a segment of its network, which affected not only its own customer base but also the users ...

By Karen Bannan • Sept. 17, 2001

IT Systems Management Deals with Access Baggage

IT Systems ManagementAccess BaggageUntil recently, a new employee at oil giant BP (www.bp.com) might have had to wait five days for access to email, file servers, intranets, and other IT systems. Multiply five days by the more than 20,000 employees who joined the company last year, and you’re lef...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Sept. 17, 2001

Are Web Appliances Ready for Prime Time?

The notion that your refrigerator could “know” that you’re about to run out of milk and order more via the Internet may have suffered a setback now that there are very few companies that will actually bring you another quart, but don’t count out smart-device technology just yet.Developers of appl...

By Karen Bannan • Sept. 15, 2001

Product Development: Keeping Up with the Edisons

Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, America’s most famous inventor once said. But it’s only a first step toward getting the right products to market sooner than your competition.Product lifecycle management (PLM) endeavors to lower the cost of developing new products, bri...

By John P. Mello Jr. • Sept. 15, 2001

Web-Site Recycling

Many businesses that need desktop computers, servers, and networking hubs and routers — especially businesses in Asia — already buy recycled rather than pay retail. But what else might be available secondhand — intranets? Online shopping carts? Advanced site searches?The Website Recycling Co. (ww...

By John Edwards • Sept. 15, 2001

Can Your Company Build Its Own Supercomputer?

At the beginning of the 20th century, American college football players frequently employed a technique called the flying wedge. The ball carrier’s teammates would surround him, arms linked, and the entire team would rush downfield en masse, running roughshod over individual opponents who dared t...

By John P. Mello Jr. • Sept. 15, 2001

Computer Systems: Eliminating Access Baggage

Until recently, a new employee at oil giant BP might have had to wait five days for access to email, file servers, intranets, and other IT systems. Multiply five days by the more than 20,000 employees who joined the company last year, and you’re left with an annual loss of hundreds of worker-year...

By Anthony Sibillin and Dave Cook • Sept. 15, 2001

Employee Testing: Send in the Clones

If there’s one thing they’ve got plenty of in California, it’s shortages. Indeed, over the past few years the Golden State has been struck by an endless series of shortfalls, including water, gasoline, grapes, and, most recently, electricity.But last December, Ron Komers was facing an entirely di...

By Karen Bannan • Sept. 15, 2001

ROI: Mad to Measure

Measure not the work/Until the day’s out and the labour done/Then bring your gauges.So said British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning — who, it must be noted, did not have an MBA. Companies generally prefer it the other way around: They’d rather not lift a finger, or spend a penny, until a hefty do...

By Hilary Rosenberg and Russ Banham • Sept. 15, 2001

Behind the Green Door

Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fo...

By Tim Reason • Sept. 15, 2001

Power to the People

In 1998, everything was changing in the energy business. At the time, industry regulators in a number of states were putting the finishing touches on programs to bring free-market capitalism to the power business. One after one, state legislatures signed off on the plans, ushering in an era of tr...

By Jackie Cohen • Sept. 4, 2001

Batteries Not Included

Imagine, if you will, a child’s birthday party. The names at this party will vary for everyone, but the particulars do not. The backyard is filled with toe heads and moptops, running and laughing and playing innocent games. After a few hours, dinner is served, then cake — Betty Crocker. After tha...

By Jennifer Caplan • Sept. 4, 2001

Walking Through the Maze

Deciding whether to invest in customer relationship management (CRM) software can be a difficult process. Not only do CRM programs tend to resist standard ROI calculations, there’s not exactly a shortage of vendors out there. Moreover, prospective purchasers can choose a best-of-breed product tha...

By Jennifer Caplan • Sept. 4, 2001

Credit Insurance: Backing Up Buyers

More than a year ago major banks began offering online B2B suppliers credit instruments to back their promises to deliver products to customers. Now insurers are offering to cover online buyers’ obligations to pay.One proponent of the insurance product is Joshua ten Brink, vice president of onlin...

By Alix Stuart • Sept. 1, 2001

The Great Inventory Correction

John Chambers likened it to a 100-year flood, although the problem was dearth, not plenitude. The swift evaporation of technology demand that began in the latter part of 2000 was indeed exceptional, as the CEO of Cisco Systems famously suggested. Chipmakers and PC companies suddenly found themsel...

By Edward Teach • Sept. 1, 2001

Linux: When Free Isn’t

High tech is not an arena rich in historical irony, but it has its moments. One came last year, when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told analysts that Linux, the (potentially) free software that continues to attract the interest of business customers, has “the characteristics of Communism that peopl...

By Tim Reason • Sept. 1, 2001

Shipment Fever

SHIPMENT FEVERCompanies want to strengthen supply chains while cutting costs. Can E-logistics deliver?By Scott LeibsWhile there have been some glorious moments in the field of logistics–think of the Pony Express and the Berlin airlift, not to mention St. Nick’s annual trek–on a day-to-day basis, ...

By Scott Leibs • Sept. 1, 2001

Customers on Parade

Picture the average retailer’s customer call center. Inside the endless maze of cubicles, 300 service reps, headsets at the ready, spew out an endless stream of store locations, technical fixes, return policies, and apologies.Look a little closer, though and you’ll see Post-It Notes and paper mem...

By Joseph Radigan • Aug. 24, 2001