The job cuts are in addition to 12,500 cuts announced in February. Together, they amount to 20 percent of the work force of Alcatel and Lucent when they combined.

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Niche markets pertain to customers of similar activity or hobby interests. Business entrepreneurs engage niche markets to forge meaningful, long-term relationships with their customers.

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People will soon be able to sign up for do-not-track lists, which will help shield their Web surfing habits from marketers eager to deliver specific ad pitches to them.

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In a new wave of global outsourcing, personal chores are moving offshore, and this is leading to some daunting challenges, both economic and cultural.

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How your site is designed is important, and a web designer for small business would say this. But already, you know this instinctively. If a website being designed for your business doesn’t look good enough, you’ll tell your designer to begin again. You won’t accept a poorly designed web site for your own business, and you appreciate that your customer won’t either. You have to have pleasing design, then. But where do you find it? Surprisingly, perhaps, in fashion and technology.

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An alliance of companies led by Google plans to roll out a common set of standards to allow developers to write programs for Google’s Orkut and other social networking Web sites.

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A federal court’s oversight of Microsoft has been extended through January to give a judge time to consider a motion to extend that oversight for another five years.

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A very useful take on the way blogging can be used to enhance any online business

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In a trend known as consumer-generated content, an 18-year-old student and Apple devotee was hired to make a television commercial for Apple’s new iPod Touch.

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General Motors said the research center, to be built in Shanghai, would focus on developing hybrid technology and other designs.

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