Taking a page from similar tactics employed by some independent booksellers, the online book emporium is using bike messengers and delivery vans to bring the order to the customer within a few hours. Wired News delivered to your inbox or hand-held device.
Delivery is currently available only in Manhattan.
If things go well there, the company plans to expand to other metropolitan areas. The computer maker and the wireless phone company have agreed to collaborate on developing products that will make available the same kind of information that business customers currently retrieve on their personal computers. Sprint PCS, the largest all-digital wireless phone network in the country, will provide the ability for customers to send corporate email, as well as retrieve schedules and other personalized business information. It's a boost for Microsoft, too, which is anxiously trying to muster support for its own format to compete against RealNetworks and open formats like MP3. Tuesday's announcement makes MusicMatch the only mass-market jukebox software capable of playing streaming video files.