Web Development Live

Software company Engine Yard said Monday that it has closed on a $15 million Series B round of financing from New Enterprise Associates and Amazon.com. Its previous investor Benchmark Capital also participated in the round.

Engine Yard, a 2-year-old company based in San Francisco, handles deployment and operations for developers that work in the Web development environment of Ruby on Rails, an open-source software framework. It helps developers serve applications through so-called cloud computing, or via third-party data centers. Despite Amazon’s investment, Engine Yard does not use the online retailer’s Web services offering at this time. It plans to in the future, however.

Engine Yard, which had raised about $3.5 million in January, said it will use the money for research and development of its upcoming cloud computing platform, among other projects. As part of the funding announcement, Peter Sonsini, a partner at NEA, will join Engine Yard’s board of directors.

The descriptive line of text is extraneous information for most web shoppers. But for an increasingly vocal group of web users, the text tag means the difference between comprehending what is shown in that image and being left in the dark.

Screen readers, purchased and owned by individual users, transform visual information into audio information. They also assist blind web users, who use keyboard commands instead of a mouse to navigate web pages, to move around a site, by recognizing and reading headings on a web page. The user can then respond with keyboard commands that move the cursor from element to element.

It further charges that because the site requires the use of a mouse to complete a transaction, blind Target customers also are unable to make purchases on Target.com independently.

In October, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted class action status to a lawsuit against Target. The judge also ruled that e-commerce sites are required by California law to be accessible to blind shoppers.

National Federation of the Blind president Marc Maurer called the granting of class action status to the suit a tremendous step forward for blind people throughout the country.

With the outcome of the Target case pending, it remains to be seen just how motivating a ruling in favor of the National Federation of the Blind would be to retailers whose sites are not now accessible.

One retailer not waiting for that outcome to take action is Amazon.com. Though it provides text tags with images on its home page, it has more work to do in achieving full accessibility.

If there is a clear trend at this show it is that the Web 2.0 is no longer about social networking, SaaS, Web communities, or rich internet applications, it’s about moving as many of the core business processes as you can to the platform of the Web. Or, perhaps better put: Web-enabled process outsourcing.

You only need to consider the number of products that are now moving way beyond SaaS, to application development, storage, interface design, and middleware…all delivered as a service over the Web. Indeed, there is not much you can’t do with the Web-born tools around today, inclusive of the new Google App Engine on-demand application development platform product just released. So, the trend is re-hosting of core enterprise applications, business processes, information, and much of the enterprise architecture we see today, so they are much more efficient, agile, and cost effective…in essence living up to the core objectives of SOA.

This week, at the show, Bungee Labs launches their platform-as-a-service offering providing application development capabilities and core connection service with Web-delivered resources and APIs. This is on top of the platform capabilities already available with Amazon and Salesforce.com.

Also, StrikeIron announced an on-demand Web services-enablement platform called IronCloud. Building on existing Web service marketplace capabilities, IronCloud streamlines the process of on-ramping enterprise data to the Web, using an on-demand platform that makes enterprise information available as managed and secure Web service APIs. In essence, providing a cost effective way of making critical business data available for mashups, SaaS, or other Web-born computing applications, including the emerging platforms I just mentioned.

So, let’s see. Now you can design, build, deploy, and test applications completely using on-demand platforms delivered over the Web. You can access information on-demand, and now you can even share your core enterprise data on-demand.

This goes to the whole WOA banter that’s been a large part of the SOA blogosphere for the last few weeks. We are now finding it easier and more cost effective to place much of our core business processes out on the Web, where there are many resources, information, and tools all available as a service, either free or at a low cost. Thus, you can get up-and-running faster, create automation solutions that are much more cost effective, and meet the needs of your business better than you could in the past. It’s a paradigm shift that’s hard to ignore.

Everyone knows the Web has come a long way since its early days, and one of the most changed areas has to be e-commerce. A landscape once dominated by boutique, Web-only shops, sparsely populated with shoppers, is now home to every major retailer and corporation on the planet. Selling goods on the Web has become huge business.

Many companies’ fortes, however, are in brick and mortar storefronts. For others, the only selling they have done is wholesale to retailers; selling direct to end-customers just wasn’t an option. They would love to take advantage of the Web Development Classes additional sales channels the Web opens up, but time and money spent building a e-commerce applications, as well as the high-availability, highly scalable environment needed to run them, is time and money that could be spent on core business processes. If only there was somebody to handle the legwork of building, managing and housing such an application …

For big companies that need enterprise-class e-commerce applications, that somebody is Demandware. Based in Woburn, Mass., Demandware offers an on-demand e-commerce application that customers use to service their consumer-facing needs.  According to Vice President of Engineering and Technology Wayne Whitcomb, the company’s platform is like licensed enterprise software that customers can customize, extend and Web Development Classes integrate as they wish, but without the burdens of development or delivery via computing resources.

As opposed to the old ASP model of hosting applications, though, where everything was individually managed and quarantined, Whitcomb says Demandware’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform allows the company to deliver new features and innovations “all the time, to all customers.” Being able to roll out these updates across the customer board is very important, too, because Demandware’s customers are large retail brands facing substantial competitive pressures. The demands of being a real-time business, finicky customers trends, aggressive competition and the need to drive customer loyalty via the Web site make for a situation where retailers not only need a high-performance, highly available solution, but also one that is constantly evolving.

“Normally in an enterprise application, for reliability, security and stability, you’d want to minimize change as much as possible,” says Whitcomb. “However, the [e-commerce] market demand and consumer demands are exactly opposite that. They push for frequent change, innovation and dealing with unpredictable consumer traffic at the Web Development Classes same time.”

Perhaps this necessary combination of both application and platform innovation is the reason Whitcomb says Demandware has little to no competition in the high-end e-commerce market. SaaS options like Amazon WebStore and eBay ProStores work for the low end, he noted, but just are not designed to handle larger companies’ needs in terms of branding, customer experience and scale.

To ensure it can deliver adequate capacity, scalability, reliability and security, Demandware chose to build a closely coupled grid computing delivery platform for its application. The platform is comprised of a series of PODs (points of delivery), which Whitcomb explains as e-commerce appliances with packaged compute capacity that Demandware deploys to tier 1 datacenters globally. The company directly manages those PODs, as well as the customer environment, sandbox development environments, integrated test environments, pre-production staging and production environments, all of which are isolated from one another within the Demandware grid. “To effectively manage all of those environments requires a lot of automation and a lot of flexibility of the delivery platform that really can only be provided through grid computing techniques,” Whitcomb says.

As for the nuts and bolts of the grid, Whitcomb says blades, each of one of which is imparted with a persona, handle the computing. Each blade’s persona determines how it will participate in the grid, and the persona model allows Demandware to envision how customer environments will utilize that capacity. Customer environments can be flexed to meet significant changes in demand (e.g, 10:1) in a matter of minutes, said Whitcomb. Computing resources within the grid are pooled using Demandware’s internally developed virtualization software.

A flexible, dedicated grid delivery platform is necessary, says Whitcomb, because the alternatives are either economically or pragmatically infeasible. Whereas Demandware can invest heavily in research and development of the platform because the company derives value from the grid across its customer base, it would be difficult for those customers to make such investments individually.

Among Demandware’s most interesting customers, in terms of use, is Bare Escentuals. A purveyor of “healthy” makeup, Bare Escentuals does a lot of marketing through print, electronic media and television (in the form of infomercials). Thanks in large part to the latter, Whitcomb says Bare Escentuals’ Web traffic varies unpredictably and at factors as high as 10x. Bare Escentuals also populates its site with a fair amount of rich media, a practice that is facilitated through Demandware’s use of Akamai’s content distribution technology.

Apparel company Timberland also utilizes Demandware to manage sites across several geographies and lines of business, all without needing to toil with infrastructure or application development. Whitcomb is especially proud that HP, a company with “all the resources in the world,” also sees tremendous value in using Demandware. Other customers include Playmobil, Sally Beauty Supply, Gardener’s Supply Co. and Playboy.com.

Although he believes that all applications that share core or common requirements will eventually find their ways into an on-demand delivery model, Whitcomb acknowledges that such models do bring with Web Development Classes them a certain degree of difficulty for the provider. These challenges include integration with legacy backend systems and third-party services, letting customers have control over the elements they want to control, and keeping the application current and reliable.

“The dimensions of that make it a real challenge to serve the enterprise,” says Whitcomb. “The enterprises certainly want it — they’re crying for it — and I think it’s up to the market to deliver against those strong needs. Demandware proves that, at least in the e-commerce market, it can be done.”

EMC also said it will buy Pi Corp, a privately held start-up founded by Maritz. It did not disclose the purchase price.

Maritz will be president and general manager of EMC’s new Cloud Infrastructure and Services Division. The unit will focus on “cloud computing”, a term that describes services accessed over the web that seem to exist in a cloud of the internet.

Internet companies including Google and Yahoo are pioneers in the field, with products accessed via the web. Retailer Amazon.com sells computer storage and access to virtual computer servers.

Pi does not yet have any products on the market. It is developing technology that will allow businesses and consumers to control who has access to information stored in cloud computing centres.

The Wall Street Journal has just accepted Facebook’s request to be online friends.
Hoping to tap into the growing buzz of online social networks, the Journal is adding a feature to its Web site that will allow readers to see which Journal stories are popular among that user’s Facebook friends.
The feature, which goes live early Wednesday morning, is called “SeenThis?” and is powered by a company called Loomia Inc. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Loomia already provides WSJ.com with another feature called “People who read this … also read these stories” which appears on the right-hand side of the text of a story.
News Web sites will commonly feature lists of the most popular stories on the site, as measured by the most views, most e-mailed or most recommended or blogged about.
But by showing articles that were read by viewers who apparently had similar interests, the Journal is hoping to harness some of the magic of successful shopping sites like Amazon.com Inc., which will make recommendations to shoppers based on what other buyers also bought.
Adding the link with Facebook takes the idea a step further, by letting viewers see what stories their own friends are interested in, not only those of the general WSJ.com readership.
Daniel Bernard, general manager for Wall Street Journal Online, said the “SeenThis?” feature will be opt-in only, meaning it won’t start up unless the viewer expressly asks it to, and users can opt out any time.
The application also won’t collect personally identifiable information on which people are reading which articles, just aggregated information on which articles are being read most by those in a readers’ group of Facebook friends or networks.
Loomia’s chief executive, Dave McMurtry, said the Journal was the first media company to fully implement the “SeenThis?” application. General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and CNET have also signed up to use it.
The module that will be visible on the Journal Web site is something called a “widget” in Internet lingo _ a small, self-contained application that does a specific task.
The user can also add that application on to his or her Facebook page, where it would show users not only which Journal articles are most popular among that users’ friends and networks, but also video and other material from CNET or other providers.
Bernard said the Journal’s goal in adding the fixture was not only to help make the Web page more functional for its existing users but also to try and lure in new users from outside sources such as Facebook.
Other newspapers have also been developing widgets that people can post to their Web sites or pages on online social networks like Facebook in hopes of bringing in more online traffic and spreading awareness of their brand name.
The New York Times offers an online crossword puzzle through Google Inc.’s personalized Web pages as well as a news quiz application on Facebook. Gannett Co.’s USA Today also offers users widgets for various uses, as does The Washington Post Co.

The top business news from The Associated Press for the morning of Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008:Investors Want More Interest Rate CutsWASHINGTON (AP) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, criticized last year for being too tentative in cutting interest rates, has shown he can act boldly. But the Fed’s two aggressive rate cuts in the past eight days have left investors demanding still more. That may be a sign of how much trouble the economy is facing, with many analysts contending that the country is flirting with a recession and may, in fact, already be in one.—House, Senate at Odds on StimulusWASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate is set to begin voting on dueling economic aid proposals, as senators rush to add jobless benefits and tax rebates for high earners, the elderly, and disabled veterans to a House-passed package. Senate Democrats and some Republicans are teaming up to tack $32 billion onto the House measure with a bill that would send rebates of $500-$1,000 to all but the richest taxpayers. Families also would get $300 for each child. Senators could begin voting as early as Thursday in hopes of completing the package by week’s end.—Starbucks Axes Sandwiches As Part of FixSEATTLE (AP) - The scent of ham, eggs, cheese and bacon will soon stop competing with the aroma of coffee in Starbucks stores as hot breakfast sandwiches become the first casualty of the company’s battle to win back customers. The sandwiches, which will disappear by this fall, boost a typical store’s annual revenue by $35,000, so pulling them off the menu will cost at first. Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz said that proves the company isn’t letting the soft economy distract it from committing to big changes that will pay off over the long haul.—Amazon Expects Sales to Rise in 2008SEATTLE (AP) - This year isn’t looking quite as sweet for Amazon.com shareholders as 2007. Despite a possible recession in the U.S. economy, the Web retailer said it expects sales to rise briskly again in 2008. But the gains won’t translate as readily to bottom-line growth. “A lot of old Amazon bears are going to be growling,” said Tim Boyd, an analyst at American Technology Research.—Sony Quarterly Profit Rises 25 PercentTOKYO (AP) - Sony reported a 25.2 percent jump in profit for the October-December quarter Thursday as its PlayStation video game business stopped losing money after six straight quarters of losses. Profit at the Japanese electronics and entertainment company climbed to 200.2 billion yen ($1.88 billion) for the fiscal third quarter from 159.9 billion yen the same period the previous year.—Super Bowl’s Big Day for TV, Pizza SalesNEW YORK (AP) - Super Bowl Sunday may be the biggest day of the year for football fans, but it’s also a big day for people who sell big screen TVs, recliners and pizza. Yes, some sports fans are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a TV just to watch the game. Jim Ferrero, of Yardley, Pa., has done so twice.—Cost Cuts Push Lenovo Profit Up 198 Pct.BEIJING (AP) - Lenovo Group, the world’s No. 4 personal computer maker, said Thursday that profit in its third fiscal quarter rose 198 percent and forecast strong sales this year despite a possible U.S. economic slowdown. Driven by strong sales and aggressive cost-cutting, profit for the three months that ended Dec. 31 was $172 million, or $1.93 per share, on revenue of $4.6 billion, Beijing-based Lenovo said. That was below the average $253.5 million expected by analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires.—Market Turmoil Felt in Central EuropeWARSAW, Poland (AP) - It took years for Andrzej Solyga to muster the courage to invest in mutual funds. But in June 2007, at the urging of a friend, the Polish sculptor invested 200,000 zlotys ($82,000) in a fund that had been earning rich returns of 50 percent a year, joining a growing number of small investors in Europe’s post-communist countries who finally succumbed to the lure of booming stock markets.—$50M Grant Will Finance Plant ResearchPHOENIX (AP) - A collaboration of botanists and computer scientists is being awarded a $50 million federal grant to conduct research into plant biology with an eye toward resolving global problems related to agriculture, environment and energy production. The five-year National Science Foundation grant announced Wednesday will pay for research on topics such as climate change, development of biomass energy, and agricultural land use, said foundation Director Arden L. Bement. The University of Arizona is leading the project.—Mardi Gras Means Money in New OrleansNEW ORLEANS (AP) - That happy, singsong sound heard on Bourbon Street is trickle-down economics at its best as hundreds of thousands of Carnival season visitors spend themselves silly before Fat Tuesday. The city’s tourism industry, getting back on its feet after Hurricane Katrina, is counting on a big weekend crowd to fill restaurants and hotels leading up to Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, on Feb. 5.—Gold PricesLONDON (AP) - Gold opened in London Thursday at a bid price of $923.10 per troy ounce, up from $920.85 on Wednesday.—Japan MarketsTOKYO (AP) - Japanese stocks rose Thursday as reports that a troubled U.S. bond insurer had closed an investment deal helped to ease concerns about the subprime loan crisis. The Nikkei stock index rose 247.44 points, or 1.85 percent, to close at 13,592.47 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The index shed 0.99 percent the day before.—Dollar-YenTOKYO (AP) - The dollar fell against the yen in Asia Thursday amid anxieties about U.S. bond insurers and continuing fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis. The U.S. dollar was trading at 106.46 yen at 2:50 p.m. Thursday, down from 106.95 yen late Wednesday in New York. The euro fell to $1.4879 from $1.4898.

The Wall Street Journal has just accepted Facebook’s request to be online friends.
Hoping to tap into the growing buzz of online social networks, the Journal is adding a feature to its Web site that will allow readers to see which Journal stories are popular among that user’s Facebook friends.
The feature, which goes live early Wednesday morning, is called “SeenThis?” and is powered by a company called Loomia Inc. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Loomia already provides WSJ.com with another feature called “People who read this … also read these stories” which appears on the right-hand side of the text of a story.
News Web sites will commonly feature lists of the most popular stories on the site, as measured by the most views, most e-mailed or most recommended or blogged about.
But by showing articles that were read by viewers who apparently had similar interests, the Journal is hoping to harness some of the magic of successful shopping sites like Amazon.com Inc., which will make recommendations to shoppers based on what other buyers also bought.
Adding the link with Facebook takes the idea a step further, by letting viewers see what stories their own friends are interested in, not only those of the general WSJ.com readership.
Daniel Bernard, general manager for Wall Street Journal Online, said the “SeenThis?” feature will be opt-in only, meaning it won’t start up unless the viewer expressly asks it to, and users can opt out any time.
The application also won’t collect personally identifiable information on which people are reading which articles, just aggregated information on which articles are being read most by those in a readers’ group of Facebook friends or networks.
Loomia’s chief executive, Dave McMurtry, said the Journal was the first media company to fully implement the “SeenThis?” application. General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and CNET have also signed up to use it.
The module that will be visible on the Journal Web site is something called a “widget” in Internet lingo _ a small, self-contained application that does a specific task.
The user can also add that application on to his or her Facebook page, where it would show users not only which Journal articles are most popular among that users’ friends and networks, but also video and other material from CNET or other providers.
Bernard said the Journal’s goal in adding the fixture was not only to help make the Web page more functional for its existing users but also to try and lure in new users from outside sources such as Facebook.
Other newspapers have also been developing widgets that people can post to their Web sites or pages on online social networks like Facebook in hopes of bringing in more online traffic and spreading awareness of their brand name.
The New York Times offers an online crossword puzzle through Google Inc.’s personalized Web pages as well as a news quiz application on Facebook. Gannett Co.’s USA Today also offers users widgets for various uses, as does The Washington Post Co.

The top business news from The Associated Press for the morning of Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008:Investors Want More Interest Rate CutsWASHINGTON (AP) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, criticized last year for being too tentative in cutting interest rates, has shown he can act boldly. But the Fed’s two aggressive rate cuts in the past eight days have left investors demanding still more. That may be a sign of how much trouble the economy is facing, with many analysts contending that the country is flirting with a recession and may, in fact, already be in one.—House, Senate at Odds on StimulusWASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate is set to begin voting on dueling economic aid proposals, as senators rush to add jobless benefits and tax rebates for high earners, the elderly, and disabled veterans to a House-passed package. Senate Democrats and some Republicans are teaming up to tack $32 billion onto the House measure with a bill that would send rebates of $500-$1,000 to all but the richest taxpayers. Families also would get $300 for each child. Senators could begin voting as early as Thursday in hopes of completing the package by week’s end.—Starbucks Axes Sandwiches As Part of FixSEATTLE (AP) - The scent of ham, eggs, cheese and bacon will soon stop competing with the aroma of coffee in Starbucks stores as hot breakfast sandwiches become the first casualty of the company’s battle to win back customers. The sandwiches, which will disappear by this fall, boost a typical store’s annual revenue by $35,000, so pulling them off the menu will cost at first. Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz said that proves the company isn’t letting the soft economy distract it from committing to big changes that will pay off over the long haul.—Amazon Expects Sales to Rise in 2008SEATTLE (AP) - This year isn’t looking quite as sweet for Amazon.com shareholders as 2007. Despite a possible recession in the U.S. economy, the Web retailer said it expects sales to rise briskly again in 2008. But the gains won’t translate as readily to bottom-line growth. “A lot of old Amazon bears are going to be growling,” said Tim Boyd, an analyst at American Technology Research.—Sony Quarterly Profit Rises 25 PercentTOKYO (AP) - Sony reported a 25.2 percent jump in profit for the October-December quarter Thursday as its PlayStation video game business stopped losing money after six straight quarters of losses. Profit at the Japanese electronics and entertainment company climbed to 200.2 billion yen ($1.88 billion) for the fiscal third quarter from 159.9 billion yen the same period the previous year.—Super Bowl’s Big Day for TV, Pizza SalesNEW YORK (AP) - Super Bowl Sunday may be the biggest day of the year for football fans, but it’s also a big day for people who sell big screen TVs, recliners and pizza. Yes, some sports fans are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a TV just to watch the game. Jim Ferrero, of Yardley, Pa., has done so twice.—Cost Cuts Push Lenovo Profit Up 198 Pct.BEIJING (AP) - Lenovo Group, the world’s No. 4 personal computer maker, said Thursday that profit in its third fiscal quarter rose 198 percent and forecast strong sales this year despite a possible U.S. economic slowdown. Driven by strong sales and aggressive cost-cutting, profit for the three months that ended Dec. 31 was $172 million, or $1.93 per share, on revenue of $4.6 billion, Beijing-based Lenovo said. That was below the average $253.5 million expected by analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires.—Market Turmoil Felt in Central EuropeWARSAW, Poland (AP) - It took years for Andrzej Solyga to muster the courage to invest in mutual funds. But in June 2007, at the urging of a friend, the Polish sculptor invested 200,000 zlotys ($82,000) in a fund that had been earning rich returns of 50 percent a year, joining a growing number of small investors in Europe’s post-communist countries who finally succumbed to the lure of booming stock markets.—$50M Grant Will Finance Plant ResearchPHOENIX (AP) - A collaboration of botanists and computer scientists is being awarded a $50 million federal grant to conduct research into plant biology with an eye toward resolving global problems related to agriculture, environment and energy production. The five-year National Science Foundation grant announced Wednesday will pay for research on topics such as climate change, development of biomass energy, and agricultural land use, said foundation Director Arden L. Bement. The University of Arizona is leading the project.—Mardi Gras Means Money in New OrleansNEW ORLEANS (AP) - That happy, singsong sound heard on Bourbon Street is trickle-down economics at its best as hundreds of thousands of Carnival season visitors spend themselves silly before Fat Tuesday. The city’s tourism industry, getting back on its feet after Hurricane Katrina, is counting on a big weekend crowd to fill restaurants and hotels leading up to Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, on Feb. 5.—Gold PricesLONDON (AP) - Gold opened in London Thursday at a bid price of $923.10 per troy ounce, up from $920.85 on Wednesday.—Japan MarketsTOKYO (AP) - Japanese stocks rose Thursday as reports that a troubled U.S. bond insurer had closed an investment deal helped to ease concerns about the subprime loan crisis. The Nikkei stock index rose 247.44 points, or 1.85 percent, to close at 13,592.47 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The index shed 0.99 percent the day before.—Dollar-YenTOKYO (AP) - The dollar fell against the yen in Asia Thursday amid anxieties about U.S. bond insurers and continuing fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis. The U.S. dollar was trading at 106.46 yen at 2:50 p.m. Thursday, down from 106.95 yen late Wednesday in New York. The euro fell to $1.4879 from $1.4898.

The top business news from The Associated Press for the morning of Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008:Investors Want More Interest Rate CutsWASHINGTON (AP) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, criticized last year for being too tentative in cutting interest rates, has shown he can act boldly. But the Fed’s two aggressive rate cuts in the past eight days have left investors demanding still more. That may be a sign of how much trouble the economy is facing, with many analysts contending that the country is flirting with a recession and may, in fact, already be in one.—House, Senate at Odds on StimulusWASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate is set to begin voting on dueling economic aid proposals, as senators rush to add jobless benefits and tax rebates for high earners, the elderly, and disabled veterans to a House-passed package. Senate Democrats and some Republicans are teaming up to tack $32 billion onto the House measure with a bill that would send rebates of $500-$1,000 to all but the richest taxpayers. Families also would get $300 for each child. Senators could begin voting as early as Thursday in hopes of completing the package by week’s end.—Starbucks Axes Sandwiches As Part of FixSEATTLE (AP) - The scent of ham, eggs, cheese and bacon will soon stop competing with the aroma of coffee in Starbucks stores as hot breakfast sandwiches become the first casualty of the company’s battle to win back customers. The sandwiches, which will disappear by this fall, boost a typical store’s annual revenue by $35,000, so pulling them off the menu will cost at first. Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz said that proves the company isn’t letting the soft economy distract it from committing to big changes that will pay off over the long haul.—Amazon Expects Sales to Rise in 2008SEATTLE (AP) - This year isn’t looking quite as sweet for Amazon.com shareholders as 2007. Despite a possible recession in the U.S. economy, the Web retailer said it expects sales to rise briskly again in 2008. But the gains won’t translate as readily to bottom-line growth. “A lot of old Amazon bears are going to be growling,” said Tim Boyd, an analyst at American Technology Research.—Sony Quarterly Profit Rises 25 PercentTOKYO (AP) - Sony reported a 25.2 percent jump in profit for the October-December quarter Thursday as its PlayStation video game business stopped losing money after six straight quarters of losses. Profit at the Japanese electronics and entertainment company climbed to 200.2 billion yen ($1.88 billion) for the fiscal third quarter from 159.9 billion yen the same period the previous year.—Super Bowl’s Big Day for TV, Pizza SalesNEW YORK (AP) - Super Bowl Sunday may be the biggest day of the year for football fans, but it’s also a big day for people who sell big screen TVs, recliners and pizza. Yes, some sports fans are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a TV just to watch the game. Jim Ferrero, of Yardley, Pa., has done so twice.—Cost Cuts Push Lenovo Profit Up 198 Pct.BEIJING (AP) - Lenovo Group, the world’s No. 4 personal computer maker, said Thursday that profit in its third fiscal quarter rose 198 percent and forecast strong sales this year despite a possible U.S. economic slowdown. Driven by strong sales and aggressive cost-cutting, profit for the three months that ended Dec. 31 was $172 million, or $1.93 per share, on revenue of $4.6 billion, Beijing-based Lenovo said. That was below the average $253.5 million expected by analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires.—Market Turmoil Felt in Central EuropeWARSAW, Poland (AP) - It took years for Andrzej Solyga to muster the courage to invest in mutual funds. But in June 2007, at the urging of a friend, the Polish sculptor invested 200,000 zlotys ($82,000) in a fund that had been earning rich returns of 50 percent a year, joining a growing number of small investors in Europe’s post-communist countries who finally succumbed to the lure of booming stock markets.—$50M Grant Will Finance Plant ResearchPHOENIX (AP) - A collaboration of botanists and computer scientists is being awarded a $50 million federal grant to conduct research into plant biology with an eye toward resolving global problems related to agriculture, environment and energy production. The five-year National Science Foundation grant announced Wednesday will pay for research on topics such as climate change, development of biomass energy, and agricultural land use, said foundation Director Arden L. Bement. The University of Arizona is leading the project.—Mardi Gras Means Money in New OrleansNEW ORLEANS (AP) - That happy, singsong sound heard on Bourbon Street is trickle-down economics at its best as hundreds of thousands of Carnival season visitors spend themselves silly before Fat Tuesday. The city’s tourism industry, getting back on its feet after Hurricane Katrina, is counting on a big weekend crowd to fill restaurants and hotels leading up to Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, on Feb. 5.—Gold PricesLONDON (AP) - Gold opened in London Thursday at a bid price of $923.10 per troy ounce, up from $920.85 on Wednesday.—Japan MarketsTOKYO (AP) - Japanese stocks rose Thursday as reports that a troubled U.S. bond insurer had closed an investment deal helped to ease concerns about the subprime loan crisis. The Nikkei stock index rose 247.44 points, or 1.85 percent, to close at 13,592.47 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The index shed 0.99 percent the day before.—Dollar-YenTOKYO (AP) - The dollar fell against the yen in Asia Thursday amid anxieties about U.S. bond insurers and continuing fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis. The U.S. dollar was trading at 106.46 yen at 2:50 p.m. Thursday, down from 106.95 yen late Wednesday in New York. The euro fell to $1.4879 from $1.4898.