inventory

Best Buy has suspended sales of the iPad 2 due to "supply constraints," the retailer said today.

"Our stores have been asked to temporarily hold non-reserved iPad 2 inventory for an upcoming promotion," Best Buy spokesman Jeff Haydock said in response to an e-mail query today. "Best Buy continues to receive iPad 2 inventory from Apple on a regular basis. As we've said previously, we are fulfilling customer reservations first," he wrote.

"This is a customary practice for us when there are supply constraints. Best Buy enjoys a great partnership with Apple … Read more

WASHINGTON--Hopes for a solution to the looming crisis in available radio spectrum for mobile broadband users were raised today.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced legislation aimed at solving some of the biggest threats to the mobile Internet, feeding hopes of bipartisan solutions for spectrum woes in an increasingly divided Congress.

"The Reforming Airwaves by Developing Incentives and Opportunistic Sharing (Radios) Act will set the proper foundation to meet growing demand for spectrum through greater planning and coordination and by promoting more innovative and efficient use of spectrum resources," Sens. Snowe and Kerry said in a statement. … Read more

Computer components can sometimes be mysterious things, and getting a comprehensive look at a computer's characteristics can be a time-consuming task. WinAudit simplifies this process by creating thorough reports that outline everything about your machine: hardware, software, memory, processors, and much, much more.

The program's interface is plain and intuitive. Simply click the Audit button and wait a few minutes, and WinAudit produces a lengthy report that can be e-mailed, printed, or saved in a variety of different formats. You can customize the contents of the report before running the audit as well; simply select what you want … Read more

If you've ever lost a program's product key code or other essential documentation, you can probably appreciate a tool that helps you keep track of all your software. How about All My Software? It's a free application from Bolide that scans your Windows system for all installed software, including support and contact information, links, and even order date and number, if applicable, and saves them in a database you can export to Excel.

All My Software's installation wizard includes a scanning stage that displays files in the registry with the option to exclude them from the … Read more

POS stands for point of sale, but small-business owners who have struggled to implement PC-based POS systems sometimes use a more colorful phrase. Retail Man POS from Ezisolutions aims to answer the many shortcomings of other POS suites, chief among them the confusion they cause in the owner who sets them up and the employees who use them. Retail Main POS features descriptive icon images and pop-up labels that help clarify just what each icon does, be it sales, inventory, payments, or contacts. It's a full-featured POS system, too, with invoices, inventories, balance sheets, reporting, and even barcode printing.… Read more

Even those of us who cover e-commerce often overlook the reality of connecting the "e" part of the equation to the real world. Webvan and Kozmo.com were great online services, but it was the unavoidable and nonvirtual expenses of moving goods around that did them in. Former Webvan business process guru Mick Mountz said the company lost $20 an order, due to the cost of physical logistics.

In 2003, having left Webvan and moved to the East Coast (to escape Webvan's investors, I would guess), Mountz started Kiva Systems, a robotics company that rethought warehouse logistics … Read more

Fishbowl Inventory 2010 is an inventory control application that integrates with QuickBooks, the popular bookkeeping software. However, it can also be run as a standalone inventory management tool, making it especially suitable for distributors, wholesalers, delivery businesses, and even large operations such as manufacturing that maintain lean inventories for just-in-time operations. Among the features it packs are bar coding, parts tracking, shopping cart and Point-Of-Sale integration, multisite operations, administrative tools, and order management and tracking. Development kits, integrated hardware, and additional services are also available.

Fishbowl Inventory's installer lets you select or exclude the Manufacturing Option, which adds specific … Read more

Inventories aren't just for shopkeepers anymore. A little time spent inventorying your valuables--electronics, cameras, antiques, appliances, furniture, artwork, tools, etc.--in your home or office will be well spent, in the case of theft, disasters, or other misfortunes. But anyone with important documents and valuable possessions worth protecting can create and maintain accurate, complete, up-to-date home, personal, and even business inventories, thanks to software like Bmg's InventoryBuilder. It simplifies the hardest part of taking inventory, going through and recording all that stuff, by doing most of the work for you.

InventoryBuilder's Windows-style toolbar, navigation sidebar, and main … Read more

It took a while, but Google has made its big move as a local shopping inventory gatekeeper. The company said Thursday that it will offer mobile device users inventory checks on local stores, allowing them to see if products are available.

The program has already enlisted some key retailers including Sears, Best buy, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm. Rest assured that local merchants, which increasingly rely on Google to send business their way, will follow suit.

These local inventory checks have been talked about for years. In 2006, Google, Intuit, and the Kelsey Group outlined retailing's future and … Read more