But Italy's grinding economic crisis, rising fuel costs and heightened competition from more nimble low-cost rivals have largely overwhelmed the carrier's turnaround efforts.
Its results have weakened as the company faces significant declines in traffic, heightened competition from its rival, Best Buy, and others and a weakened brand position.
Virtualization technology itself is also maturing, as the dominant player, VMware of Palo Alto, Calif., prepares for heightened competition from big names in the tech world, including Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Citrix Systems.
The introduction of +1 and the F.T.C. charges highlight two of Google's biggest challenges: heightened competition from Facebook, and near-constant criticism from privacy advocates and policy makers over its practices.
PARIS — The parent company of Iberia, Spain's money-losing air carrier, warned Friday that a deepening recession there and heightened competition from low-cost airlines had placed it in a "fight for survival".
Moreover, technology consulting firms are faced with heightened competition from big companies like I.B.M. and Electronic Data Systems, which are eager to take over operations for the growing number of companies that want to outsource their technology-intensive functions to cut costs.
But like Air France-KLM and other full-service European rivals — Lufthansa of Germany, British Airways and Iberia of Spain — the region's grinding economic crisis, combined with rising fuel costs and heightened competition from more nimble low-cost rivals, have largely offset Alitalia's turnaround efforts.
It fell victim to management missteps by the founder Fang Xingdong, an unproven business model and heightened competition from major portals.
JD.com's rise in China has largely been unstoppable, though its newest quarterly earnings report fell short of Wall Street expectations, owing in part to heightened competition from rival Alibaba.
As it gets ready Monday to publicly show off portions of its upcoming Office 2010 suite for the first time, Microsoft faces heightened competition from its chief nemesis Google.
