For the suppliers' computers and Wal-Mart's to talk to each other on the Internet requires a national agreement on a set of standards that in effect lets disparate computer systems understand each other.
Compaq, based in Houston, is the world's No. 2 supplier of computer hardware and services, behind I.B.M.
In a less extensively automated arrangement, the manager can send in the order electronically by a dial-up link to the supplier's computer.
Chicony, maker of a power device used in the Xbox from Microsoft and a major supplier of computer keyboards to Dell, is diversifying by opening department stores, with three so far around China and seven more planned.
An American supplier of computer equipment was horrified to find that an expensive system delivered to one of the region's best-known banks months earlier had not yet been unpacked, but that the manager responsible had received 3% of the deal price in cash.
The agreement calls for Micron to be Compaq's single largest supplier of computer memory chips.
supplier of computer storage devices, has been sliced nearly in half from its 52-week high, closing today at $13.19.
You just go to the supplier's computer, download an early version of the dashboard and simulate a robot putting that dashboard into a car.
Alcatel also is a leading supplier of computer chips used in DSLAMs and DSL modems, which sit at the other end of a broadband hookup.
The company's board formed an interim chief executive's office to handle day-to-day operations of the world's largest supplier of computer systems.
AMD, the world's second-largest supplier of computer processors, has posted four straight quarters of losses as has struggled with chip-shipment delays over the last two years — amid renewed competition from industry leader Intel.
