circuit city

At least Best Buys still has its cell phone business.

On the heels of a disappointing quarterly report and today's resignation of CEO Brian Dunn, it's easy to think the entire company is doomed to follow in the steps of fallen electronic chains Circuit City and CompUSA. Yet its mobile devices business -- cell phones in particular-- has been impressively resilient during its recent troubles.

The cell phone business, which Best Buy has spent time and money building up, represents one of the rare bright spots in the company. Over time, Best Buy will likely be more heavily … Read more

Best Buy is on the same track that two former train wrecks were on, CompUSA and Circuit City.

Today, Best Buy reported a fiscal fourth-quarter net loss of $1.7 billion and announced it is closing 50 stores.

The basic pattern that CompUSA (closed brick-and-mortar stores in 2007) and Circuit City (closed stores in 2008) followed was: first select stores were closed, then more were closed, then all stores were shuttered or sold off.

Is this Best Buy's fate? And why? Below I try to offer some reasons for Best Buy's troubles based on my own experience and … Read more

The last traces of the Borders book chain, after months of liquidating assets, are slowly disappearing.

The coffee is gone. So are the leather chairs. At the Time Warner Center in New York, books on aviary and furniture repair lay askew on half-empty shelves. In February, Borders announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection. The merchant simply couldn't find a place for itself in the era of digital books and e-readers.

One of the last chores before turning off the lights will be to sell off the company's intellectual property, which includes the Borders.com Web site, a block of IPV4 addresses, as well the contractual agreements it had with Kobo, the maker of the electronic reader by the same name.

Borders owned a minority stake in Kobo, the company that powered Borders' e-book store. Contrary to what some believed, Kobo was unaffected by Borders' financial woes and continues to operate as an independent company.

To sell its intellectual property, Borders has hired Streambank, a firm that has become one of the favorites for selling off intellectual property from distressed companies. Streambank is also handling the liquidation of Circuit City, another once-dominant national retailer that has closed its doors.

David Peress, one of Streambank's three principles, says that Circuit City's Web site has generated a lot of interest and that went dark long ago. In Borders' case, the Web site continues to operate, which should help boost the value, according to Peress. … Read more

Circuit City's bones aren't picked clean yet.

The failed electronics-chain store closed its doors and began liquidating assets two years ago, and still there is some intellectual property left to sell.

Turns out that in the decade before getting demolished by Best Buy, the 2008 financial meltdown, and its own hapless management, Circuit City had sought to boost pioneer digital-video distribution. The company pumped a boatload of money into developing technology that it hoped would help it cash in when the market finally emerged

Some of Circuit City's patents, including those from the company's ill-fated start-up, … Read more

Gilbert Fiorentino, head of Systemax's technology products group, has resigned in the face of undisclosed allegations, the company announced today.

Systemax, which sells computers and electronics online via the TigerDirect, CompUSA, and Circuit City sites, put Fiorentino on administrative leave last month. At the time, the company said that it was determining whether to terminate Fiorentino after completing an investigation into "anonymous whistleblower allegations" related to the company's Miami operations. The company's audit committee, which handles the financial side of the operation, conducted the investigation, according to a 10-K reported filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in March.

Systemax has not divulged the exact nature of the allegations or whether its investigation turned up anything. … Read more

It wasn't long ago that I used these pages to write Circuit City's eulogy. At the time, many of us thought the company would be gone forever. Oh, how wrong we were.

Last week, Circuit City came back to the Web. On May 19, Systemax, the company behind TigerDirect and CompUSA, purchased the Circuit City brand and Web site for $14 million. It took only a few days for Systemax to populate the site with products. And now it's live.

Systemax's decision to acquire Circuit City shouldn't be a surprise. In 2008, the company acquired CompUSA's brand and domain for a discounted price. Systemax then relaunched CompUSA.com. Today, it even operates a series of CompUSA brick-and-mortar stores.

There's currently no indication that Systemax will be opening Circuit City-branded brick-and-mortar stores. Right now, it seems that the company is focusing mainly on CircuitCity.com.

I've spent considerable time on the site, evaluating its design and comparing offers to see if it's a place worth spending cash. And after just a few seconds, it quickly became clear that it's basically just CompUSA.com (or TigerDirect.com) with a different name and logo.… Read more

After a very relaxing three-day weekend, we're back for a fresh start and a hilarious show. Today, we recap our appearance on Fox News and our weekend exploits, debut a few excellent logo submissions, and reveal Wilson's secret shame.

Welcome back, everyone! Hopefully your weekend was as relaxing as ours was, although sometimes a three-day weekend can be more tiring than a whole week of work! Let's just say that seeing the sunrise as you go to bed can be beautiful and tragic at the same time. We kicked off our Memorial Day weekend with an appearance on Fox News' "Strategy Room" with our buddy Clayton Morris. Most of you have already seen it, but check it out if you haven't and let us know what you think. Were we too serious for our own good? More bathroom humor, perhaps? I'll try harder next time.

In related 404 news, Wilson discovers that Dave Matthews Band is using the REMIXED version of our theme song in a promotion on its Pandora channel. What the crap is that all about, DMB? We're calling you guys out on stealing the song from our buddy Jamie Lewis, and we're extra protective since we consider him the unofficial voice of the show, so expect that subpoena in the mail immediately. And Jamie, if you're reading this...we'll be looking for our commission check soon, too.

Aside from us tearing apart some d-bag that broke the Rock Band 2 world record, we also have a hilarious call from the public and show off more submissions for our "Design The 404 Logo" competition. Watch the video for today's show to check them out, or see the slideshow below for high-res shots. Send your high-res submissions to the404[at]CNET[dot]com and we'll show them on the air for the chance to win a gigantic prize package that includes a copy of "The Back Book," Anna David's "Bought," and more!

Microsoft may change the name of the Kumo to Bing, which makes us wonder what the past tense of Bing would be. Bong. Also Last.FM is under attack from TechCrunch, and Eucalyptus is welcomed back into the App Store with open arms...and open searches.

EPISODE 982 Nokia Ovi launch http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1317441 http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE54P1A320090526?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10249116-94.html http://blog.ovi.com/2009/05/26/update-on-ovi-store-opening/… Read more

The Virgin Megastore is following Circuit City into the abyss, with the chain's US retail stores in the process of closing down. Similar to Circuit City's infamous liquidation sales, Virgin is currently offering its wares at "up to 30-percent off," according to the copious signage spotting outside Virgin's Union Square location in New York.

Ironically, that Virgin Megastore sits on exactly the same block as the Circuit City store we visited in January, and the two liquidation sales are also very similar, judging from what we found this week.

The actual signs and policies are … Read more