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Amid low advertising revenue and higher operating costs, publishing giant Hearst is looking at other ways to generate revenue. The employer of 20,000 workers in six different media groups is contemplating competing with Amazon.com and Sony in the electronic-reader market, an executive told Fortune.

While Hearst has been tight-lipped about an electronic reader, including what it might look like, what kind of content it would include, and how much it might cost, executive Kenneth Brofin told Fortune the company is interested in the reader market and expects the devices to be a big part of the publishing giant's future.

For decades, the Hearst name has been associated with news -- whether through one of its newspapers, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, or its magazines like O, the Oprah magazine -- not technological devices.

Plummeting revenues, however, including the Chronicle, which had more than $50 million in losses last year with losses to date even worse, have Hearst looking to be creative.

"It is certainly a way of maintaining the presence," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy for Interpret. "The question is what it will look like. When it comes to these types of devices and services, it is all about the details and how to execute things such as pricing, distribution and type of content."

Publisher or Technologist

While Hearst isn't a device manufacturer, the company has had a hand in technology to some degree. It provided financial backing to E Ink, a Massachusetts-based company that provides the core technology behind Amazon.com's Kindle and Kindle 2 electronic readers and Sony's Reader.

Hearst was one of the lead investors in the startup and was part of the company's $15.8 million round just more than a decade ago.

Brofin led the investment and said the technology to produce electronic paper has many compelling ramifications for...

CBS Interactive wants to be sure television viewers don't miss their favorite television shows when they aren't able to sit in front of the tube. Select full episodes, news updates, and clips from CBS can now be viewed by iPhone and iPod touch users by downloading a free TV.com app from Apple's App Store.

The app uses the iPhone's Quick Time Player to enable users to watch streaming video. Companies such as CBS need to make their content available in H.264 format if they want it to be viewed on the iPhone, since the device doesn't support Adobe Flash, the format used by most online sites and Microsoft's Windows Media DRM.

CBS Mobile and partner Veveo developed the application using vTap video-search and personalization technology.

Top Shows Available

Some of the network's top shows are available via the TV.com app, including The Young and the Restless, the Late Show with David Letterman, and hits such as CSI. More than 20 shows from the CNET iPhone site, including Today on CNET, the Buzz Report, and Loaded, are also available through the application as well as the CBS Radio Channel, according to CBS.

"CBS Mobile is excited to be on Apple's App Store with our application for TV.com, where TV lives online -- and now on iPhone and iPod touch," said Jeff Sellinger, executive vice president and general manager of CBS Mobile. "Fans can now watch their favorite shows, great clips, and create custom channels whenever and wherever they want through the iPhone and iPod touch application."

Busy families may no longer have time to gather around the television, and many viewers rely on DVR and TiVo devices to catch their favorite show when they can't be home to watch it. So the move to offer content on the iPhone isn't surprising, as companies are competing for...

Dell said its revenue declined 16 percent year-over-year to $13.4 billion in its last business quarter, which ended Jan. 30. The company also reported its quarterly net income fell 48 percent to $351 million when factoring in previously announced pretax expenses of $277 million.

To counter what is proving an increasingly "uncertain and challenging IT market," Dell executives told investors on Thursday that the company will implement an additional $1 billion in cost cuts within the next 24 months.

"The cost actions we took this past year made us more competitive and delivered value to customers in a challenging economic environment," said CFO Brian Gladden. "We now have a clear view to additional opportunities, and are raising our cost-reduction target to $4 billion" from $3 billion.

The Biggest Challenge

Dell's operating-expense cutbacks are being driven by industry-wide PC sales declines both at home and abroad. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the worldwide PC industry suffered its worst growth rate since 2002, noted Mika Kitagawa, a principal analyst at Gartner. "The fourth quarter started out with a relatively optimistic view, but then it got worse every month," Kitagawa said.

One bright spot for Dell was the Asia-Pacific region, where sales grew 16.3 percent compared to a year ago, even as the overall Asia-Pacific market declined 2.4 percent, Kitagawa said. In particular, the PC maker enjoyed "strong growth in China, where Dell expanded channel business, reaching new markets through channel partners."

To address Dell's falling sales in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, the company must confront its biggest challenge: Find ways to boost enterprise technology sales. "We saw deteriorating demand for IT spending in the second half of the year -- the deferring of IT spend[ing]," Gladden said. "The CIOs around the world really do need our IT, and the challenge is that they are...