Susan Harrigan writes for Newsday a great profile of Capital One's CEO Richard Fairbank. Harrigan quotes Fairbank: "What my dad ... taught me was, success is not about how much money you make or about promotions and rewards and things like that. Success is about having a quest and pouring yourself into that quest ... and the magical things that are happening on your journey to you and to those that you're sharing the journey with." She goes on to explain how Fairbank's idea to move beyond the "one size fits all" credit card was the key to Capital One's early success...and much more. Read Harrigan's profile!

EMC, scheduled soon to acquire RSA Security, is in the midst of a major transition from being known as "the storage company" to what they want to become known as: "the Information infrastructure company". An article by AP Technology Writer Brian Bergstein takes a look at what's involved in this transformation. "I think they come to the table today with a much better story, a holistic solution," said James Hull, head of engineering services at MasterCard Inc., a large EMC customer.

Almost one year ago, on August 31, 2005, MasterCard announced plans for a new corporate governance and open ownership structure that ultimately led to a successful initial public offering about nine months later, on May 24, at an initial offering price of $39.00 per share. On Friday, MasterCard's stock closed at $55.00 per share, up 41 percent in the three months since completion of the IPO.

Google has introduced a new incentive program for ecommerce providers to support Google Checkout. They're offering to pay 0.5% of all Checkout sales that a provider's merchants process for a year plus $25 for each merchant referred who processes at least $500 in sales and 3 transactions with Checkout. In addition, Google's offering extra bonuses to providers who bring merchants on by September 30th with Level 1 or Level 2 integration.