Costco, the largest warehouse retailers by sales, posted fourth quarter earnings, meeting Wall Street expectations on income and beating them on revenue.

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In the South Carolina case, the administration of former Republican Governor Mark Sanford had promised to push through legislation that would exempt Amazon from having to collect sales taxes from state residents despite the warehouse.

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Scot Gnau, chief technology officer at Teradata, said a data warehouse and good analytics can deliver information to people on the front lines of customer service and sales so they can make good decisions without giving away the store.

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Now every night the integrator scours databases for product information from Japan, updates from a Nebraska manufacturer, warehouse inventory at its four distribution centers, wholesale transactions with the dealers, and local inventory and retail sales.

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Insight's sales have been climbing 50% a year -- faster than larger rivals CDW Computer Centers, Micro Warehouse or Global DirectMail.

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