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Last week an Internet "deliver groceries to your door" company called Webvan, based in Foster City, California, announced a $1 billion deal with international engineering and construction giant Bechtel to build distribution centers in 26 U.S. markets. But Webvan may be planning to deliver much more than food.

Amazon and almost all the other e-commerce high-rollers depend on traditional delivery services like UPS, Federal Express, and DHL. Last I heard, while most online merchants seem to be taking big losses, package delivery companies were becoming more profitable than ever because of e-commerce.

Webvan is headed by Louis Borders, one of the two brothers who founded Borders Books and Music in 1971 and started borders.com in 1997. As soon as Webvan gets some of its new distribution centers running, I expect to see them offer deals like "free book delivery with any grocery order" that other online retailers can't match.

So forget groceries. Webvan could become the first e-commerce company that would have its own "direct to your door" delivery service and keep all the "shipping and handling" fees instead of putting them in other companys' pockets.

If I were Jeff Bezos, Webvan would scare me. And if I were selling almost anything other than books or food online, I'd be scrambling to cut a delivery deal with Louis Borders right now, before everyone else in the e-commerce business figures out that a "Webvan" could deliver almost anything that could conceivably be sold over the World Wide Web.

pavewrld sent in a couple of links. The first is over at MacWorld Online and announces the new PowerMac G3's, which look similar to the iMac. The second announces the new iMac's, which now come in a variety of colors. Also in Apple news, NikT wrote in to say that Mac OS X server was announced, and it will include Apache and BSD 4.4. Finally, Ethan Butterfield wrote in to let us know of Steve Jobs' keynote address at MacWorld Expo. Apparently Apple has licensed OpenGL from SGI, and John Carmack demoed Quake 3 Arena on one of the new G3's. You can read more at Macintouch. Phew! With MacWorld Expo going on, the Apple news is nonstop.