E-Cards No Longer Naughty, but Nice

Companies are getting around the costly Christmas chore of sending greeting cards this year by e-mailing greetings to clients and contacts.

Long considered bad taste and a mark of stinginess, e-cards have found favor with many big corporations during the economic downturn.

Consumer electronics giant Philips, facing heavy losses, has encouraged its units to send e-mails with pictures and text, rather than paper cards.

The e-cards usually contain an animated picture with background music.

“It’s a companywide initiative to cut costs,” a spokesman for the Dutch company said.

Morgan Stanley’s e-cards feature stylized Christmas trees made from its logo spinning through the air.

Charities stand to gain from e-commerce greetings.

Some companies, including Marks & Spencer, Barclays, UBS Warburg, Ernst & Young, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, ABN AMRO and Fidelity, have stopped sending cards and will donate the savings to a charity for the homeless.

Many are sending e-cards instead.

Barclays sent around its own digital version of a snowy landscape topped with a never-ending electronic interpretation taken from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.”

Some companies are old hands at the electronic festivities. Mobile phone maker Nokia started sending e-cards three years ago, when it was still considered geeky and unfashionable, and has been donating the savings to UNICEF.