Business

Interest in the United States Federal Trade Commission's antitrust probe into Google was given a jolt with the commission's decision to enlist seasoned white-collar crime litigator Beth Wilkinson to head the investigation. "When we have the opportunity to augment our team by bringing on a lawyer wit...

Amazon's first fiscal quarter surprised shareholders Thursday by beating performance expectations. Investors sent shares upward even though the online retailer reported a 35 percent drop in net income. Amazon announced a net income of $130 million, or 28 cents a share, for its latest fiscal quarter...

Nintendo has reached a dismal milestone: For the first time ever, it posted a fiscal year operating loss -- down $458 million for the year just ended. It is an ignominious turn of events for the company, which created legendary games like "Super Mario Brothers" and innovative devices like the Wii. I...

As testimony unfolds in the Oracle-Google lawsuit, now in its second week, it appears that Google's defense against copyright infringement is vulnerable. That is not to say Google will not ultimately prevail in the end. Oracle has alleged that Google's Android OS infringes both Java patents and copy...

Mobile carrier Sprint Nextel reported deep losses amounting to $863 million in the first quarter of this year, but the company's results actually beat Wall Street expectations. And since it began offering Apple's iPhone as of last October, Sprint added a net 263,000 subscribers. However, this has co...

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt defended his company's actions regarding Java and Android as he took the witness stand Tuesday during Google's ongoing trial, in which the company stands accused of misusing Java programming code in the development of its mobile operating system. Oracle, which ...

In an initial determination, International Trade Commission judge Thomas Pender ruled that Apple was violating one of Motorola Mobility's patents for 3G wireless technology. Specifically, the ruling cited a patent that was issued to Motorola in 2001 for a "method and system for generating a complex ...

Just two weeks after forking over more than $1 billion to AOL for hundreds of patents and patent applications, Microsoft resold 650 of them to Facebook on Monday. Each party in this latest transaction will retain licenses to the intellectual property the other will hold when the deal is completed. T...

What a difference a year makes. Netflix, the tech industry's golden child last spring, has been struggling to overcome a series of missteps it made later in 2011. There is guarded optimism that when the company posts its fiscal first quarter report after the closing bell on Monday, some progress wil...

LightSquared made an outstanding payment to Inmarsat Friday for Phase 1 of its spectrum agreement. It received an additional two years to seek federal approval before it must pay for the second phase of the deal. Previously, Inmarsat had said it wasn't certain it would receive any more payments fro...

Microsoft reported higher than expected earnings Thursday, with Windows 7 license sales up despite the company's plan to release a new version of its desktop operating system later this year. The company's PC division gained 4 percent from a year ago, earning $4.6 billion in revenue. The gain was i...

The European Commission's competition authority has given an investment group led by Sony the go-ahead to acquire EMI Group's music-publishing division for US$2.2 billion. The commission's approval is conditioned on Sony, which is partnering with ATV in this transaction, selling certain music assets...

Facebook will make its public trading debut on Nasdaq on May 17, according to a TechCrunch report citing multiple anonymous sources. The much-anticipated IPO reportedly will value the company at $100 billion. The date jibes with separate reports and rumors from other sources; for some time, it has b...

Verizon reported a strong first quarter of 2012, it revealed Thursday, thanks in part to new FiOS and wireless subscribers. Verizon took in $1.69 billion in profit, or 59 cents per share, an increase from the 51 cents per share it reported from the same time last year. The company's operating revenu...

Google CEO Larry Page continued his testimony on Wednesday in the trial over whether his company violated Oracle's Java patents and copyrights. Like Oracle CEO Larry Ellison attempted to do with his testimony on Tuesday, Page did his best to give little ground to the opposing counsel. Yet they manag...