Business

Blaming high churn rates and merger-related costs, Sprint-Nextel, the third-largest mobile phone operator, reported its fifth straight quarter of profit losses. Net income from continuing operations declined to US$247 million, or 8 cents a share, from $363 million, or 12 cents, a year ago. Revenues ...

BT Group said Wednesday it would acquire managed security services firm Counterpane Internet Security in a move that could help the former national phone company of the UK advance its transformation into a global telecom services and network firm. BT did not disclose the price it paid for the privat...

Hoping to start the long process of moving past the massive recall of notebook computer batteries, Sony on Monday apologized for the uproar it caused but said it had no plans to exit the PC battery business. To date, some 9.6 million batteries have been recalled around the world, the bulk of them fo...

The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday presented opening arguments in federal district court in its longstanding challenge to an Internet censorship law that was signed by President Clinton in 1998 but has never been enforced. At issue in the case known as "ACLU v. Gonzales" is the Child Onlin...

A long-simmering dispute among major wireless carriers took a nasty turn Tuesday when Vivendi announced it had filed a racketeering lawsuit against rival T-Mobile. Vivendi's suit claims T-Mobile "illegally appropriated" US$2.5 billion that Vivendi invested in Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa, or PTC, a Poli...

IBM said Monday it has sued Amazon.com, alleging the e-commerce retail giant has infringed on a number of its patents. IBM is seeking unspecific damages and said the suits were filed only after some four years' worth of attempts to negotiate licensing deals between the two companies. Big Blue filed...

Hoping to build on its reputation as the maker of network backbones, Cisco said Monday it would launch a video conferencing solution the company believes will help spark a new era of long-distance collaboration for its customers. Cisco said its Cisco TelePresence solution would "redefine" the experi...

Internet start-ups seeking venture capital support may be in luck, as a second coming of sorts seems to be in full swing for Web-based technology firms, which enjoyed a seemingly endless supply of cash during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. In September alone, General Catalyst Partners invested...

Search leader Google blew away analyst forecasts for profits and revenue Thursday, turning in a third quarter financial performance that seemed certain to put to rest any doubts about the company's short-term growth prospects. Google's revenue came in at US$2.69 billion, up some 70 percent over the ...

The Western World realized decades ago that small and medium enterprises, or SMEs, are really the main drivers of the economy. While big businesses are still necessary to preserve and maintain structure, they face considerable challenges. The mega corporations of the last century have increasingly l...

Amid heavy speculation over possible copyright issues, major record labels are vying to profit from Google's acquisition of YouTube -- as allies. Specifically, three of the world's largest music companies -- Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music and Warner Music Group -- quietly negotiated...

Reporting a quarterly profit of US$2.2 billion, IBM handily beat Wall Street's expectations with its Q3 earnings. Impressive sales of its hardware and licensed software sales were the primary driver of the company's gains. The only cloudy note in the report was the decline in its services unit, whic...

Yahoo said softness in parts of the advertising market led to a 37 percent drop in quarterly profits and prompted a lower-than-expected forecast for the fourth quarter. The Web portal did say its new paid search ad delivery platform, known as Panama, was now up and running and on track to be fully o...

The massive recall of Sony-made notebook PC batteries may be taking more of a financial toll on the company than initially expected. The company said Tuesday it may need to revise its financial forecasts. Sony is evaluating whether to adjust its previous forecast of US$1.1 billion in profit for the...

Yahoo Small Business, one of the most popular options for merchants to establish their first online presence, started to roll out a major upgrade Monday, revamping the way it gets merchants set up to focus more on immediate sales results. The e-commerce platform, known as Yahoo Merchant Solutions, g...