Business

With sights set on becoming a major Web player, News Corp. said today it would buy IGN Entertainment, a site where some 28 million gaming fans visit for new software, gaming tips and other features, for US$650 million in cash. IGN and related sites -- which operate under names such as GameSpy, FileP...

EBay is reportedly in talks to buy VoIP innovator Skype Technologies in a deal that could be worth as much as US$3 billion. One analyst says the deal could immediately help the company leverage its base of loyal users to extend its reach well beyond e-commerce. Reports today indicate that eBay was ...

In the latest chapter of what's become an epic legal battle, Microsoft has filed suit against the European Union, hoping to have a court provide guidance on what parts of its source code it must reveal. Microsoft filed with the Court of First Instance for review of a provision of the sweeping anti-t...

Microsoft is moving to make its software more attractive to smaller and medium-sized businesses, providing better pricing, easier licensing and resources to help partners focus on the smaller market that currently represents the biggest growth. Analysts indicated that Microsoft, fighting older versi...

Welcome to the event. Here extreme manufacturing meets extreme consumption. The sidekick nations simply dance around the leftover inventories and surplus raw materials. The other remaining 200 nations simply pray and hope that the mating of these two elephants will result in some romance with true l...

File-sharing network Kazaa must alter its software to try to stop illegal music sharing, a federal judge in Australia ruled yesterday, but one analyst said the ruling won't change peer-to-peer file-swapping at all. "In the end it's about as relevant as anything else these industries have done. Tryin...

As heart-wrenching images of devastation and despair from New Orleans and others parts of the Gulf Coast of the U.S. continue to rivet Americans from coast to coast, computer security experts are warning that scammers have already devised elaborate phishing attacks and other online scams meant to ta...

In a blow to Microsoft and a strong vote of support for open-source software, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is putting in motion a plan to abandon the use of the Microsoft Office suite of desktop productivity applications in favor of an open-source approach that may make it easier to share docum...

Google is raising eyebrows by probing for opportunities outside the digital world for the first time ever, announcing it would conduct a test of a program to re-sell print advertising space to customers of its online marketing programs. Google has purchased space in next week's issues of PC Magazine...

If you've ever bought software directly off the Internet, the chances are good that Digital River had a hand in it. The e-commerce company helps many software publishers, retailers and others by managing online sales operations, helping to sell software in the most cost-effective way possible. Today...

Shareholders of StorageTek have approved the sale of the company to Sun Microsystems, helping the buy clear the last major hurdle and turning attention to Sun's ability to effectively integrate the US$4 billion purchase. More than 99 percent of shareholders who voted cast ballots in favor of the mer...

In a move that helps it keep pace and push ahead of rivals such as Google and could help it take on pure voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) companies such as Skype and even traditional telecom companies, Microsoft said it would buy privately held Teleo for an undisclosed sum. San Francisco-based Te...

Publishers continue to line up in opposition to Google's ambitious efforts to digitize and make public the content of several major libraries, saying an olive branch recently extended by Google doesn't go far enough to assuage copyright concerns. Within the past week, the Association of Learned and ...

For many of us, the significance of the spam problem does not become a concern until it results in blocking of legitimate e-mails. Then the global -- and national -- problem of spam can instantly become an individual problem. The 2004 National Technology Readiness Survey estimated that spam costs th...

The change away from the corporate cubicle creates new challenges for managers on several levels, including their comfort level with the situation and the challenge of managing employees that may be scattered around the globe. While companies can and do successfully assess how best to leverage telew...