Business

The European Union has issued a scathing denouncement of Microsoft's business practices, levied a record fine of just under $612 million and ordered a stripped-down version of Windows -- without Windows Media Player -- to be made available within 90 days. In response, Microsoft announced its intenti...

Setting the stage for what likely will be a lengthy court battle, member states of the European Union have backed a plan to slap a record fine of more than $600 million on Microsoft for alleged antitrust violations in the personal computer market. Microsoft already has responded to word of the fine,...

Last-ditch efforts by high-ranking Microsoft executives to negotiate a settlement with European Union antitrust regulators apparently have fallen short, and the clock is now ticking toward a March 24th decision by regulators about what penalties to slap on the software giant. Microsoft had been in n...

Microsoft's attack against Linux desktop software provider Lindows.com has taken yet another turn, with Lindows' legal counsel filing a motion Monday in U.S. Federal Court seeking to stop the flood of global trademark lawsuits Microsoft has launched in a host of foreign countries over the last sever...

In an effort to seize an opportunity created by regional resistance to the Windows operating system, Hewlett-Packard has said it plans to begin shipping more desktop computers loaded with the Linux operating system in Asia. Specifically, HP will partner with Turbolinux to ship the open-source deskto...

If one topic has become a hot potato in both the political and employment realms, it is offshore outsourcing. Global staffing company Accountants In India (AII) hosted a teleconference Tuesday to discuss major outsourcing issues like security, ethics and workflow. Although the tone of the teleconfer...

Nortel Networks has suspended its two top financial executives pending the outcome of an internal audit, sparking fear that the telecommunications equipment maker could become the latest tech firm ravaged by accounting scandal. Shares of Nortel, which had been climbing to new heights as the company ...

Oracle has reported third-quarter sales rose 9 percent year over year to US$2.5 billion while profits climbed 11 percent to $635 million. The company also issued a positive outlook for the rest of 2004, a prediction that could help the stock market end a week-long slide. Oracle said new software lic...

Yahoo has announced an offering that will marry its instant messaging offering with British Telecommunications' BT Communicator service, creating a call management package that integrates PC-to-phone calling, Internet call waiting and directory lookup with Yahoo's Messenger service. Voice over Inter...

In a move that could threaten a key source of recent and future growth, Intel has said it will be forced to stop shipping some of its Centrino mobile computing processors to China because it cannot comply with that country's government-mandated standards. Intel did not close the door on developing a...

The 1990s saw Latin American countries -- like their "developing country" counterparts in Asia -- benefit from large inflows of direct foreign investment as well as mergers-and-acquisitions activity. This tremendous influx of funds was in large part driven by the speculative Internet and telecommuni...

An alliance of leading Internet companies -- including AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and EarthLink -- has filed a wave of lawsuits against "hard-core" spammers under the new CAN-SPAM law that took effect at the beginning of 2004. Specifically, the companies said they have filed six lawsuits that name hundre...

Home improvement guru and media mogul Martha Stewart was found guilty Friday of charges that she obstructed the investigation into her 2001 sale of nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone, a close friend's company, just before the stock plummeted in value. All told, the charges against Stewart carry a maximu...

The heated battle between The SCO Group and the open-source community took another turn this week as an e-mail became public that seemed to imply Microsoft helped SCO raise millions of dollars for its legal war against open source. The e-mail, between a SCO executive and an outside consultant, appea...

A quiet trading day on Wall Street segued into a small dip after market close Thursday when semiconductor leader Intel narrowed its first-quarter revenue expectations. The company said revenue in the quarter will total between $8 billion and $8.2 billion, compared with a previously forecast range of...