Articles by ECT News Business Desk

IBM today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Cyanea, a provider of software that monitors and manages the performance of Web-based business applications. Cyanea is a privately held company based in Oakland, California. Financial terms were not disclosed. Upon closing, Cyanea's operations will be integrated into IBM's Tivoli syst...

DaimlerChrysler has substantially increased its second quarter operating profit from $0.8 billion to $2.5 billion The Chrysler Group, Commercial Vehicles and Services divisions significantly improved their earnings, though the operating profits of the Mercedes car group and the other activities segment were lower than in the same period of last yea...

Worldwide dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) revenue reached US$6.7 billion in the second quarter of 2004, a 19.8 percent increase from the first quarter of this year, according to preliminary results by Gartner. Hynix Semiconductor moved into the number two position in the second quarter of 2004 with revenue totaling $1.1 billion. The last time ...

IBM today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Cyanea, a provider of software that monitors and manages the performance of Web-based business applications. Cyanea is a privately held company based in Oakland, California. Financial terms were not disclosed. Upon closing, Cyanea's operations will be integrated into IBM's Tivoli syst...

Crude oil prices soared Wednesday, reaching their highest levels in 20 years after another violent day in Iraq and more bad news from Russia's Yukos renewed fears about supplies to the U.S. and other countries being impacted by terrorism During the trading day, prices for crude futures actually set an all-time high of $43.05, but later dipped back ...

Symbol Technologies, an enterprise mobility company, has reached an agreement to acquire Matrics, a company that designs and manufactures radio frequency identification (RFID) systems that are compliant with electronic product code (EPC) systems Privately held Matrics is based in Rockville, Maryland. The purchase price is $230 million in cash....

BMC Software today announced financial results for its fiscal 2005 first quarter ended June 30, 2004 BMC Software's net earnings excluding special items for the first quarter of fiscal 2005 were $32.1 million, or $0.14 per diluted common share, which compares to $0.03 a year ago and the company's revised guidance range of $0.11 to $0.14 provided ea...

Boston Scientific today announced financial results showing net sales roared up 71 percent to $1.46 billion in the second quarter over the same time last year, and net income skyrocketed by 200 percent, to $377 million "We experienced impressive growth across all our businesses and regions,and we are reporting new records in both sales and earnings...

Sun Microsystems reported results today for its fiscal fourth quarter and full fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2004. Revenues for the fourth quarter grew to US$3.110 billion, an increase of 4.3 percent as compared with $2.982 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2003.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. economy is poised to continue expanding, and suggested that the sudden drop in consumer spending related to inflation will recede over time In closely watched testimony to the Senate Banking Committee, Greenspan said sharp price increases that may have slowed consumer spending -- especially in f...

Oil prices flirted with record high levels again today as a fresh round of sabotage attacks in Iraq revived fears that supplies to the U.S. could be impacted. Crude oil prices soared as high as $41.90 during the day in New York trading before settling to $41.64 at the close, a seven-week high.

Lindows.com and Microsoft today announced that the two companies have reached a worldwide settlement in the trademark-infringement cases between the two companies "This case was centered on the fundamentals of international trademark law and our necessary efforts to protect the Windows trademark against infringement," said Tom Burt, corporate vice ...

Terrorism fears rattled some markets around the world today as word that terrorists were reportedly eyeing the energy infrastructure of the U.S. drove oil prices back toward record levels again and helped drive stocks lower on the session. The markets managed to bounce off sessions lows, but finished in the red across the board. The Dow finished d...

IBM has signed an agreement to acquire Alphablox Corporation, a privately held company based in Mountain View, California. The acquisition is expected to close later this month, but financial details were not disclosed According to the companies, Alphablox's operations will be integrated into IBM's information management software business and Alpha...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the third and final day of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2004 -- the company's main event for business partners -- with a message of increased company investments to fuel innovation in the industry. "For businesses dedicated to innovating with technology and related services that solve real-world...

Cisco Systems today announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Parc Technologies of London, United Kingdom. Parc develops traffic-engineering technologies and software for routing optimization. Parc Technologies, a spin-off that began as a research center focusing on search algorithms, was originally based at Imperial College, Univ...

Bo Vesterdorf, the judge presiding over Microsoft's appeal of the European Union's antitrust decision, has scheduled a meeting for July 27th. It is Microsoft's first meeting with the judge....

Investor worry that the oil supply to the United States could be disrupted heading into the long holiday weekend reverberated on Wall Street Thursday, when stocks went sharply lower. Oil prices were up more than 3 percent Thursday after gaining 4 percent on Wednesday when the U.S. announced a surprising drop in stockpiles.

Stock markets reacted favorably after the Federal Open Market Committee boosted interest rates by a quarter point and issued a statement that seemed to indicate gradual future increases were in the offing The Fed did what most were expecting when it raised its target rate to 1.25 percent, the first hike in four years.

Oil prices marked their largest one-week price drop in three months after a work stoppage at key Norwegian oil fields was resolved on Friday. Crude prices fell 41 cents a barrel to US$37.52 on the New York Mercantile Exchange and fell nearly 4 percent for the week. Oil was trading for $42 a barrel, a three-decade high, less than three weeks ago....