Articles by Keith Regan

U.S. regulators on Monday gave Time Warner's AOL the green light to acquire behavioral analysis marketing firm Tacoda, clearing the way for a purchase that could boost AOL's online advertising prospects The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) listed AOL's buy of Tacoda among the mergers and acquisitions receiving so-called early termination under the Ha...

The long-consolidating personal computer industry is shrinking once again, with Taiwan-based Acer saying it reached a deal to buy Gateway in a deal worth US$710 million, a move that has implications in both the U.S. and Europe The once market-leading Gateway -- the current iteration of which is itself a combination of Gateway and eMachines -- will ...

The maker of the batteries that prompted Finnish cell phone maker Nokia to recall up to 46 million handset batteries will pay up to US$172 million of the costs associated with replacing them Japanese electronics giant Matsushita, perhaps best known for its Panasonic brand of electronics gear, agreed to fund the direct costs associated with the repl...

In a move heavy with symbolism, Sun Microsystems said Thursday it would change the ticker symbol under which its stock trades on the Nasdaq to "JAVA." Sun will replace its current ticker of SUNW with the new symbol, which is also the name of the widely used software for handling Web applications that it helped create more than a decade ago....

Financial software maker Intuit's longtime CEO Steve Bennett will leave the company at the end of the year, the company said Wednesday as it announced its fourth quarter and fiscal year earnings. The firm named the general manager of the company's small business division, Brad Smith, to replace him. Bennett has held the posts of CEO and president since 2000...

AMD's head of sales and marketing will leave the company next month, the company said, as the chipmaker finds itself struggling to regain market momentum it enjoyed as recently as last year Henri Richard, whose title is chief sales and marketing officer, will exit the post sometime in September. Richard decided to leave on his own, AMD said, and de...

Rumors are flying that E*Trade and TD Ameritrade are again discussing a possible merger, a long-contemplated move that would create an online stock trading powerhouse The companies have been in talks for several weeks, but it's not likely that a deal is imminent, according to the Wall Street Journal. Current discussions are focusing on creating a u...

Wells Fargo said Tuesday it fixed a computer problem that left many of its Web banking customers unable to access their accounts over the weekend The problems were first discovered Sunday afternoon, and the San Francisco-based bank said all services had been restored as of early Tuesday, though some information, such as account balances, was expect...

Cisco and Microsoft may be on a collision course in some areas, including the push to bring a single communications platform to businesses, but their CEOs said Monday the two companies will continue to work together to ensure their products remain compatible Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Cisco chief executive John Chambers held a joint question-a...

American Airlines has become the latest and most high-profile corporation to take on Google's AdWords program, claiming the paid search service infringes on the airline's trademarks without compensation American said it filed a lawsuit Thursday in Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas, accusing Google of violating trademark laws...

Beefing up its presence in China as it faces off with Baidu.com in that fast-growing market, Google said Monday it had invested in a Chinese social networking startup Google did not disclose any details of its investment in Tianya.cn, which has about 20 million registered users who turn to the site to share news and post items for sale or swap. Goo...

Sprint Nextel formally announced plans to make a major bet on WiMax, a next-generation technology for high-speed wireless Internet communications that the telecom and wireless company plans to invest as much as US$5 billion in over the next 10 years Sprint announced it will market its WiMax offering under the brand name Xohm -- pronounced "Zoam" --...

The Bush administration is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th District in San Francisco to dismiss a lawsuit filed by consumers and privacy advocates against AT&T for its role in a program that enables eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails, saying allowing the case to proceed would put intelligence efforts at risk Permitting the case -...

The Bush administration is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th District in San Francisco to dismiss a lawsuit filed by consumers and privacy advocates against AT&T for its role in a program that enables eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails, saying allowing the case to proceed would put intelligence efforts at risk Permitting the case -...

The Bush administration is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th District in San Francisco to dismiss a lawsuit filed by consumers and privacy advocates against AT&T for its role in a program that enables eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails, saying allowing the case to proceed would put intelligence efforts at risk Permitting the case -...

Application infrastructure firm Citrix will buy open source virtualization company XenSource for US$500 million, a deal announced just hours after another virtualization firm made a dazzling debut on Wall Street Citrix will pay a combination of cash and stock for Palo Alto, Calif.-based XenSource, a move that will enable it to enter the fast-growin...

Google's YouTube is seeking to depose high-profile comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as part of its defense of a US$1 billion copyright infringement suit filed by Viacom, parent company of the Comedy Central network where they serve up their fake news and political digs Stewart, who hosts "The Daily Show" and Colbert, of the show's spinoff ...

VMware, the server virtualization firm spun off by EMC with the help of some high-profile industry backers, made an impressive debut on Wall Street Tuesday, with the company's shares rising 90 percent in early trading VMware shares priced at US$29 late Monday -- the high end of a $27 to $29 range -- giving the initial public offering a value of aro...

Regulators from the European Union (EU) have given their blessing for a plan by Intel and STMicroelectronics to spin off and combine their respective flash memory chip units The proposal, which also calls for a major cash infusion from a private equity firm, would not pose an unfair risk to competition in the robust flash memory market, the EU said...

Regional telecommunications provider Qwest Communications has named a veteran telecom executive with recent experience running a retailer as its new CEO and chairman, as the company hopes to gain a fresh start and put an insider trading scandal and years of red ink in its rear view mirror Edward Mueller will succeed Richard Notebaert, who announced...