Articles by Keith Regan

Carl Icahn's bid to change the corporate direction at Yahoo -- specifically to push it into the arms of Microsoft -- got an unexpected boost this week when a judge ordered court documents in a shareholder lawsuit unsealed The revelations and accusations in those papers, including that Yahoo turned down a US$40 per share offer from Microsoft more th...

A Delaware judge ruled Monday that Yahoo could not keep secret the details of an investors' lawsuit over its spurning of Microsoft's acquisition efforts. The complaint alleges that Yahoo turned away a US$40 per share offer to be acquired by Microsoft in 2007 -- months before the software company went public with a far lower bid -- and also decline...

Seeking to further build on its hosted search and cloud computing efforts, Google on Tuesday launched an updated -- and renamed -- version of its hosted business site search solution The updated version of Google Site Search -- the product was formerly known as "Custom Search Business Edition" -- is meant to give customers more control over what in...

China's telecommunications marketplace will undergo a massive transformation after China Unicom agreed to buy China Netcom Group for US$23.9 billion in stock and sell its own mobile division in a side deal worth another $16 billion The details of the series of deals have been awaited for more than a week, with trading in shares of the various compa...

Though it may seem at times as if the U.S. market is dominated by foreign-made goods, longtime importer Albert Wu believes even more goods could be making their way to consumers Wu and the others behind Internet startup Silkfair.com have long been involved in the importing business, bringing specialty items from markets such as China into the Unite...

Fresh off an ambitious wireless spectrum auction that could help create a new marketplace for high-speed wireless services, the Federal Communications Commission will soon consider another auction with a significant twist that could help close the digital divide. The new spectrum sale would come with the requirement that the winning bidder offer f...

Dell turned in a strong first quarter, beating Wall Street forecasts and prompting investors to buy up its shares on the hopes that the founder's turnaround plans are beginning to bear fruit Thanks largely to vigorous sales of notebook PCs in the U.S. as well as international sales, Dell posted revenues of US$16.1 billion for the quarter that ended...

In a nod to the growing need to track mobile users for marketing purposes, Internet research firm comScore has acquired M:Metrics, a top provider of mobile user data, for US$44.3 million in cash and 50,000 stock options The deal extends comScore's measurement and research reach beyond the traditional Internet channels to include a family of mobile ...

Selling Facebook to Microsoft would not be the best way to fulfill its mission of enabling people to connect with one another, said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of the social network During the D6: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., Zuckerberg was asked whether he would consider selling if Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer offered US$...

A group of Belgian newspapers that won a court ruling against Google last year over its practice of linking to their content is now asking a court to award up to US$77 million in damages Copiepresse, which handles copyright issues and protection for newspapers in Belgium, asked a Brussels court to force Google to pay between $51.5 million and $77 m...

Microsoft believes it can grow the market for its Windows Mobile operating system by at least 50 percent in each of the next two years as the market for smartphones explodes globally The software giant could sell as many as 20 million copies of Windows Mobile during the soon-to-end fiscal year, almost double the 11 million it shipped last year, Edd...

Seeking to capitalize on the rapidly growing interest in sustainability and green business practices, IBM has launched a software tool that will help companies analyze the impact of their supply chains on the environment IBM's Carbon Tradeoff Modeler will enable companies to manage their carbon footprint by giving them insight into how different de...

In its most aggressive and creative effort yet to challenge Google in search and search advertising, Microsoft has unveiled a plan to give cash rebates to consumers who use its Live Search and end up making online purchases Live Search cashback essentially shares advertising revenue with end users, providing a direct incentive to use Microsoft's se...

Bidding to grab an early share of the rapidly growing mobile advertising market, Microsoft on Tuesday announced a broad initiative to drive both display and search ads on mobile devices The software giant will immediately make available display advertising on its Windows Live for mobile platform and will soon roll out plans to serve advertising wit...

In its most direct challenge yet to the dominance of Apple's iTunes Music Store, Napster on Tuesday launched what it says is the largest online MP3 download store, selling some six million tracks All of the songs offered for download by Napster are free of digital rights management (DRM) controls, meaning they can be played on virtually any device,...

When an e-commerce startup talks about upending the business model on which Amazon and eBay and other e-tail giants have built billion-dollar businesses, it's clear it doesn't lack ambition Still, the founders of Cartfly believe the new face of the Web will eventually create a new way to sell and buy goods online, one as broadly distributed and spr...

Law enforcement authorities in two countries on Monday charged 38 people in the U.S. and Romania with taking part in two different phishing-related fraud schemes that authorities say were tied to organized crime worldwide The United States Department of Justice and the Prosecutor General of Romania announced the charges Monday, stemming from an inv...

AOL has closed its US$850 million acquisition of Bebo, and the portal will use the social network as the basis for a new People Networks business unit Bebo Chief Executive Officer Joanna Shields will serve as executive vice president of AOL and president of the People Networks division, which will combine Bebo and AOL's two chat platforms -- AIM an...

An unlikely savior could bring Microsoft's failed bid for Yahoo back from the grave. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn may be mulling a proxy battle to replace the Web portal's board with one that's more friendly toward a Microsoft purchase Icahn has not publicly stated his intentions, but he has accumulated more than 3.5 percent of the outstanding s...

A British government agency has complained to the European Commission about the lack of interoperability in some of Microsoft's applications, but regulators are reportedly not opening a new formal inquiry on the complaint The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) filed the complaint with the UK's Office of Fair Trading la...