Articles by Keith Regan

Sales of server products powered Microsoft to a more profitable second quarter as the software giant beat Wall Street expectations for earnings, while supply restrictions on the Xbox 360 were seen contributing to a near-miss on the revenue side Microsoft said income rose to US$3.65 billion, up from $3.46 billion a year ago, while sales climbed 9.4 ...

The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) will pay US$7.4 billion to buyPixar, the groundbreaking animation studio co-founded byApple CEO Steve Jobs. The deal is noteworthy not only for the potential future benefits entailed in an Apple-Hollywood link, but also because it immediately vaults Disney back to the top of the industry it all but invented Jobs, who...

Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt aren't getting a raise this year. Each is slated to make in 2006 exactly what they took home last year: US$1 Google said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the three top executives would again forgo all but the token take-home salary. Instead, they wi...

Microsoft received both good and bad news on the antitrust front. The European Commission (EC) has granted the software maker extra time to meet specific requirements before facing stiff daily fines. On the other hand, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said the company appeared to be falling behind on compliance with the terms of its U.S. antitrust settlement...

For the second time in less than a year, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by Research In Motion, which was hoping to overturn a lower court ruling that could lead to the demise of itsBlackBerry mobile e-mail service in the U.S An interruption of service is probably not imminent, with additional steps still to come, but the failu...

The accounting scandal that rocked the Japanese stock market last week escalated Monday with the arrests of the high-profile CEO and other executives ofInternet company Livedoor. Prosecutors charged Takafumi Horie, the 33-year-old founder of the company, and his colleagues with violating securities laws by filing false earnings reports. The arrests came a week after news broke that investigators had raided the company's offices...

Nearly nine out of 10 businesses and other organizations faced some type of computer security incident, a fifth of them were attacked 20 times or more and some US$67 billion was lost as a result of the incursions, according to the 2005 FBI Computer Crime survey The report, released Thursday by the FBI, was billed as the law enforcement agency's lar...

The strength of the Razr phone helped pushMotorola to strong fourth-quarter earnings and revenue results -- but, like other tech companies, it failed to meet or exceed expectations Motorola also acknowledged some operational difficulties, with profit margins lower in the quarter for all of its mobile phones, and some supply chain issues that hurt i...

Sales of personal computers posted strong growth in 2005, while Dell held onto the crown and captured more market share and the U.S. gave up its title as the largest single PC market, according to reports from two research firms Gartner said sales grew 15.3 percent in 2005, while IDC said growth for the year was 16.4 percent, edging out that firm's...

Booming sales of iPods helped Apple score another winning quarter, but a lowered outlook may be raising the stakes for the pending switch to Intel chips in the company's notebook and desktop computers Apple exceeded earnings expectations, posting a profit for its first quarter, which included the holiday period, of US$595 million, nearly double the...

Shares of Yahoo took a hit Wednesday, a day after the portal and search company reported earnings that, while up sharply from a year ago, fell short of expectations Some analysts wondered whether the overall strength of the Internet sector in the fourth quarter had been overstated in forecasts, while others suggested that Google -- which reports ea...

For many e-commerce companies, the temptation to revel in the success of the 2005 holiday season is a powerful one Many sites saw strong double-digit growth, with more shoppers than ever buying more online than ever before, helping to extend the e-commerce shopping season later than in the past. It all came with few, if any, complaints about the wa...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cast a preliminary vote in favor of new rules that would force public companies to more fully report how much top executives are being paid, with everything from stock grants and bonuses to non-cash perks subject to disclosure The five-member commission held a meeting Tuesday to discuss the issue and vot...

The offices of Japanese Web services firm Livedoor Co. were raided by investigators Monday night, sending the company's shares into a nosedive and prompting a reassuring message from company leadership, while potentially casting a new light on other Japanese Internet companies as well Livedoor issued a statement saying allegations that it violated ...

Portable devices helped offset weak sales of gaming consoles and drove the video game industry to record sales in the United States last year, according to a report from the NPD Group The research firm said sales hit US$10.5 billion, up nearly 7 percent from last year and eclipsing the previous high-water mark of $10.3 billion set in 2002....

Apparently eyeing the worn pathway from enterprise technology to the consumer marketplace, Cisco Systems is said to be mulling a plan to produce electronics and related products for home use The Financial Times reported that Cisco is on the brink of rolling out a range of Web-connected products, including Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telepho...

Setting the stage for a bruising battle for paid search supremacy with Google and others, Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on its MSN adCenter system, which will offer a self-service, targeted way to buy pay-per-click search advertising Microsoft said its adCenter would be ready in the U.S. by June, with extensive tests now ongoing in the...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched a formal investigation into how tech giant IBM reported earnings and stock compensation expenses in a quarterly report nearly a year ago The SEC had launched an informal inquiry in June of 2005, which IBM said it had been cooperating with....

Boeing announced plans to build three satellites and ground systems for Mobile Satellite Ventures under a deal worth US$500 million to $1 billion -- the most impressive contract win for its commercial satellite division in nearly a decade The huge price tag -- the largest for satellites since 1997 -- could help revive the aerospace giant's stagnant...

Saying even its smaller business customers need more powerful search solutions, Google is broadening its menu of enterprise-search appliances to include two larger versions of the Google Mini The day before the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Mini, Google's first search appliance designed to be affordable in small-business settings, the c...