Articles by Keith Regan

In a move that could dramatically alter the booming search engine marketplace, Yahoo has announced plans to acquire Overture, the company credited with pioneering the pay-for-placement search business model, in a cash-and-stock deal worth more than US$1.6 billion. The agreement calls for Overture shareholders to receive about .6 share of Yahoo sto...

The number of high-tech job cuts fell sharply during the first six months of 2003, plunging 60 percent below 2002 levels, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Most major technology industries stabilized, the firm said, led by telecommunications, which has laid off 78 percent fewer workers, or about 36,000, this year compare...

Yahoo comfortably met Wall Street targets for the second quarter, posting its fifth straight profitable quarter and its best revenue mark ever as key areas, such as subscriptions and premium online services, provided a spark. The company said it earned US$50.8 million on $321.4 million in revenue in the quarter ended June 30th, compared with a pro...

To a small-business owner, choosing technology can be daunting. On one hand, the latest gadgets can glitter like a well-stocked toy store, with vendors promising to put a company on the cutting edge. On the other, budget constraints mean purchases must pay for themselves in the long run. So, what is the best way to ensure that technology outlays w...

Microsoft will stop granting employees options to buy company stock -- a benefit that helped make thousands of tech workers wealthy during the dot-com boom but has fallen out of favor more recently. The company is instead moving to a plan that will grant employees actual shares Since its founding in 1975, Microsoft has been a pioneer among technolo...

The day after the big Web site defacement challenge laid a big egg, the headlines predictably told of a threat that never really materialized. Or they focused on the intra-hacker intrigue and the irony of a hacker-friendly site getting hacked in the middle of a hacking contest. Before the purported contest, some security firms warned customers to ...

Information storage leader EMC has announced it will buy Legato Systems in an all-stock deal worth US$1.3 billion, signaling that the once-struggling tech giant may be back on its feet. EMC CEO Joseph Tucci said his company has long believed that Mountain View, California-based Legato would make a logical takeover target, but the move was delayed ...

As a key deadline approaches, Oracle has extended its offer to buy shares of PeopleSoft stock for US$19.50 in cash. According to PeopleSoft, the move reflects the fact that just 11 percent of its shareholders have agreed so far to take part in the hostile, $6.3 billion takeover bid. Redwood Shores, California-based Oracle said its offer, originall...

Passwords are both the universal language for network navigation and the weakest link in network security, as fraught with peril as they are essential. Experts say that because they are so closely linked to the ever-fallible human element, passwords cause the most headaches of any security mechanism. However, any enterprise, large or small, can ta...

Security experts have warned that the holiday weekend could bring an onslaught of defacement attacks on U.S. Web sites, not as a result of anti-American sentiment, but instead because of a purported contest among domestic hackers. "The Defacers Challenge" reportedly is a race to see which computer hacker can be the first to deface 6,000 different ...

A high-tech workers union that keeps close tabs on Microsoft claims the software giant is on the verge of transferring scores of U.S.-based call-center jobs overseas, a move certain to reignite debate about overseas outsourcing. The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, or WashTech, said current workers are being warned that their call-center...

It's so easy in hindsight to poke fun at the U.S. government for the lack of foresight it showed when it urged consumers to sign up for the national do-not-call registry, only to have the site crushed by more traffic than it could easily handle. The people in charge really should have known better. Were they caught off guard? Surprised to learn th...

In a decision experts say may impact corporate monitoring and censorship of e-mail, the California Supreme Court has ruled against Intel and its attempts to charge a former employee with trespassing for sending critical messages to other employees at the company. In a 4-3 ruling, the court said a lower court erred when it granted Intel an injuncti...

All eyes on Oracle's US$6.3 billion bid for PeopleSoft have turned toward Washington, D.C., where the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) could crimp the hostile takeover attempt by raising regulatory concerns. Today is the deadline for the DOJ to issue a second request for information about implications of the takeover.

Scores of technology companies that staged successful initial public offerings between 1998 and 2000 have agreed to settle a rash of lawsuits filed by shareholders. The businesses have agreed to pay at least US$1 billion and to aid the shareholders as they set their sights on underwriters of the controversial IPOs. Under terms of the tentative agr...

In an effort to speed up users' Internet access so that they do not switch to broadband, America Online will release an upgrade of its leading online service later this summer. The move is intended to shore up the company's customer base against what has been steady erosion. In addition to a speed-boosting feature, AOL version 9.0 Optimized also w...

No, Orbitz isn't dead, dying or even feeling a bit unwell. But the Orbitz tempest, which seemed to be shaping into an antitrust battle of Microsoft-like proportions at one time, is no longer the storm it once was. In fact, the Orbitz story couldn't buy its way onto page one or even the business front page of most publications these days. Why? The ...

Number two chipmaker AMD has announced its second-quarter sales will fall short of expectations by some US$100 million, a gap the company blamed on SARS-related sales slowdowns in the Asia-Pacific region. AMD said concerns and lifestyle changes brought about by severe acute respiratory syndrome will help hold sales down to about $615 million, comp...

Venture capitalists may not be the heroic figures they were a few years ago, when they looked like the can't-miss swashbucklers of the business world. But they still have the power to decide whether would-be e-business superstars get a chance to seek the limelight Also, whereas VCs now are more likely to reject business plans that do not have all t...

Dell plans to introduce a new line of consumer and business printersthis week, launching an attack on rival Hewlett-Packard where HP's defensesare strongest Dell has made significant strides against HP in the year since the Compaq merger wasconsummated, leapfrogging ahead of its number-one foe in the race for personal computersales and posting gain...