Ed Sutherland

Chipmaker Broadcom  said it is the focus of a formal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into improperly dated stock option grants. The company also said in a statement it canceled more than $37 million in options from employees it claimed were responsible for questionable option transactions. Broadcom said it expects to file an amended […]

Hoping to convince holdout shareholders, Internet security firm Check Point Software Technologies sweetened its acquisition offer for Sweden’s Protect Data. The new $625 million bid comes after a Nov. $586 million offer attracted just 41 percent of Protect Data stock. The new offer is subject to more than 90 percent of Protect Data shareholders accepting […]

The iPhone has finally arrived, but it didn’t come from Apple . Linksys, Cisco’s consumer networking division, today unveiled a series of dual-mode phones able to use either traditional telephone connections or the Internet. And it did so on the buzz already generated around the non-existent Apple phone. In a statement, Linksys said the iPhone […]

News Corp’s MySpace and Cingular Wireless have struck a deal that lets subscribers play on the social-networking site from their cell phones. MySpace Mobile for Cingular allows subscribers to edit MySpace profiles, view and add friends, post photos and blogs, send and receive MySpace messages for $2.99 a month, according to a statement. The announcement, […]

Apple Computer  became the latest tech company to file an IOU with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company said in an SEC filing today that it will delay filing an annual report, and will restate past earnings following an internal probe into the company’s stock-option practices. Apple said it must restate its historical […]

Intuit Inc. , maker of Quicken and QuickBooks accounting software, continued its drive to become an online banker with the $142 million purchase of payment processor Electronic Clearing House . Combined with its recent $1.35 billion purchase of online banking firm Digital Insight, the acquisition of Electronic Clearing House’s ability to clear checks and credits […]

Some 382,000 Boeing employees are receiving free credit monitoring after the company confirmed yet another laptop containing personal data was recently stolen. This time from an employee’s car. The Social Security numbers, names, birth dates, home addresses and phone numbers, as well as salaries of both current and retired employees, were available in two unencrypted […]

Could the image of a bloated Windows operating system criticized by competitors for its practice of bundling be on the way out? Although Microsoft is mum on the possibility, Gartner predicts Vista will be the last major release of Windows. “The era of monolithic deployments of software is nearing an end,” according to the research […]

Yahoo  and IBM  are brand new buddies on the search front with their OmniFind Yahoo Edition creation. The free, entry-level search program may even force Google  to take its eyes off the race for entry-level enterprise search customers. The IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition allows companies to index up to 500,000 documents, more than 200 file […]

Monster Worldwide , the parent company of online job site Monster.com, said it will take a $339.6 million charge to pay for stock-option grants that former employees “intentionally” recorded incorrectly between 1997 and March 31, 2003. The announcement follows the resignation of Monster’s CEO and other top executives, as well as the formation of a […]

Skype, EBay’s Internet phone service, today announced an unlimited calling plan for SkypeOut users. The new option comes as a year-long free period nears an end. Details of the flat-rate annual plan for calls within the U.S. and Canada include a $14.95 introductory rate until Jan. 31, 2007. After that, Skype unlimited calling costs $29.95. […]

Microsoft said it will begin letting people test its new voice server software, enabling users to place Internet-based calls from Office 2007 applications. The announcement is the continuation of a VoIP plan first outlined in June. Although Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 won’t be released until the end of the second quarter of next year, […]