Erin Joyce

Sony Music Entertainment (SME) is expanding its mobile digital media platform with its acquisition of wireless entertainment company Run Tones. Run Tones specializes in wireless services for consumer and business applications, including a ringtone service called RUNtones, and RUNpics, a personal photo service. The company also provides private-label wireless portals through its Mobile Media Hub […]

News and financial market data company Reuters , coping with a drop in demand from financial services firms, is shifting to offer market products to savvy individual investors. The company, which provides financial news and wide menu of market data to the financial world, is now pitching portfolio-watchlists, e-mail alerts and customized news feeds through […]

IBM is putting more money and muscle where its mouth is regarding its on-demand computing strategy by creating a new research division called On Demand Innovation Services. It plans to shift $1 billion in investment to the new division over the next three years. The new services arm is to be located within IBM’s research […]

AT&T has completed the spin-off of its broadband unit and merged it with Comcast Corp. , officially creating the nation’s largest cable company valued at around $60 billion, including stock and debt. The closing of the spin-off transaction Monday, which included a reverse one-for-five stock split of AT&T shares, creates a cable company serving more […]

America Online and 15 other Internet-related companies have been named in an expanded lawsuit by the California State Teachers’ Retirement fund that charges they contributed to the financial collapse of online real estate company Homestore.com . The $92 billion pension fund, the third largest in the nation, says as the result of Homestore.com’s $192 million […]

Computer services giant Electronic Data Systems has taken its first steps in a plan to raise liquidity by selling its consumer network services unit to transaction and data processor Fiserv for $320 million in cash. The sale of the unit follows EDS’s recently-announced plan to shed $500 million worth of non-core assets after it announced […]

IBM on Thursday unveiled another element of its “computing on-demand” strategy with a fast-track program to help software vendors Internet-enable software applications. Although the latest release sounds like an application service provider model (ASP ), IBM has dubbed it an “application enablement program.” Working in partnership with software companies, IBM plans to help host customers’ […]

IBM has been tapped by JP Morgan Chase to negotiate a multi-year outsourcing contract, an IBM spokesman confirmed. Once the talks conclude, the deal could be worth about $5 billion. The contract would rank among the largest outsourcing deals for IBM, eclipsing the $4 billion contract with American Express announced in February of this year. […]

After leading the recent launch of America Online 8.0, James de Castro is stepping down as president of AOL’s interactive services division, the company said today. His departure comes seven months after he joined AOL from an executive position at radio holding company Clear Channel Communications. It also comes as AOL works to complete a […]

America Online and domain registrar VeriSign are teaming up to offer the ISP’s subscribers a bevy of discounted services such as special e-mail accounts, marketing capabilities and Web site creation. With some estimates that small businesses with 10 or fewer employees are among the fastest-growing segments of the business world, AOL is wasting no time […]

In an effort to boost broadband acceptance throughout Europe, British Telecomunications and Microsoft are joining forces in an initiative to offer new high-speed services and applications to businesses and consumers. BT and Microsoft said they would collaborate in European markets, starting with the UK, to build a wide range of broadband applications. The alliance would […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission has expanded its civil fraud complaints against bankrupt telecommunications firm WorldCom after it said it might have to restate about $9 billion in revenue. In a statement Tuesday, WorldCom said as a result of settlement discussions with the SEC regarding fraud complaints, it planned to restate about $9 billion in […]