Mark Berniker

It came as no surprise that Sony Tuesday said it plans on cutting 20,000 jobs, or 13 percent of its total worldwide workforce. The announcement in Tokyo was part of the company’s restructuring strategy and future plans. Sony’s restructuring plan will take three years to implement and cost close to $3.1 billion, and comes after […]

Barry Diller’s appetite for online travel properties is taking on a distinctly French flavor. On Monday, InterActiveCorp. said it is buying Anyway.com, the Paris-based subsidiary of Canadian packaged tour operator Transat A.T. Inc. The deal is said to be worth close to $63 million and is expected to close by the end of this week. […]

IBM Corp. on Monday announced the release of two new Thinkpad mobile workstations, which the company says pushes the limits of technologies from Intel and ATI Technologies . The Thinkpad R50p and T41p utilize Intel’s Pentium M microprocessor and ATI’s graphics technology. IBM said its packed a number of new features into the new Thinkpad […]

Toshiba is integrating several technologies, which will allow for a number of applications to run on its new line of Personal Digital Assistants. Toshiba said it is building in Wi-Fi technology, Voice over IP (VoIP) and voice recognition software into its E800/805, with less features on its E400/405 PDA. Toshiba announced the pricing for the […]

Microsoft Thursday reported a net profit of $2.61 billion for its first fiscal quarter, up 27 percent, pointing to consumer demand as the reason for improving revenues for its products. Excluding a variety of charges, Microsoft earned 30 cents a share beating Wall Street’s estimates by a penny. But those charges, included $680 million in […]

ePresence has decided to call it “quits.” The Westboro, Mass.-based company has decided to sell its Security Services Business operations to Unisys Corp. for approximately $11.5 million in cash. In doing so, ePresence will be taking the first step toward liquidating its assets, a plan that its board of directors has unanimously recommended to shareholders. […]

Amazon.com posted its first non-holiday quarterly profit late Tuesday, but the leading Internet retailer provided a conservative outlook for 2004. Amazon.com reported a small profit of $15.6 million, or 4 cents a share, versus a net loss of $35.1 million, or 9 cents a share, a year ago. The company just beat analyst estimates, and […]

Piggybacking off the latest upgrade to its franchise product, Microsoft Tuesday detailed new collaboration and group productivity tools that take advantage of changes in Office 11. The software components of the new version of Office the basics: include Word for document authoring, Excel for spreadsheet applications, PowerPoint for multimedia presentations and Outlook for e-mail and […]

Expanding is roles in the computer software security industry, Symantec is buying privately-held SafeWeb for $26 million in cash. SafeWeb Inc., based in Emeryville, Calif., makes software that enables enterprises to allow remote users to access secure computer networks, without requiring the installation of special software. “The acquisition of SafeWeb is part of the bigger […]

With network security a major serious concern for small- and medium-sized businesses, Verizon on Friday announced plans to offer round-the-clock Internet security services. By moving into the enterprise network security space, Verizon is going up against established players, including Network Associations . Verizon said the first Internet security product would be the Premises Firewall and […]

Software maker Siebel Systems is going on the acquisition trail in its bid to broaden its appeal and reposition itself in the evolving customer relationship management (CRM) market. In a deal that could be worth as much as $70 million, Siebel said it has agreed to acquire UpShot, a maker of CRM and sales force […]

Globally diversified IBM benefited from a weak dollar, and while meeting analysts profit expectations, it missed Wall Street’s revenue target. The Armonk, N.Y.-based behemoth, which reported its third-quarter earnings Wednesday, saw itself grow as the company’s net profit increased to $1.8 billion, or $1.02 per share, up from $1.3 billion, or 76 cents per share […]