Mark Berniker

A government-backed Chinese Internet group, the Internet Society of China (ISC), on Tuesday has taken steps to block the e-mail traffic of 127 servers suspected of sending out spam, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. The move was characterized as “the first large-scale spammer blockade launched by the Chinese Internet industry,” according to Ren […]

Bill Joy was a computer wunderkind in Ann Arbor and Berkeley, before joining his Stanford cohorts to create Sun Microsystems. Now at 48, the decision has been made that Joy will be moving onto new ventures. On Tuesday, Sun Microsystems announced that its co-founder and chief scientist Bill Joy will be leaving the company. Joy […]

In an ongoing effort to put its roster of legal difficulties behind it, Microsoft has settled an anti-trust lawsuit filed by now-defunct Be Inc., for $23.3 million. Be will receive the payout after attorney’s fees, and Microsoft admits no wrongdoing as part the deal, which was announced late Friday. Microsoft’s settlement with Be is the […]

Microsoft Corp. and Motorola are said to be cooking up a deal on operating system software for a new generation of mobile handsets. The deal, reported first in The Financial Times, is expected to be announced in the coming days, and is the first major contract Microsoft has signed with a leading phone device manufacturer […]

Consumer electronics giant Sony on Thursday unveiled plans for a standalone online music service to deliver digital files to a number of electronics and mobile devices it manufactures. At a press conference in Paris, Sony announced details of its planned online music service, which will compete with similar services from the likes of Apple Computer […]

PalmSource , the provider of the operating system for handheld devices and smart phones that is the midst of being spun off as a separate company, said it formed a strategic alliance with PalmGear, a leading resource for freeware, shareware and commercial software for the Palm OS platform. As part of the new arrangement, PalmSource […]

In his ongoing bid to colonize the Internet travel market, Barry Diller’s Hotels.com has terminated a contract with Travelocity, paving the way for Expedia to fully take on its Internet travel competitor. As Diller has expanded his aegis in the online travel marketplace, a combination of factors led to his company’s decision to end its […]

Motorola is selling off its 19 percent stake in Symbian, the software company that licenses the Symbian operating system for next generation, data-enabled mobile devices, a spokesman for the wireless device maker said Friday. Motorola’s 19 percent stake in the Symbian venture will be split by Nokia and Psion, with Nokia becoming the biggest shareholder […]

Vector Capital Group Thursday concluded the acquisition of Ottawa-based Corel , closing the books on the software company’s tenure as a public company. The San Francisco-based venture capital firm, which specializes in “special opportunity investments” in software and IT services, will acquire all of the common shares of Corel for $1.05 per share, and Corel […]

France’s telecom player Alcatel SA said it plans to invest $145 million in China in 2003 as part of a plan to position itself for next generation 3G-based mobile communications networks, including a new 3G standard created in China. Alcatel currently is providing around 10 percent of the mobile telecommunications equipment for its current 2G […]

Microsoft’s MSN brand is going in a new direction, moving away from the slumping dial-up access market, towards providing broadband customers a variety of services for a monthly fee. Microsoft’s MSN Premium will begin beta testing starting next week. Both America Online and Microsoft Corp. have been hit hard by the rapid departure of dial-up […]

On Tuesday, America Online inked a new deal with the National Football League to expand video and audio offerings exclusively to AOL for Broadband subscribers. While financial terms of the pact were not disclosed, AOL and the NFL did sign a multi-year deal that will improve the amount of streaming media content beginning this season. […]