Roxio Trades On Napster Name

Roxio plans to sell its consumer software division to Sonic Solutions and change its name to Napster, the company announced after the close on Monday.

“With the successful completion of the transaction, Napster will emerge as a well-positioned pure-play in the fast-growing digital music sector with a substantially enhanced balance sheet that will support our growth plans,” stated Roxio CEO Chris Gorog.

Roxio acquired Napster’s assets in November 2002. The company will trade under the Napster name and the Nasdaq symbol “NAPS” when the deal is completed in the fourth quarter, pending shareholder approval.

Sonic will pay $70 million in cash and $10 million in stock for Roxio’s consumer software, including Roxio’s CD and DVD recording, authoring, photo and video editing application products such as Easy Media Creator, PhotoSuite, VideoWave, Easy DVD Copy and Toast. Sonic will continue the Roxio brands and relationships with the likes of Best Buy and CompUSA.

Roxio also announced a June quarter loss of 8 cents a share, 18 cents better than analysts expected. Revenues of $29.9 million also bested forecasts, but the company lowered September quarter revenue guidance to $25 million, below $27.3 million estimates.

Also after the close, Symantec fell on news of an accounting error that will cause the company to restate its first-quarter results. BMC also revised its results. ADC Telecom warned, and NVIDIA announced a stock buyback plan.

Stocks finished the day mixed as oil prices hit new highs once again. The Federal Reserve will announce its decision on interest rates Tuesday afternoon, and Cisco will report earnings after the close.

The Nasdaq lost 2 to 1774, the S&P 500 rose 1 to 1065, and the Dow slipped fractionally to 9814. Volume fell to 1.09 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.27 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 17-15 on the NYSE, and 18-12 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 51% on the NYSE, and 46% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 20-128 on the NYSE, and 8-272 on the Nasdaq.

Loudeye jumped 24% on a deal with Nokia .

SMTEK soared 40% on strong results, and Maxim and Portal Software edged higher on their results.

Cablevision and Interdigital fell on their quarterly reports.

QRS jumped 10% on its latest takeover offer.

Ulticom gained 8% on an upgrade.

And Google settled a dispute with Yahoo that could result in a charge and paper loss in the company’s first publicly-traded quarter. Google could go public as soon as next week, but the timing of the IPO remains uncertain amid reports of lack of institutional demand for the offering.