VentureBeat

Roundup: DOJ approves Oracle-Sun deal, Gamestop falls short, Twitter’s charming memory loss

Here’s the latest action:

The Department of Justice cleared Oracle’s purchase of Sun — Larry Ellison’s $7.4 billion acquisition of the Valley’s rockstar server maker and owner of the rights to Java software, is a transaction on the scale of Yahoo’s ad sales deal with Microsoft…. Continue Reading

Roundup: Twitter’s inventor readies next big thing, Verizon supports texting bans, and more

Here’s the latest action:

Twitter co-founder to launch iphone payment service — The project, code-named Squirrel, will allow your iPhone to take credit card payments (though it won’t be the first service to do this), TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reports.

Verizon will support bans on text messaging while driving —… Continue Reading

Roundup: Aggregated links to newspaper web sites, and more

Here’s the latest action:

As an online publication largely comprised of former newspaper journalists — It’s pretty obvious what we here at VentureBeat think about newspaper leaders demanding payment anytime anyone aggregates any of their content. But we’ll stay mum, at this point, out of respect… Continue Reading

Roundup: Obama’s environmental policy, Sun’s big loss, and more

Here’s the latest (mostly depressing) action:

President Obama reverses Bush policy on environment — Obama endorsed California’s strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and vowed that the federal government will follow suit. Auto manufacturers’ responses were “similar in their ambiguity and political correctness,” according to The New… Continue Reading

Sun Microsystems begins laying off 6,000 today [confirmed]

Updated with this response from the company:

On November 14, 2008, Sun announced a series of changes designed to align its cost model with the global economy and accelerate the introduction of compelling open source innovations. As part of that effort Sun announced a global workforce… Continue Reading

The Down Jones: Dow crashes below 10,000 — Nasdaq doing even worse

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has not closed below 10,000 since 2004. Today it might. Well below. As of a little past 9 AM PST, the Dow is down just over 470 points to 9,854.59. The market is seeing a continuation of the bloodbath it… Continue Reading

So much for that tech stock rebound: Apple, Yahoo, Google killed again

The stock market took a plunge again today. While it wasn’t quite as bad as Monday’s free-fall, the Dow fell 348.22 points (3.22 percent), the Nasdaq fell 92.68 points (4.48 percent) and the S&P 500 fell 46.78 points (4.03 percent). Not good.

Some of the major… Continue Reading

Roundup: Broadcom backdating, games at work, and more

Former Broadcom executive Henry Samueli to plead guilty in backdating case — The Broadcom flameout saga continues, with former chief technology officer Samueli admitting that he previously lied to SEC investigators about whether or not he had illegally back-dated stock options.  Among Broadcom’s two founding Henrys,… Continue Reading

Roundup: Sprint to announce a big wireless partnership, Sun previews JavaFX and more

Here’s the latest action:

Sprint and Clearwire to join forces for WiMax venture – The telecom companies, along with Comcast, Time Warner, Google and Intel, are about to announce a $3.2 billion investment in a new wireless Internet company using WiMax technology, according to the Wall… Continue Reading

Sun adds support for Amazon Web services, targets start-ups

Sun is aiming squarely at the start-up market, making several database and server related moves it hopes will lock start-ups into its services early on.

First, Sun is offering support to companies that integrate Sun’s open source database product, MySQL with the popular Amazon web services… Continue Reading

Roundup: Search-within-search causes angst, secretive Modu raises $100M, Sun tries optical photonics & more

Here’s the latest action:

Google’s search-within-search bugs some publishers — Apparently some folks such as the Washington Post aren’t looking too kindly on a feature Google added earlier this month, which lets people search within publications like the Post directly from Google. The feature lets you search… Continue Reading

Sun continues open source rampage, buys PC virtualization company Innotek

Sun Microsystems has acquired Innotek, a Stuttgart, Germany provider of open source desktop virtualization software called VirtualBox, for an undisclosed amount.

VirtualBox is part of a hot group of companies allowing for much more efficient use of computers within large companies. VirtualBox enables desktop or laptop… Continue Reading

Azul’s boat rocks, but raises $40M to take on Sun

Azul Systems, a hard-charging Silicon Valley company that wants to knock Sun off its perch by providing a more efficient server processor to run popular Java applications, has raised $40 million in financing.

This company rivals football player Terrell Owens in generating controversy, though. It got… Continue Reading