Business Tech

Mozilla has a deal for programmers: We'll supply the phones if you supply the apps.

In an effort to ensure there will be good Firefox OS apps in the Firefox Marketplace, Mozilla is offering developer phones to programmers who have compelling ideas for software. In a blog post Thursday, Mozilla employee Havi Hoffman tried to drum up interest:

If you can show you've got a great app idea and the skill to build it, we'd love to see your apps in the Marketplace when the Firefox OS launch begins later this summer. And to sweeten the deal, … Read more

We know Carl Icahn wants to buy Dell. But he also has his eye on the other half of the U.S. PC industry. But don't worry, this will all happen before the PC dies.

The other half would be Hewlett-Packard. Icahn is pondering the merger of Dell with HP, according to comments he made to Bloomberg TV on Friday.

Michael Dell needs to be fired first, though.

"We think it's very important that you have a new CEO [at Dell]...We need more than a bit of a cultural change at Dell. Michael Dell, I just … Read more

As Google gears up for its big week in the spotlight, it's making another notch in its business software belt. The city of Boston has decided to switch the e-mail provider of its 20,000 employees from Microsoft to Google, The Boston Globe reported Friday.

In addition to using Gmail instead of Microsoft Exchange, Boston will also swap in Google Docs for word processing and Google's cloud service for storing documents. The city will pay Google about $800,000 for the move but will save around $280,000 a year for dropping the Microsoft products.

Google told the … Read more

Performance improvements over the last year mean Web pages measured by the Google Analytics service load significantly faster for people using mobile devices.

The pages load 30 percent faster for mobile browsers now than they did a year ago, Steve Souders, Google's head performance engineer, said in a presentation earlier. And for desktop browser users, the pages load 3.5 percent faster.

Mobile Web performance -- often impaired by big Web pages, slower networks, and limited processors -- can be irritating. The slower a Web page responds, the less people use it, and that's a problem for a … Read more

In a step to help browser-based apps catch up with the abilities of other software, Google has made it possible for programmers to push notifications to Web apps running in Chrome.

On Thursday, Google enabled a service called Google Cloud Messaging for Chrome (GCM) that brings push notifications to its browser and to Chrome OS, its browser-based operating system. Mark Scott, a Google product manager, announced the service in a blog post.

The technology means that servers can send a message -- a stock price alert or news item, for example -- that triggers an action in the browser. To … Read more

The Indian government is launching a investigation over Huawei and ZTE equipment, following increased scrutiny on China's alleged involvement in cyberspying.

Sina Tech reported this on Thursday, citing an official from India's Department of Telecommunications. The official said the ministry knows about the concerns of Indian intelligence agencies and os expediting the developing of systems for testing the networking equipment of foreign manufacturers, which could also include the likes of Cisco Systems and Alcatel.

A lab reportedly will be set up in Bangalore, where the gear will be tested.

Read more of "Huawei, ZTE under probe by Indian government&… Read more

Electronics firm Sharp will be cutting 5,000 jobs as part of its three-year restructuring plan in efforts to survive.

As reported by The Asahi Shimbun, axed employees will mainly come from China and Malaysia. The number of employees at Sharp's main office in Osaka will be reduced by 50 percent. Sharp's director numbers will also be cut from 12 to six, and the firm will employ "significantly fewer advisers" who were once presidents or vice presidents of the electronics firm.

Sharp currently employs 51,000 people worldwide.

The midterm management plan, obtained by the publication, … Read more

Panasonic has posted another hefty annual loss as the consumer electronics giant continues to struggle.

The Japanese company on Friday reported a loss of 754.3 billion yen ($7.42 billion) for fiscal 2013, which ended in March. In fiscal 2012, it posted a loss of 772.2 billion yen. Sales for fiscal 2013 declined 7 percent from the previous year to 7.3 trillion yen ($71.9 billion).

Panasonic had put into place a vast restructuring plan meant to pull the company out of its tailspin, but it conceded today that the results were far below what it was … Read more

Investor Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management have teamed up to offer an alternative to the $24.4 billion buyout deal now before the company's stockholders.

The pair -- two of the computer maker's largest shareholders -- have proposed giving stockholders the option of holding on to their stock in the company and take an additional $12 a share in cash or stock, according to The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

CNET has contacted Dell for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

The proposal, reportedly made in a letter to Dell's board of … Read more