Business Tech

Update at 7:25 a.m. PDT: Updated stock information added and headline updated.

Sun Microsystems shares soared more than 10 percent in premarket trading on Thursday, following a Bloomberg report that the struggling hardware maker was interested in resuming merger talks with IBM.

Sun climbed nearly 10.8 percent to $6.79 a share in premarket trading. But as the markets opened for regular trading, Sun's shares settled back to a more modest uptick of 2.77 percent to $6.30 a share. The broader markets were mixed.

Either way, its stock remains a ways off from the $… Read more

IBM, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, and others are teaming up on the development of next-generation chip technology for small, low-power devices with one wary eye on Intel, which is expediting its move to chips with smaller geometries.

IBM and its semiconductor technology alliance partners are announcing the availability of 28-nanometer (nm) chip technology, a little more than a generation beyond the 45nm technologies currently used by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in their latest chips.

The first products using chips based on this technology are expected in the second half of 2010, an IBM spokesman said. Devices will include smartphones and … Read more

The PC market shrunk during the first part of 2009, but not as badly as expected.

Shipments of PCs during the first quarter were down 7.1 percent from a year ago, to 63.5 million units, according to IDC, which released its Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker on Wednesday. That's an improvement from the 8.2 percent decline that IDC had projected.

It's a "good sign" for PCs, said Loren Loverde, the program director for the PC Tracker at IDC. Loverde says the better-than-expected results were aided by falling prices of PCs and more new PC … Read more

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

IBM is outlining a vision--and of course a new services unit to go with it--that takes a little time to grok.

Big Blue speaks about the "information journey," about fact-based enterprises, and about nudging out gut calls in everyday management for decisions based on hard, cold facts. When you boil it all down, Big Blue is talking about providing a bag of algorithms that will automate many of your business decisions.

Sitting through IBM's series of presentations on Tuesday about how we'll all work for fact-based … Read more

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini said low-cost, ultrathin laptops with future Intel processors will be a big trend, a development that could upset the Netbook cart.

During Intel's first-quarter earnings conference call Monday afternoon, Otellini had a surprising amount to say about Intel's upcoming consumer ultra-low-voltage (CULV) processors, designed to fit into future ultrathin laptops that are expected to be priced significantly below $1,700-and-up luxury laptops such as the Apple MacBook Air and the recently-introduced Dell Adamo. The category of upcoming CULV-based laptops has been described by some observers as the MacBook Air for the masses.

CULV … Read more

Updated at 4:05 p.m. PDT with additional earnings highlights and comments from CEO Paul Otellini.

Intel's first-quarter profit fell about 56 percent from a year earlier, but Chief Executive Paul Otellini said PC sales were bottoming out.

Net income was $647 million, or 11 cents a share, down from $1.4 billion in the year-earlier period. Revenue was $7.1 billion, down about 27 percent from the $9.7 billion reported in the same period last year. Wall Street estimates were around 3 cents a share on revenue of $7 billion.

"We believe PC sales bottomed … Read more

EMC on Tuesday launched a storage array, the Symmetrix V-Max, that uses a new virtualization architecture to provide a linked pool of up to 3 petabytes of storage.

The main principle of the new system, aimed at data centers, is that each of the storage arrays has a connection to the Virtual Matrix Architecture (VMA) that allows them to be linked to other drive cabinets. The arrays can be built into a matrix, where every cabinet can talk to every other cabinet.

The V-Max is a "completely redesigned storage system and has definitely not been simply upgraded," said … Read more

Sun Microsystems on Tuesday unveiled a line of new x64 servers and workstations, in a move to bolster its share of the data center.

The new Sun Fire x64 blade servers, rack servers, and workstations, which are powered by Intel's Xeon processor 5500 series, are expected to carry a starting retail price of $1,488.

"Our new x64 systems with integrated networking technologies, advanced thermal management, open software and Open Storage enhancements will give the data center an extreme makeover, boosting efficiency and maximizing IT investment," John Fowler, Sun's Systems Group executive vice president, said in … Read more

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Citrix said Tuesday it will add Web 2.0 push technology to its NetScaler traffic management and content delivery lineup.

Why? Because Web 2.0 apps are gobbling up more and more server computing power.

As rich Internet applications proliferate, data centers are becoming less efficient because they must stay connected to servers 24/7 to be useful. Those connections gobble up computing power.

Indeed, all of those widgets and Web 2.0 apps may translate in new racks of servers that need to be purchased.

Citrix said it will … Read more