business

Google appears itching to get rid of the television set-top box business it inherited from the acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

The Internet search giant has hired Barclays to help it find buyers, according to Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources and said the home business unit might fetch $2 billion.

That Google wants to sell Motorola's set-top box business and focus on smartphones isn't surprising; speculation of its desire to shed the business has popped up on numerous occasions. Google instead wants to mine Motorola's patent portfolio for a more potent legal weapon against Apple, as well as … Read more

Evernote is expanding its cloud-based clipping and documents platform to small businesses with the introduction of Evernote Business.

Announced amid the Evernote Trunk Conference in San Francisco today, Evernote Business is touted to optimize the "remember everything" app for businesses by allowing employees to create, collaborate and find documents and projects from wherever they are. The extra business-friendly add-on is that the platform should support organization-wide deployment, including the option for company-wide sharing for individual notes and notebooks. However, individual users will still have full ownership over their personal Evernote notebooks.From the management side, Evernote Business includes … Read more

Ahead of its third-quarter earnings Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard is virtually absent in tablets, one of the hottest device markets today. And its fresh entry into the market will face an entrenched iPad ecosystem at businesses.

There's no guarantee that HP's upcoming Windows 8 Pro tablet aimed at corporate enterprise customers will stop the iPad's march into businesses, according to Rhoda Alexander at IHS iSuppli.

"It is the established leader in all of the markets. It has more of a reach into business, into education than its competitors," Alexander said, referring to the iPad. "The consistency … Read more

Square launched a flat-rate monthly fee today for small-business owners, turning the credit card industry on its head again.

Merchants who process up to $250,000 in customer payments per year using the card reader can pay a monthly rate of $275, instead of 2.75 percent per swipe, according to a press release from Square. The monthly fee includes the usual Square perks -- no additional fees and no contract.

Square -- known for its small, square card reader that can be plugged into mobile devices to create an instant credit card machine -- said it is "leveling … Read more

Google has found a way to avoid paying boatloads in taxes. And U.K. parliament members are not too happy about it, according to a new report.

By the end of March, a Google executive could be brought before parliament members to explain how the company saves so much in taxes, despite generating massive profits each year, the U.K. newspaper The Independent is reporting, citing a discussion with a member of the parliament's Treasury Select Committee.

The Independent claims that Google paid only 6 million pounds ($9.4 million) in U.K. taxes last year, despite generating a … Read more

Daily-deals provider Groupon is having a tough time keeping its salespeople happy, according to a new report.

The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, has reported that increasing numbers of Groupon salespeople are looking for new jobs after becoming disgruntled with the way they're treated by their employer. The Journal sat down with Mike Silagadze, CEO of software firm Top Hat Monocle, who revealed that he has received "hundreds of resumes" from Groupon salespeople.

According to the Journal, the daily-deals provider has made it too difficult for its sales force, which accounts for nearly half of its more … Read more

Research In Motion is trying to find suitors for a cloud-services provider it bought back in October, according to a report.

According to Reuters, citing sources, RIM is trying to find buyers that would take NewBay off of its hands. NewBay, which RIM acquired back in October for a reported $100 million, offers cloud services to operators and device makers trying to deliver multimedia to handsets, PCs, tablets, and televisions. Reuters' sources didn't say how much RIM might be trying to fetch in a sale.

RIM's reported NewBay move is just the latest rumor to fly about its … Read more

Paying someone to do design work can become expensive. That's not to say that designers aren't always worth their cost, but if funds are tight, it might be time to look toward another solution.

MakeBadge.com offers free tools for creating badges or business cards with its easy-to-use online editor. You can even import your logo or other graphics, free of charge. Here's how to get started:

First you'll want to head over to MakeBadge.com. Once there, you can get started on your business cards or badges right away -- the editor loads and … Read more

After posting a disappointing quarter for the period ended June 30, Sharp has announced plans to reduce its workforce.

The company today said that it plans to cut 5,000 jobs by the end of March (PDF), reducing its global workforce by 8.8 percent to land at 51,700 employees. The cuts will come via voluntary and mandatory retirement. Sharp also plans to make "off-balance-sheet arrangements."

Sharp's workforce reductions comes amid troubling times for the company. Earlier today, Sharp announced that its revenue was down 28.4 percent year-over-year to land at 458.6 billion yen ($… Read more