Cisco Systems has bumped up its buyout offer to $3.41 billion for video conferencing company Tandberg.

The network giant's initial bid received a thumbs down from most of Tandberg's shareholders, who felt the initial $3 billion offer undervalued the company.

So far, more than 40 percent of Tandberg's stockholders, which includes investment firm OppenheimerFunds and Norwegian government pension fund Folketrygdfondet, have pre-accepted the new offer.

Cisco announced on October 1 that it was pursuing a $3 billion cash takeover of Tandberg, a major global supplier of video conferencing equipment with dual headquarters in Oslo, Norway, and … Read more

I want to be a force for good. Doesn't everyone?

Which is why I was delighted to be moved by the words of Microsoft's Bill Gates during a CNBC TV special in which he and Warren Buffett discussed the meaning of life. Or something similar.

Asked by an audience member what he thought of Steve Jobs and Apple, Gates began with an insouciant smile.

Then he tossed garlands of roses and pearls of praise at the Apple co-founder.

He said: "He's done a fantastic job."

Which was charming in itself. But he continued to describe … Read more

Vermont is an interesting place with some very interesting residents. Brigham Young and John Deere are both said to hail from this mountainous state.

But will either turn out to be quite as fascinating as Jacob Rehm?

According to WCAX News, Rehm stands accused of illegally borrowing a $500,000 tour bus and taking it for a little spin. Rehm is a former employee of the bus company and will make an appearance in the Vermont District Court on Tuesday.

However, something else will also be making a court appearance at the same time--a video entitled "The Fabulous Bus Ride,&… Read more

The thing about the finest of soap operas is that they must create conflict in order to inspire truly dramatic love.

This is why I was rendered temporarily cynical by a Verizon print ad in a recent edition of Sports Illustrated. The ad was for the Droid. The words were directed at the sensitive regions of the iPhone. But the sentiment seemed to refer to a slightly larger picture.

In case you have not seen this particular work of art, it is headlined "This is a world of 'Nope', Nuh-Uh' and 'Sorry, Charlie.'" The first line gives a … Read more

For Madison Avenue, Facebook just got a little less free.

Last week, the massive social network announced that brands, advertisers, and marketers that want to run contests or sweepstakes on its platform have to go through an approval process first.

Getting that approval could be a new revenue stream for Facebook: according to multiple sources in the marketing industry, they're being told that running a promotion in a Facebook application or "fan page" requires buying ad space too.

It's pricey. The minimum ad buy is $10,000 for 30 days, using Facebook's self-service advertising system, … Read more

Sometimes a man can be betrayed by his wife in a good way.

A 61-year-old woman from Bridgend, Wales, had been married to her husband, for almost 20 years when, according to a court report from the Telegraph, she noticed a curious message on their computer at home.

She focused and realized that the message had been sent by an underage girl to whom her husband had been sending messages in a chat room. The message was of a sexual nature and included her husband's original message to the girl.

Perhaps some spouses would have been so stunned as … Read more

Corporations can be heinous places. All day, people wander around, playing politics like so many Lindsay Lohans in "Mean Girls."

So today, one wonders just what machinations are being endured by Simon Aldous, the Microsoft Partner Group manager who was Wednesday quoted by PCR as suggesting that Windows 7 was rather inspired by the simplicity of the Mac OS. Indeed, Aldous declared that Microsoft's new operating system was designed to "create a Mac look."

In what appears to be a somewhat hurriedly written post on the Windows Team blog titled, "How we really designed … Read more

Sometimes you take a wrong turning in life and, Wednesday, a slight concussion led my eyes to fall upon the pages of PCR.

It is a little more intelligent than my normal reading matter, but I am very grateful for its interview with Simon Aldous, Microsoft's partner group manager.

He was quoted, for example, as saying: "One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use."

You're waiting for the punchline, right? You know, the one about … Read more

You might suffer paralysis in several digits when I tell you that there is now a dating site exclusively for those deemed gorgeous.

BeautifulPeople.com exists to protect its members from having to espy the corpulent, the disproportioned, and the downright fugly-puglies.

On its home page, next to a photograph of a quite impossibly eugenic couple, the site presents its most famous media quote: "The sexiest Web site in the world today."

Entertainment Weekly? No, CNN.

Now, another august publication, the Telegraph, has reported some painful news from this online island of the beautiful: BeautifulPeople.com says British … Read more