Corporate & legal

Verizon Wireless has confirmed earlier reports that it's ready to enter the Netbook market. Spokeswoman Brenda Raney, who was quoted to a similar effect in an Internetnews.com story Friday, said Saturday that the plan is for the company to start selling 3G-enabled Netbooks by the end of the second quarter, or by June.

Unfortunately, Raney could offer little else in the way of details regarding pricing or potential PC partners. Crave's Erica Ogg suggested Dell would be an obvious partnering candidate. Dell already has a relationship with Verizon parent company Vodafone, which has sold Dell Netbooks in … Read more

Cloud computing is the first major IT market disruption that has taken place in the world of open source software, "the wisdom of crowds" and the community collaboration revolution of Web 2.0. The concept of the cloud is trying to grow and evolve in an atmosphere in which technologists expect input on the technology they are being asked to rely on, and IT management expects input on the strategies they are being asked to adopt.

Never has that fact been more evident then in the events that have taken place over the last two days. The leaking of the Open Cloud Manifesto … Read more

These days, everyone's a gamer. If not a traditionalist firing away at bad guys through a high-end video game console and large TV, he or she might just be in an ongoing Scrabble duel with a Facebook friend or hooked on an addictive iPhone game like ReMovem.

Nowhere was this notion of the mainstreaming of gaming more pronounced than at this week's Game Developers Conference, the massive gathering of which some consider all the more critical to the industry this year, given market forces. Sure, the video game industry is growing and some say it's even recession-resistant, … Read more

Some broadband users are considering going back to dial-up as the tough economic climate forces them to cut their household budgets, according to a story published Friday in the Chicago Tribune.

While it's unlikely Americans will ditch broadband for dial-up en masse, there are likely to be some people who find the $20 to $50 monthly fees for DSL or cable modem broadband service to be too high, when dial-up providers such as NetZero are offering new $9.95 service plans.

One Florida man, Arnold Zimmerman, 66, said that after his work hours got reduced and his stock portfolio … Read more

Research In Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphones, reportedly is preparing to announce a new video download service for its BlackBerry phones at the CTIA trade show next week in Las Vegas.

The blog NewTeeVee, which reported the news earlier this week, said that the service will be offered as an unlimited monthly subscription service. And it adds that RIM has already signed several broadcast and cable partners to offer up content. But instead of streaming the video over the 3G wireless network, RIM is planning a service that will allow the videos to be downloaded using Wi-Fi connections, … Read more

Best Buy's fourth quarter was better than anticipated even though profits were down from a year ago amid an economic downturn. The company also noted that the quarter ended stronger than it began, indicating that consumer spending stabilized. And the Circuit City liquidation certainly didn't hurt Best Buy's cause.

The company reported net income of $570 million, or $1.35 a share, on revenue of $14.7 billion. In the same quarter a year a year ago, Best Buy reported net income of $737 million, or $1.71 a share, on revenue of $13.4 billion. Excluding … Read more

Skype, the Internet calling service owned by eBay, is expected to announce an application for the iPhone at next week's wireless CTIA tradeshow in Las Vegas, according to tech blogger Om Malik of GigaOM.

Skype is keeping mum on the announcement and has declined to comment on the rumors. But the company is hosting a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Las Vegas the day before the show kicks off. And it's likely the news will be announced there.

Skype admitted earlier this year that it's working on an application for the iPhone. Scott Durchslag, the company's … Read more

Google is eliminating about 200 sales and marketing jobs, the company said in a blog post Thursday, blaming the move on overlapping areas and overhiring during a more optimistic time.

"Today we have informed Googlers that we plan to reduce the number of roles within our sales and marketing organizations by just under 200 globally," said Omid Kordestani, senior vice president of global sales and business development, in the blog post. "We did look at a number of different options but ultimately concluded that we had to restructure our organizations in order to improve our effectiveness and … Read more

Research In Motion's new mobile application store is set to launch on April 1 at the CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas, BusinessWeek reported this week.

Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM, which makes the popular BlackBerry devices, is slated to give a keynote address on the opening day of the trade show and conference. And the company is expected to announce the new application store there.

The BlackBerry application store, which will be called BlackBerry App World, was announced in October 2008. And it is one of several application stores that have been announced to take on Apple's App Store for the iPhone. … Read more