Corporate & legal

Technology giant Cisco Systems said Monday it plans to sell $4 billion in bonds to pad its corporate wallet with cash, spurring speculation that the company is on the hunt for companies to buy. But exactly which companies it might target and how much it is willing to pay are still unknown.

Cisco has shared some general thoughts on how it plans to spend the extra cash. For one, it will use a portion of the funds to pay down its $500 million of floating rate debt that comes due this month, according to Terry Alberstein, a spokesman for Cisco.… Read more

Microsoft said on Tuesday that it has hired Nissan Motor communications chief Simon Sproule to serve as vice president of corporate communications.

Sproule will start at Microsoft on March 2, the company said, reporting to Mich Mathews, senior vice president of Microsoft's overall marketing efforts.

The post has been vacant since September, when former communications VP Larry Cohen left to serve as Bill Gates' chief of staff.

Sproule, 40, spent five years at Nissan, and before that held several positions at Ford Motor, including vice president of communications for Aston Martin, Jaguar, and Land Rover North America.

Business management on-demand software provider NetSuite on Tuesday reported that its fourth-quarter revenue rose 30 percent from a year ago and its net loss shrank.

Excluding stock-related and other expenses, the company would have posted a profit of 1 cent per share for the quarter--its first profitable quarter on that basis, the San Mateo, Calif.-based company said in a statement.

Analysts had estimated that the company would post a loss of 1 cent per share, excluding items, according to Reuters Estimates. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $41.4 million and the net loss was 7 cents per … Read more

Nokia unveiled its latest XpressMusic phone, the Nokia 5630, on Tuesday.

The new phone, which is less than a half-inch thick, is a full-featured multimedia handset designed for music lovers. It will debut next week at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The phone comes with a 4GB microSD card for music, but users can also get external memory cards with up to 16GB of storage. Users can listen through an integrated 3.5mm headset jack or on stereo headsets via Bluetooth. Another cool feature is the "Say and Play" function, which lets people control the music … Read more

Microsoft's patent push is paying off.

The software maker, which stepped up its rush to the patent office five years ago, has reached a milestone, having received its 10,000th U.S. patent earlier this month.

The efforts have propelled Microsoft to the upper echelon among patent filers, though IBM still gets more patents issued than any other company. Last year, Big Blue became the first company to have 4,000 patents issued in a single year.

Microsoft, meanwhile, has risen to the top 5 among patent recipients and for the last two years has topped a key ranking … Read more

Forrester Research is cutting its workforce by about 5 percent, or 50 jobs, worldwide, the company said on Monday.

The research firm expects to incur pre-tax expenses of about $2.5 million to $3 million in the first quarter related mostly to severance and benefits-related costs.

"We have made this difficult decision in response to challenging global economic conditions," George F. Colony, Forrester's chief executive, said in a statement. "Forrester has lived through tough economic times before. We are confident that with our role-based strategy and our current offerings, we are well-poised to successfully deliver what … Read more

Microsoft has licensed its technical know-how to nearly every company, including rivals such as Apple and Nokia.

Now Redmond can add Google to the list. To help power the Google Sync product that was announced on Monday, the search giant has licensed Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol for sharing information between a server and mobile phone.

Google Sync allows users to synchronize their contacts, and in some cases calendar information, with Google's Web-based services. It works with a range of phones including Windows Mobile phones, Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry, and phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

Generally, companies … Read more

Microsoft is gearing up to take on rival Apple in the smartphone market.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Microsoft is getting ready to launch an online marketplace akin to Apple's App Store. In August, Microsoft had started looking for people to head up the new application store. Microsoft is also readying a more sophisticated version of its mobile operating system called Windows Mobile 6.5, the Journal reported.

Smartphones are sophisticated mobile phones that offer users access to the Web and e-mail, as well as, provide phone calling and all kinds of other messaging options. This category … Read more

Salesforce.com this week disclosed that Steve Cakebread, its president and chief strategy officer, has left the company.

The departure, effective February 1, was for "personal reasons" and to allow Cakebread "to pursue other professional opportunities." The news came in an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.

Cakebread had been with Salesforce since May 2002, serving as the chief financial officer for six years. He became president and chief strategy officer in 2008.

The Wall Street Journal reported, citing analyst reports, that two other high-level executives may also have left the company.… Read more