Microsoft has asked Intel to develop a 16-core version of its low-power Atom chip for use in servers, part of a wider effort to reduce power consumption in its massive data centers, a Microsoft executive said Thursday.

In its first earnings report since becoming a standalone company, Motorola Mobility said it was profitable in the fourth quarter of 2010 and shipped more than twice as many smartphones during the quarter as it did in all of 2009.

Apple was the world's third-largest PC vendor during the fourth quarter last year if iPad shipments are included, research firm Canalys said in a study released Wednesday.

Intel and IBM will soon provide details of their latest high-end server processors, which may contain cutting-edge technologies that could ultimately be found in future PC and server chips.

SAP saw revenue rise 27 percent in the fourth quarter but profits dropped by more than a third due to increased provisions linked to litigation with Oracle related to its former TomorrowNow unit, the company said Wednesday.

Hewlett-Packard has invited journalists to an event March 14 where CEO Léo Apotheker is expected to lay out his plans for the company, including anticipated greater investments in enterprise software.

VMware's fourth-quarter revenue jumped 37 percent as businesses increased spending on its virtualization software, the company announced Monday.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on Thursday reported net profit for the fourth quarter that beat forecasts, due mainly to income from a patent license and a legal settlement with Samsung.

An intellectual property expert has uncovered 43 instances where it appears that Google copied Java code without permission in the most recent versions of the Android operating system.

Four Hewlett-Packard board members who reportedly played a central role in the company's decision about whether to replace CEO Mark Hurd are themselves being replaced, HP announced Thursday after U.S. financial markets closed.

Google co-founder Larry Page will take over as Google CEO in April from Eric Schmidt, who will remain with the company as executive chairman.

Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft's unveiling Wednesday of a series of data warehousing appliances has some observers sounding the death knell for HP's Neoview platform.

Cisco has invested in Tilera, a developer of multicore processors for cloud computing and communications, as part of the chip maker's $45 million round announced this week.

Apple on Tuesday reported record revenue of US$26.74 billion for its first fiscal quarter, driven by sales of iPhones, Macs and iPads.

IBM said Tuesday that net income for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 rose 9 percent to US$5.3 billion year over year, helped by strong performance in growth markets as well as software and mainframe sales. Revenue for the quarter was $29 billion, a 7 percent increase.

With Steve Jobs taking another medical leave, Apple customers, investors, partners and employees are again left to wonder what implications this will have for the company's stock, financial performance, product development and business operations.

The number of companies planning to invest in their ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems will drop slightly this year, according to a Forrester Research report, even as IT spending overall is expected to rise.

SAP on Thursday reported preliminary results for the fourth quarter and year ending Dec. 31 that showed a strong uptick in software revenue, spurred in part by its acquisition of Sybase last year.

Worldwide PC shipments were slower than expected during the fourth quarter of 2010, hurt by competition from tablets and a slowdown in consumer spending, IDC said in a study released on Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Justice is preparing documents for an antitrust challenge of Google's planned acquisition of travel software maker ITA Software, according to reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.