Sun Microsystems will pay US$1 billion for Swedish software company MySQL, whose open-source database is used for some of the most widely visited Web sites in the world.

Oracle has agreed to buy BEA Systems for about US$8.5 billion, the companies announced Wednesday.

Nearly half of businesses are in some phase of preparing to update desktops to Windows Vista, with small businesses moving the fastest to implement the OS, according to a new report released Monday.

A group of technology companies is offering to share some of its patents to encourage the development of environmentally friendly technologies.

IBM on Monday said fourth-quarter revenue, aided by exchange rates and sales outside the U.S., stood at US$28.9 billion, an increase of 10 percent over the same period in 2006.

Jeff Raikes, the president of Microsoft's Business Division, plans to retire in September, the company said on Thursday.

A laptop under US$100 could reach desks if a new venture formed by former chief technology officer of One Laptop Per Child, Mary Lou Jepsen, can deliver on its promises.

Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone is quitting after six years with the company, to join a venture capital firm. His replacement, Jim Safka, currently heads Primal Ventures, the venture capital division of Ask.com's parent company IAC.

The European Commission ended its antitrust investigation into Apple after the company agreed to reduce the price of music downloads from its iTunes Web site in the U.K., the European Union's antitrust regulator said Wednesday.

U.S. government agencies need to take additional steps to protect against cybersecurity problems after a series of congressional hearings and reports exposed several weaknesses in 2007, representatives of Symantec said.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment will crack open the door to its music vaults on Jan. 15, taking the DRM copy-prevention wrapper off a limited selection of downloadable tracks.

Mitchell Baker has stepped down as the CEO of Mozilla Corporation, where she helped make the Firefox Web browser a potent rival to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Intel's resignation from the One Laptop Per Child Project's board of directors will have "no impact" on the group's operations, since the chip maker contributed little to the project since joining last year, OLPC President Walter Bender said in an interview.

If criminals were to target unsecured wireless routers, they could create an attack that could piggyback across thousands of Wi-Fi networks in urban areas like Chicago or New York City, according to researchers at Indiana University.

IBM has bought XIV, an Israeli manufacturer of SAN (storage area network) equipment. XIV's main product is Nextra, a storage system based on a grid of standard hardware components.

The One Laptop Per Child project suffered a blow this week, with Chief Technology Officer Mary Lou Jepsen quitting the nonprofit to start a for-profit company to commercialize technology she invented with OLPC.

New rules will go into effect on Jan. 1 that prohibit air passengers in the U.S. from carrying spare lithium batteries in their checked baggage.

Microsoft Corp. announced Tuesday that it would post the release candidate of Windows XP Service Pack 3 to its download site this evening at approximately 6 p.m. Eastern time.

Strong laptop sales are making this a hot holiday shopping season for PC makers, according to a report from IDC.

Microsoft Corp. confirmed Monday that it is investigating reports that a security update for Internet Explorer issued last week has crippled some users' ability to get on the Web with the browser.