With less than two weeks to go before the start of the H-1B visa rush, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) released rules Wednesday to prevent applicants from trying to unfairly boost their odds in the expected visa lottery.

Science fiction writer, inventor, scuba diver, and visionary Sir Arthur C. Clarke died Tuesday at his home on the island nation of Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

Google plans to roll out enhancements to its online spreadsheet program, including the ability to display data in new ways using lightweight "gadgets" and to notify users via e-mail when data is changed.

IBM has opened a new data center in Dublin aimed at letting businesses use its computing power and applications for collaborative projects such as software and IT services development.

Microsoft will release Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on Tuesday to a wider audience, according to information posted on Amazon.com and reports from a Web site that correctly called SP1's ship date last month.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a request by Microsoft to halt an antitrust suit that Novell filed against the company for anticompetitive behavior it said harmed its WordPerfect and QuattroPro business in the 1990s.

The second time may prove to be the charm in EMC's attempt to acquire Iomega, as the consumer and small-business storage maker said Monday that EMC's latest offer is superior to other potential deals.

The European Commission fined Microsoft a massive ?899 million (US$1.3 billion) for continued failure to honor the 2004 antitrust ruling against it, Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes said Wednesday.

Microsoft confirmed a number of high-level executive changes, moves that could be designed to better position the company to digest an acquisition of Yahoo, an analyst said.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang cited the growing online advertising market and his company's position to take advantage of that growth as reasons for shareholders to reject Microsoft's acquisition bid, he said in a letter to shareholders Wednesday.

Intel offices in Munich were raided by the European Commission on Tuesday as part of an ongoing antitrust investigation.

Microsoft said its US$44.6 billion offer to purchase Yahoo is "fair" and hinted that it may pursue a hostile takeover of the Internet company, according to a statement Microsoft made Monday in response to Yahoo's formal rejection of its buyout offer.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates talked publicly for the first time on Monday about the next big Office release, code-named Office 14, which he said will give users new ways to access their applications online.

Yahoo has not reached a decision about Microsoft's acquisition offer and is considering "a wide range of potential strategic alternatives," Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said in an e-mail to employees on Wednesday.

Cisco Systems posted solid financial results for its most recent quarter on Wednesday, but the networking giant lowered its financial forecast for the months ahead, citing a slowdown in U.S. and European markets.

Business Objects SA founder Bernard Liautaud resigned as chairman and chief strategy officer at the company following the closing of its acquisition by SAP AG earlier this month.

Open source, Apple computers, green technology, the rise of users and the proliferation of three-dimensional printing are among the hot trends IT shops should look out for in the next few years, according to Gartner.

Sony reported record sales and net profit for the last three months of the fiscal year on the back of strong sales in its core electronics division, it said Thursday.

A new report from Forrester Research declares that the wave of mega-acquisitions in the software industry is over for now, though big vendors will continue to snap up smaller firms as they round out their portfolios.

SAP reported a 10 percent rise in revenue for the fourth quarter, but earnings fell 6 percent compared to a year earlier, dragged down in part by the cost of launching Business ByDesign, a new offering for the mid-market, the company said Wednesday.