As earnings season wound down this week an upbeat forecast from Cisco Systems Inc. sparked a jump in trading in IT, while news of shakeups at Borland Software Corp. and Gateway Inc. caused concern for technology investors.

Plextor, perhaps best known to Mac users for its external optical drives and personal video recorder (PVR) devices, has entered the Network Attached Storage (NAS) market with the introduction of its PX-EH line. Prices start at US$299.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. detailed on Monday its first cell phone for the European market that includes support for digital TV services.

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates is planning this week to unveil the company's strategy for the government IT market, an intensely competitive area that has seen open-source software gain a strong foothold.

IBM Corp. plans to unveil a server, storage, networking and software bundle based on its BladeCenter servers targeting the retail market Monday. Known as the Systems Solutions for Retail Stores, the bundle follows similar packages IBM has already announced for the banking industry and small to midsize businesses.

As consumer demand for online video swells, America Online Inc. (AOL) announced Tuesday that it has acquired Truveo Inc., a provider of video search, to boost its capabilities in this area, considered one of the hottest segments of the search engine market.

The drive to replace DVD technology with newer discs boasting greater storage capacity has come down to two major competing formats, and the coming marketplace battle will be bad for companies and users, the head of a major U.S. technology products retailer said Friday.