Stories by Marc Ferranti

Wall Street Beat: Confidence buoys tech despite turmoil

Even though a smattering of IT vendors including Dell and Nortel issued earnings warnings this week, industry insiders remain hopeful that tech companies won't be dragged down as Wall Street giants collapse.

CES - Slouching toward Convergence 2.0

Gadgets have always taken center stage at the Consumer Electronics Show, but this year more than ever, even the coolest devices seem to be mere means to an end -- access to content and services whenever and wherever you want them.

Q&A: Gates' role as innovator, deal-maker, philanthropist

Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates has been giving keynote speeches at Las Vegas conventions, including the Consumer Electronics Show and the now-defunct Comdex, for decades. Before his last CES keynote speech as a full-time company employe...

Rejected by BEA, Oracle sets bid deadline

Oracle said that BEA Systems has officially rejected its offer to acquire the company. BEA had previously said the offer was too low.

Wall Street Beat: Tech looks good to investors

Amid uncertainty about the greater economy, technology companies are looking good to investors. Strong earnings from Red Hat this week and Oracle last week, continued excitement over mergers and acquisitions, and solid forecasts for global component ...

Wall Street Beat: M&A, VC funding stay hot

Merger and acquisition news from companies as diverse as Yahoo Inc., Cognos Inc., and MetroPCS Communications Inc. heated up IT investor interest this week, shoring up confidence in the sector even as credit-market concerns continued to buffet the st...

Wall Street Beat: BEA offers peek into market psyche

Market reaction to BEA Systems' stock options backdating inquiry this week provided a clue to investor psychology, while RealNetworks and Microsoft offered a look at the future of aspects of the software and services business.

CES - Vendors push multimedia connectivity for the masses

Facing an explosion of content for PCs and handhelds via Internet, cable and wireless technologies, vendors at CES are spotlighting products designed to make it easier to transmit and manage multimedia data across many types of devices.

Samsung executive pleads guilty in DRAM case

An executive at Samsung Electronics, the world's largest manufacturer of dynamic RAM (DRAM), has agreed to plead guilty and serve jail time for participating in a global price-fixing conspiracy, according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

M-Audio sweetens products with free music software

Home-recording enthusiasts and consumers looking for a quick way to get into music creation on their PCs have yet another application to check out: Session, from Avid Technology's M-Audio unit.

Avanquest jumps on iPod accessory bandwagon

Avanquest Software is adding fuel to the burgeoning iPod accessory market with the launch of six new software titles designed to provide multimedia editing and content, as well as organizational tools to a growing number of users.

Show fuels digital media revolution

Judging from products and services announced at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and comments from industry movers and shakers, the digital media revolution is just beginning.

The top 10 stories of 2005

Midway through the decade, new pricing and business models championed by relative upstarts such as Google and Salesforce.com are forcing established players to reinvent themselves. Meanwhile, old-line companies that have failed to meet the challenges...

Ex WorldCom CFO Sullivan gets 5 years in jail

Former WorldCom Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday for his role in engineering the US$11 billion accounting fraud that led to the bankruptcy of the telecommunications powerhouse.