Scarlet Pruitt

PeopleSoft Inc.'s board of directors again rejected Oracle Corp.'s bid for the company Friday, and recommended that its shareholders also shoot down the US$6.3 billion offer, saying that the deal is not in the best interest of the company and would likely run afoul of antitrust laws.

Analyst firm International Data Corp. (IDC) threw some cold water on the hotspot hype this week, predicting that although worldwide commercial Wi-Fi locations are set to grow 57 per cent annually over the next five years, the market is still young and rife with uncertainty.

PeopleSoft Inc. commenced its exchange offer for all shares of J.D. Edwards & Co. Thursday, in an effort to speed up the US$1.75 billion acquisition in the face of Oracle Corp.'s stepped-up bid to buy PeopleSoft.

Oracle Corp. bumped up its unsolicited offer to buy rival PeopleSoft Inc. from US$5.1 billion to approximately US$6.3 billion Wednesday, while at the same time announcing that it was filing suit against PeopleSoft, its board of directors and J.D. Edwards & Co. for their efforts to stave off the acquisition.

PeopleSoft Inc. is amending its agreement to purchase J.D. Edwards & Co., in an effort to speed up the transaction in the face of moves by rival Oracle Corp. to buy PeopleSoft.

Chip designer ARM Ltd. introduced a new instruction set for its ARM architecture Monday, saying it will give consumers longer battery life, better performance and lower memory costs from their mobile devices.

The U.K. Information Commissioner set down guidelines this week for workplace monitoring, such as the interception of worker's e-mail and telephone messages, recommending that employees must be clearly informed of the purpose and nature of the surveillance.

British Telecommunications PLC (BT) said Monday that it has exceeded its target of signing up one million wholesale broadband connections by mid-2003, allowing it to speed rollout of new broadband exchanges.