FRANKFURT | Mon Dec 3, 2012 9:02am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Mobile telecoms equipment joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks, which is focusing on its core business, is to sell its optical fiber unit to Marlin Equity Partners for an undisclosed sum. Up to 1,900 employees, mainly in Germany and Portugal, will be transferred to the new company, NSN said on ...

By Umesh Desai and Pete Sweeney HONG KONG/SHANGHAI | Sun Dec 2, 2012 4:06pm EST HONG KONG/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese search engine company Baidu Inc paid a lower interest rate than Google Inc when it sold $750 million in 10-year bonds last month. China's three dominant dot-com names - Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent Holdings Ltd - have successfully ...

By Tom Bergin LONDON | Fri Nov 30, 2012 2:47pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and Germany may have missed out on a combined $1 billion in sales tax since online marketplace eBay picked a tiny Luxembourg office as its base for EU sales, a shift that lawmakers say should now be investigated. EBay's nomination of Luxembourg unit eBay Europe Sarl - w...

Fri Nov 30, 2012 11:17am EST (Reuters) - Shares of gaming company Zynga Inc fell as much as 10 percent, a day after the "Farmville" creator reached an agreement with Facebook Inc that reduces its dependence on the social networking giant. The companies reported in regulatory filings on Thursday that they have reached an agreement to amend a 2010 deal that was wid...

FRANKFURT | Fri Nov 30, 2012 11:02am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - SAP's co-founder Hasso Plattner sold shares in the German business software maker worth 120 million euros ($155.74 million), divesting a portion of his overall stake, the company said on Friday. To protect the stock price, a bank will place 10 million euros worth of the shares every month unt...

By Claire Davenport BRUSSELS | Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:19am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union member states are preparing to fight as a bloc alongside the United States to prevent a move by Russia and countries in Africa to impose a levy on internet traffic and make it easier to track users' activities. The showdown over the policing and adminis...

By Miyoung Kim SEOUL | Fri Nov 30, 2012 2:21am EST SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co plans to keep the bulk of its manufacturing inhouse but reiterated a pledge to improve working conditions at its suppliers after admitting excessive overtime and fines for employees in China, a senior executive said on Friday. New York-based China Labor Wa...

By Nathan Layne and Joseph Menn TOKYO/SAN FRANCISCO | Fri Nov 30, 2012 1:46am EST TOKYO/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada's Universal Entertainment funneled at least $30 million to an ex-consultant for the Philippines gaming authority who is now at the center of a bribery investigation, according to sources and company re...

By Poornima Gupta and Nadia Damouni and Paul Sandle SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK/LONDON | Fri Nov 30, 2012 1:36am EST SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - For Leo Apotheker, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, a July 2011 meeting with Autonomy founder Mike Lynch at a chic seaside resort in France was pivotal to his effort to remake a storied technolog...

SHANGHAI | Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:34pm EST SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Apple Inc's latest iPhone has received final clearance from Chinese regulators, paving the way for a December debut in a highly competitive market where the lack of a new model had severely eroded its share of product sales. China is Apple's second-largest market and its Chinese fans are eagerly...

By Alexei Oreskovic and Gerry Shih SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Nov 29, 2012 8:00pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc and Zynga Inc severed the cozy ties that once bound the Internet industry's closest couple, revising a years-old partnership between the two companies. The two companies reported in regulatory filings on Thursday that they had rea...

By Nichola Groom LOS ANGELES | Thu Nov 29, 2012 5:44pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp unveiled on Thursday an in-vehicle communications and entertainment system it hopes automakers will adopt as they seek to attract younger, more connected consumers. Sprint Velocity allows drivers to connect mobile phones to their vehicles through...

By Malathi Nayak SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Nov 29, 2012 3:45pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sony Corp sold over 525,000 PlayStation3 consoles in the United States during the week of Black Friday that kicks off the holiday shopping season, surpassing sales of Nintendo's new Wii U. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc said on Thursday that sales of its six-y...

By Bill Rigby SEATTLE | Thu Nov 29, 2012 2:56pm EST SEATTLE (Reuters) - Consumer sales of Windows-powered personal computers fell 21 percent overall last month, figures released by a leading retail research firm showed on Thursday, indicating a lackluster debut for Microsoft Corp's Windows 8 operating system. Many in the industry said Windows 8 m...

By Gerry Shih SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Nov 29, 2012 1:50pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Twitter Inc's steadily tightening grip over the 140-character messages on its network has set off a spirited debate in Silicon Valley over whether a social media company should or should not lay claim over its user-generated content. That debate has now landed in ...

By Tej Sapru Thu Nov 29, 2012 1:28pm EST (Reuters) - Cable maker Belden Inc said it will sell its Thermax and Raydex cable businesses to diversified manufacturer Carlisle Cos Inc for about $265 million, including debt, as it looks to exit the aerospace and defense markets. Belden, which also makes cables and networking products for the broadcast and consu...

TORONTO | Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:42am EST TORONTO (Reuters) - Shares in Research In Motion Ltd rose more than 10 percent at the open on the Toronto Stock Exchange after Goldman Sachs upgraded the BlackBerry maker's stock to a "buy" from a "neutral" recommendation. The stock traded at C$12.02 ($12.10), up from a close of C$11.00 on Wednesday, after opening at...

Thu Nov 29, 2012 8:44am EST (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc said it will buy privately held network traffic-management software maker Cariden Technologies Inc for about $141 million in cash. Cariden will be integrated into Cisco's service provider networking group unit, Cisco said.California-based Cariden supplies network planning, design and traffic management sol...

Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:54am EST LYON, France (Reuters) - Vivendi's SFR launched France's first fourth-generation mobile service open to the public on Thursday, kicking off a race with rivals in an increasingly competitive French market. SFR launched the service in the southern French city of Lyon and will add Montpellier in mid-December.Lille, Marseille, Strasbourg, ...

By Sruthi Ramakrishnan and Sriraj Kalluvila Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:45am EST (Reuters) - Embattled solid-state hard drive maker OCZ Technology Group Inc is sourcing a critical component from multiple vendors after a supply shortage caught it off guard. "Recently we haven't had any significant NAND supply issues, mostly because we diversified ourselves to multi...

By Maria Sheahan and Rhys Jones FRANKFURT/LONDON | Thu Nov 29, 2012 6:39am EST FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) - Germany's Siemens AG promised investors its deal to buy Invensys' rail business for a hefty 1.74 billion pounds ($2.78 billion) would contribute to boosting profits in a tough economy. The engineering conglomerate, Germany's most valuable c...

HELSINKI/FRANKFURT | Thu Nov 29, 2012 5:28am EST HELSINKI/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Mobile network equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) will cut 650 jobs as it shuts down its plant in Bruchsal, Germany, a spokeswoman for the company said on Thursday. The 50-50 joint venture between Nokia Oyj and Siemens AG is carrying out a cost-cutting plan, which i...

By Jeanny Kao TAIPEI | Thu Nov 29, 2012 1:44am EST TAIPEI (Reuters) - A tender for Taiwanese chip maker ProMOS Technologies Inc's idled fabrication plant will be reopened next month after the deadline for an initial sale attempt passed without bids, a semi-government body said, as interest from foreign firms raised hopes a deal could be done. The...

By Miyoung Kim SEOUL | Wed Nov 28, 2012 11:57pm EST SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co is taking aim at its Japanese rivals with an Android-powered digital camera that allows users to swiftly and wirelessly upload pictures to social networking sites. The Galaxy camera lets users connect to a mobile ne...

By Alistair Barr LAS VEGAS | Wed Nov 28, 2012 8:00pm EST LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc's cloud computing division is going after big corporate customers, a new focus that will put the fast-growing unit into direct competition with some of the world's largest technology companies. Andy Jassy, head of Amazon Web Services or AWS, criticized t...

NEW YORK | Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:03pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new shareholder lawsuit over Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of British software firm Autonomy has named Big Four audit firms Deloitte and KPMG as defendants, alleging they missed numerous red flags about Autonomy's accounting. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in federal court in San Jose, Californ...

By Bill Rigby BELLEVUE, Washington | Wed Nov 28, 2012 2:47pm EST BELLEVUE, Washington (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer defended his company's record on innovation and financial performance at the annual shareholders' meeting, but conceded that he should have moved faster to get into the booming tablet market dominated by A...

Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:27am EST (Reuters) - Chinese solar panel makers Yingli Green Energy Holding Co and JA Solar Holdings Co Ltd joined rivals in saying that they would turn to their domestic market to drive shipment growth in the face of steep U.S. import duties and a slump in panel prices. Yingli expects shipments to grow rapidly in markets like China in the four...

By Tarmo Virki HELSINKI | Wed Nov 28, 2012 6:30am EST HELSINKI (Reuters) - Canada's Research In Motion (RIM) has lost a contract dispute over the use of Nokia patents in a case which could halt sales of its BlackBerry phones if it does not reach a deal to pay royalties to the Finnish company. Nokia said on Wednesday a Swedish arbitrator had ruled...

By Joachim Dagenborg OSLO | Wed Nov 28, 2012 5:18am EST OSLO (Reuters) - The startup behind the algebra app that overtook Angry Birds as No. 1 in the Norwegian app store earlier this year aims to replicate that success globally next year with four more mathematics games. The goal of WeWantToKnow AS - to teach 12 years of math curriculum in some 3...

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON | Tue Nov 27, 2012 7:33pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal regulators investigating Google for a range of accusations of antitrust violations took a stand this week on how to handle a type of patent similar to ones in the Google case, but also exposed a rift between reg...

By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Nov 27, 2012 6:57pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc plans to sell and lease back its campus in Austin, Texas, to raise cash and fund its chipmaking business as it diversifies beyond the struggling PC industry into new markets. AMD expects to sell the 58-acre site for between $150 mill...

By Bill Rigby SEATTLE | Tue Nov 27, 2012 6:27pm EST SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses in the month since the launch, according to one of the new co-heads of the Windows unit, setting a faster pace than Windows 7 three years ago. The sales number represents a solid but unspectacular start for the touch-frien...

By Alistair Barr Tue Nov 27, 2012 6:24pm EST (Reuters) - Internet sales jumped more than 30 percent on Cyber Monday, making it the biggest online shopping day ever, according to data released on Tuesday. Walmart.com, the online division of Walmart U.S., had its best sales day in history, a spokeswoman said.Cyber Monday also was a record day for sales of A...

By Emi Emoto and Tim Kelly TOKYO | Tue Nov 27, 2012 4:08pm EST TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp has been approached by at least three investment banks offering to sell its battery business as the struggling Japanese group looks to offload non-core assets and focus on reviving its consumer electronics business, banking sources said. Selling the unit, w...

HELSINKI | Tue Nov 27, 2012 3:13pm EST HELSINKI (Reuters) - Early success for the iPhone 5 smartphone has helped Apple to overtake Google's Android software in the United States, research firm Kantar WorldPanel said on Tuesday. Apple's U.S. share of smartphone sales in the 12 weeks to October 31 more than doubled from a year ago to 48.1 percent, putting ...

SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Nov 27, 2012 2:50pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett Packard Co rebuffed a request by former Autonomy Chief Executive Mike Lynch to detail accusations of accounting fraud leveled against the British software company and its former executives, and challenged Lynch to submit to questions under penalty of perjury. HP was responding ...

SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Nov 27, 2012 2:47pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Former Autonomy Chief Executive Mike Lynch asked Hewlett-Packard Co's board of directors for specific details about the accounting allegations which led the company to take an $8.8 billion write-down last week. In an open letter to HP's board on Tuesday, Lynch also asked for the interi...

By Joseph Menn SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Nov 27, 2012 2:41pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An unprecedented debate over how the global Internet is governed is set to dominate a meeting of officials in Dubai next week, with many countries pushing to give a United Nations body broad regulatory powers even as the United States and others contend such a mo...

By Tom Bill LONDON | Tue Nov 27, 2012 12:49pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Triton Court, a century-old old art deco building on London's Finsbury Square, is a good example of how the financial crisis is transforming demand for commercial property in Europe. Its grand, arched entrance faces the City's financial heartland while a scruffy, narrow street r...