Stories about: Broadview International

Struggling software vendor, Commerce One, has cut 40 per cent of its staff and hired a bank to explore the company's options, including a sale of some or all of its businesses.

A terrorist has tapped into an unsecured U.S. modem that provides access to an electric utility's computer systems. The resulting blackout paralyzes multiple regions of the country. Airplanes are stranded in midflight, subway trains are stilled in darkness underground and elevators are stalled between floors.

There are thousands of internet entrepreneurs who would like to be wearing Phillip Merrick's shoes. Merrick's company, WebMethods Inc., which makes software that facilitates business-to-business e-commerce, launched its initial public offering on Feb. 11, going out at US$35 a share. Weeks later, the Fairfax, Virginia-based company's stock price shot up to over $300, and the company, which had revenues of $15 million in 1999, at one point had a market capitalization somewhere in the $9 billion range. In March its stock price was trading in the low $230s.

The collapse last week of the merger pact between Corel Corp. and Inprise Corp. left Corel without a much-needed source of funding and Inprise with a lot of elated Windows application developers and programmers.

Spanish Internet group Terra Networks SA agreed on Tuesday to a $12.5 billion stock acquisition of Internet search company Lycos Inc. (LCOS) , a deal that the new company's chairman described as a challenge to America Online Inc.'s dominance of the Web.

Corel Corp. announced today that it was not going to acquire Inprise/Borland Corp. after a merger agreement they reached three months ago was terminated by mutual agreement.

The pending merger between software vendors Corel Corp. and Inprise/Borland Corp. looks to be on shaky ground. Following a recent slide in the share price of its proposed merger partner, Inprise/Borland announced yesterday that it has asked its financial advisor to re-evaluate the "fairness" of the financial terms of the agreement the two inked on Feb. 6.

Cisco Systems has agreed to purchase little-known networking company Cerent for $US6.9 billion in stock -- Cisco's biggest acquisition to date.