Take-Two tremors: The videogame industry continues to reverberate from Electronic Arts’ $2 billion buyout bid for Take-Two Interactive Software.
Patrick Solomon, an investor with New York-based Take-Two, widely known for its Grand Theft Auto game, has sued that company for rejecting the offer by Electronic Arts of Redwood City.
Solomon, who filed the complaint Friday, also asked the Delaware Chancery Court in Wilmington to enforce stockholders’ rights to elect directors at an annual meeting scheduled for April 10.
TriQuint woos WJ Communications: It’s nice to be wanted – especially when your suitor is bearing a $72 million bouquet.
That’s how much Oregon-based TriQuint Semiconductor, maker of chips for mobile phones and satellites, has offered to buy WJ Communications of San Jose, which makes products for broadband cable and wireless networks.
The deal, assuming it is approved, it is expected to be finalized within three months.
Sigma settling stock-option tiff: Milpitas-based Sigma Designs, which makes chips for Internet television set-top boxes and Blu-ray video players, said today it has agreed to a deal that will resolve shareholder lawsuits accusing it of stock-option backdating.
No terms of the settlement were made public. But Sigma said the deal, which will result in the federal and state suits being dismissal, does not contain an admission of wrongdoing by Sigma and won’t have a “material financial impact” on the company.
IBM wants bigger Web footprint: In a challenge to Cisco System and Microsoft, International Business Machines said it plans to spend more than $1 billion over three years to develop software and services for handling phone calls, messages and videoconferencing online.
The investment represents a “significant increase” from what IBM is currently spending on collaboration technology, Mike Rhodin, head of the Lotus division, said today.
Businesses are turning to so-called unified communications to simplify systems and equip mobile workers. By boosting its investment, IBM may try to win away customers from Microsoft, the top software maker, and Cisco, the biggest producer of networking equipment.
Apple reaches new film deal: The Cupertino computer and consumer products company and Lions Gate Entertainment, the largest independent U.S. film studio, will let people who buy DVDs transfer the film from the disc to Apple’s iTunes for viewing on mobile devices.
The companies will initially offer special-edition and high-definition versions of “Rambo” on May 27, Lions Gate said today in a statement. “The Eye,” will be available during the summer, the Vancouver-based company said.
Apple announced a similar arrangement with Twentieth Century Fox in January.
Silicon Valley tech stocks:
Up: Oracle, Intel, Applied Materials, Borland Software, Exponent, Applied Signal Technology. Down: Sun Microsystems, eBay, Genentech, Apple, Cisco and Google
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Down 43.15 points, or 1.95 percent, closing at 2,169.34.
The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average: Down 153.54 points, or 1.29 percent, closing at 11,740.15. And the Standard & Poor’s 500 index: Down 20 points, or 1.55 percent, closing at 1,273.37.
Check in weekday afternoons for the 60-Second Business Break, a summary of news from Mercury News staff writers, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News and other wire services.