Software company Adobe Systems, which is best known for programs like Adobe Acrobat, Reader, and Photoshop, has decided to purchase online analytics firm Omniture for $1.8 billion. According to Adobe itself, the move is part of a growing attempt on the part of Adobe to make itself more competitive in the world of online commerce.
 
Adobe will pay Omniture $21.50 per share in cash, which turns about to be an offer 24 percent above Omniture’s Tuesday closing price of $17.32. The deal is expected to close by Adobe’s fiscal fourth quarter, at which point Adobe will begin to combine the services …read more

Software giant Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems may not go so smoothly in Europe, where the European Commission has stated that the combination of Oracle and Sun would end up eliminating the growth of Sun’s free corporate database program. The European Commission has decided to continue investigating the merger, even though the Justice Department has already approved it.
While U.S. regulators’ main concern involved Oracle’s power in the marketplace, the questions surrounding open-source software have not been as popular on this side of the Atlantic. This would not be the first merger that the U.S. and the European Commission have butt …read more

Computer security software maker Symantec Corp. has posted a disappointing 58 percent drop in profits from a year ago in its fiscal first-quarter report, blaming the situation on the softening of demand on the part of corporate customers. In response to the company’s report, shares slid more than 7 percent to $15.90 in late trading.
 
Symantec took in $1.43 billion in revenue this quarter, down from $1.65 billion, and posted earnings of 34 cents per share, excluding special items. Analyst expectations had the software company doing somewhat better, predicting $1.49 billion in revenue and 35 cents per share. Symantec CFO James …read more

According to an announcement by Intel today, the computer giant has decided to purchase Wind River Systems, a software company, for $11.50 a share, totaling a whopping $884 million. By doing so, Intel hopes to diversify its product base by putting its chips into a wider variety of consumer electronic products.
 
Wind River, which serves several high profile clients, makes operating systems for electronic devices. By purchasing Wind River, Intel, which already dominates the processor market for personal computers, will be able to expand into new markets. Eventually, Intel hopes to absorb Wind River’s customer list in hopes of acquiring more …read more

With today being May Day, I decided to share business tools that could help you get to your pay day. I am sharing these tools as a way of providing business owners with suggested tools to help you run your business proficiently. The tools that will be suggested for you will cover a variety of topics and will help you streamline your business processes.
For those of you who don’t know, May Day is May 1st and actually is the host to many international celebrations. One of which is the International Workers’ Day which pertains to the the establishment of the …read more

I’ve always loved the slogan, Insanity is contagious; we get it from our children.
Well, I want to add another: Software makes you crazy!
My current gripe is when I’m writing along quite nicely thank you very much, and some weird set of mis-typed keystrokes changes the display, or hides a menu bar, or dumps the file altogether.
Or the fact that because, a couple of months ago, I traded my three year old computer for a new one, with the same operating system and the same programs, but for reasons that are totally unclear to me, the type size on everything …read more

Audrey Owen, editor, forum member and blogger, posted a link to Codswallop’s The Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 Web Apps for Everything You Will Possibly Need. Good heavens!
Yes, there are 100 websites, many with applications, that are aimed at freelancers of all stripes, including freelance writers.
Warning… this site can become a time sink. I worked my way through about the first 30, clicking on this, downloading that, when I realized I had a few other things to do today. So explore a bit and bookmark it.
Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week …read more