Boardroom

It's no accident that the new Palm Pre smartphone is compatible with Apple's iTunes. The man who helped Steve Jobs turn the iPod and its online music store into a digital revolution is the same man who has helped design the Pre and its well-reviewed webOS operating system. Now that man, Jon Rubinste...

Google, which has never been one to show much regard for Microsoft, could well be feeling sympathetic toward Redmond now that it finds itself under the antitrust gun. Microsoft has been beleaguered by antitrust investigations in the U.S. and Europe for decades. To be sure, Microsoft brought much o...

Google and Apple are both wildly successful Web 2.0 companies that can be considered market makers in their respective fields. Another similarity that is less obvious -- but apparently very compelling to the Federal Trade Commission -- is their taste in corporate leadership. Google CEO Eric Schmidt ...

On the heels of two senior executives who recently left Google, a third -- David Rosenblatt, head of the display advertising business -- is saying goodbye. His final day is scheduled for mid-May. While their timing is most likely coincidental, the departures suggest a worrisome trend for Google. Ros...

With his groundbreaking, immersive computer games, Will Wright allowed all of us to build our own virtual worlds and populate them with characters and creatures of our own designs. Now he gets a similar opportunity to fashion the next stage of his career -- and quite possibly that of interactive ent...

Sony Ericsson's president of North America, Najmi Jarwala, has stepped down amid rumors that the joint venture between the two companies may soon be dissolved. The announcement comes at a dismal time for Sony Ericsson. The company is expecting first-quarter losses of between $459 million $526 millio...

Struggling Internet portal America Online has tapped Google executive Tim Armstrong as its new chairman and chief executive officer, the company announced Friday. AOL, a division of Time Warner, also announced the departures of current AOL chairman and CEO Randy Falco and President and COO Ron Grant...

The historians will have to be very kind to this global financial meltdown and should reward it for a most needed rude awakening call, which is forcing a dramatic change of traditional business models. Right now, all over the world, this crisis is teaching CEOs new things -- first, that it's time to...

Sony CEO Howard Stringer has taken over the stumbling company's main consumer electronics business after removing Ryoji Chubachi from the helm. Stringer, who has been with Sony since 1997 after a long career in television, will replace Chubachi as president. Chubachi has been reassigned; the 32-year...

The management organizational chart at Yahoo suddenly has fewer brackets on it, and the lines from those brackets now lead toward one name: New CEO Carol Bartz, who Thursday announced the first steps in realigning the company's executive structure. As many analysts and tech bloggers expected, Bartz'...

It can be argued that Yahoo doesn't need to engage in a lot of executive housecleaning and downsizing during a reorganization expected this week from new CEO Carol Bartz. The turmoil at Sunnyvale over the last year has achieved that goal for her. "They've already had a pretty significant exodus of t...

Mobile phone manufacturer Motorola reported yet another disastrous quarter of financial results Tuesday that sent the struggling company's stock plummeting 11 percent to $4.03 per share in mid-day trading. Motorola reported a $3.6 billion loss, down from $100 million in earnings during the fourth qu...

From time to time, attorneys ask me to act as mediator in a situation where partners in a business are not getting along. My experience has been that partners act more like a team when they are struggling together to make the company survive. But surprisingly, the business is usually quite profitabl...

Yahoo's stock surged nearly 7 percent to $12.12 per share in mid-day trading on Wednesday after the struggling Internet portal reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter financial results. Wall Street analysts also seemed impressed with the debut of new CEO Carol Bartz, who took over the reins fro...

Struggling Internet portal Yahoo has tapped former AutoDesk CEO Carol Bartz as its new CEO. Bartz, 60, will face a monumental task in attempting to turn around Yahoo, which was the No. 1 destination on the Internet before being supplanted by search engine powerhouse Google a few years ago. Bartz bri...