Gateway to offer discounted books at Texas
college
The University of Texas at San Antonio entered into a
strategic alliance with Gateway Inc. to sell notebooks, tablet PCs and
equipment to students, faculty and staff at a discount.
UTSA also
reached a separate agreement with San Antonio Federal Credit Union to
provide special financing packages for students on Gateway
products.
Irvine-based Gateway is the nation's third-largest PC
vendor. UTSA has an enrollment of more than 26,000 students and 3,500
faculty and staff. UTSA's agreement with Gateway will last four
years.
AOL buys Xdrive
America Online has acquired
Santa Monica-based Xdrive, an online storage and backup services
company.
Financial terms of the acquisition weren't
disclosed.
AOL says acquiring the company will improve its
subscribers' storage and security options. Xdrive will operate as a
stand-alone, wholly owned subsidiary of AOL.
Xdrive's current
customers will continue to use the services to which they have
subscribed, AOL says.
The company, founded in 1999, runs a storage
service that lets subscribers access their photos, video, music and
other data from any Internet connection. Its subscription fee starts at
about $10 a month.
Xdrive's 34 employees will become part of AOL
Digital Services.
Texas company buys EDO
Trade
Technologies Inc. bought Los Angeles-based Export Documentation
Overload, a provider of outsourced letter of credit documentation
services to major exporters and freight forwarders.
Trade
Technologies is a provider of international trade documentation software
and outsourced services based in Austin, Texas.
Carlos Perez,
co-founder and CEO of EDO, will become Trade Technologies' director of
operations in Torrance.
EDO was founded in 1980 by Carlos and
Gayle Perez and provides outsourced letter of credit preparation
services to more than 50 global customers.
RiverOne gains
financing
Irvine-based software maker RiverOne Inc. said it
raised $6 million in venture funds with the help of its existing
investors Rustic Canyon Partners and Baker Capital.
The company
said it will put the money toward sales and marketing efforts to broaden
its customer base.
Founded in 1999, RiverOne provides supply chain
software and services for the electronics industry.
Microsoft
buys FrontBridge
Microsoft Corp. said it agreed to acquire
FrontBridge Technologies Inc., a Los Angeles-based provider of managed
services that address corporate e-mail security, compliance, and
availability requirements.
Terms of the deal were not
disclosed.
With the acquired technology, Microsoft said it will be
able to deliver a system able to achieve compliance with the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other regulations with archiving. The technology
also can minimize spam and viruses, and ensure e-mail availability in
the case of a disaster.
FrontBridge has offices in London, Paris
and Winnipeg. Among its customers are AT&T Corp., NEC, and Siemens
Business Services Inc.
UC, Cal State to offer legal
downloading
The University of California and California State
University systems reached an agreement with a Colorado company to offer
legal music and video downloads at their campuses.
The individual
campuses will decide how to utilize the service from Cdigix, if at all.
Cdigix offers both audio and video downloads to 24 college campuses
across the country.
The Englewood, Colo., company charges $3
monthly for the music service and $5.99 monthly for the video
service.
Both universities are negotiating with other music and
video providers, including Napster Inc., Sony Corp. and
Mindawn.
CNET buys Metacritic
San Francisco-based
CNET Networks Inc. bought Metacritic Inc. and its metacritic.com Web
site.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Santa Monica's
Metacritic, uses "Metascores" to rate films, books, games and music. The
scores are based on what critics say in their reviews. The company was
founded in 2001.
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