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'Marketplace' Report: Exxon's Record Earnings

Employers cut jobs last month and unemployment rates hover around 5 percent. Despite the grim financial outlook, Exxon Mobil posted record earnings last year. We address why crude prices are soaring in a stalling economy. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us

Q&A: Microsoft's Bid for Yahoo

Microsoft Corp. has made an unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo Inc. for $44.6 billion. Yahoo has said it will consider the offer, which would unite two companies looking to increase their search traffic and advertising revenues in the shadow of Google Inc.'s dominance. Read more about what would be the software giant's largest deal to date. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us

Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Offer to Buy Yahoo

Microsoft Corp. on Friday announced it has made an unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo Inc. for $44.6 billion. Yahoo, which has seen its profits and share price slide in recent months, said it would consider the offer. Microsoft said it sees at least $1 billion in cost savings generated by the combination. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us

Vegas Counts On Big Numbers for the Big Game

Super Bowl weekend will draw upwards of 300,000 people to Las Vegas, perhaps more than the number of attendees in Phoenix for the actual game. Casinos are hoping bettors will place $1 million on their tables on Super Bowl-related parlays alone, not to mention money spent on the usual games available in Las Vegas. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us

Microsoft Eager for Share of Online Ad Revenue

Microsoft has plenty of reasons to want to acquire online giant Yahoo -- 80 billion reasons, in fact. Online ad revenues are expected to double by 2010, reaching $80 billion, and Microsoft is eager to get into the game -- if for no other reason than to slow rival Google's historic growth. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us

Microsoft Bids for Yahoo in Effort to Gain on Google

Microsoft has made a $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, an aggressive move by the software giant to gain market share on the Internet and compete with Google. Microsoft and Yahoo have talked about merging for years. This time, a hostile but very rich offer could seal the deal. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us

Colleges Fight Calls to Dip Further Into Endowments

Congress wants universities to spend more of their endowments to reduce tuition costs, but colleges say their costs vary a great deal from year to year, and they can't hand out money. Analysts say universities are caught up in a spending binge and feel no incentive to reduce costs. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us

Poor Payroll, GDP Reports Add to Recession Fears

January jobless numbers did nothing to improve the nation's economic outlook. Business payrolls fell by 17,000 last month. Recession fears were already mounting because of another report this week that came in weaker than expected: The nation's gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of only 0.6 percent. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us

Employers Review Hiring Plans as Economy Slumps

A sharp slowdown in the economy has many employers reconsidering their hiring plans for the coming year. Many are caught in a quandary, not knowing whether the slowdown is temporary or just the start of an extended slump that would make hiring unwise. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us

Microsoft Faces Big Hurdles in Bid to Topple Google

Microsoft's bid to buy Yahoo further demonstrates its desire to compete with Google, which has dominated the Web search industry. But analysts warn that Microsoft and Yahoo each bring flawed Internet strategies to the table, while Google holds a strong hand. Â» E-Mail This Â» Add to Del.icio.us