Information Age: News, analysis & insight for IT & business leaders

Hewlett-Packard (HP) will cut 14,500 jobs from its global workforce. The move is expected to yield $1.9 billion in annual savings, but will cost the company $1.1 billion every quarter for the next six quarters. The cuts - nearly 10% of the overall workforce - are part of a restructuring instigated by new CEO Mark Hurd. Analysts also expect non-essential R&D projects to be culled, advertising expenditure to be reduced and the sales force to be streamlined.

European Commission investigators raided chip giant b>Intel's offices as part of its ongoing probe of the processor giant's business practices. Offices in Swindon and Munich were investigated as well as those of several Intel distributors. Intel, which claims about 90% of the worldwide market for supplying PC chips, has been accused by rival AMD of forcing computer manufacturers into buying its processors.

Microsoft agreed to pay IBM $775 million plus $75 million worth of credit for its software, as part of a settlement over anti-competitive practices. Previously, IBM had been charged more for Microsoft's programs than other computer manufacturers. As part of the agreement, IBM agreed not to make any claims relating to servers dated before 30 June 2002 and also not to seek any financial damages related to server products for two years.

Communications networks were severely tested in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in London on 7 July 2005. Email traffic in Europe doubled in the 24 hours following attacks, and mobile phone networks struggled to maintain full service. Vodafone, whose network is used by the emergency services, asked its customers not to use their mobiles. Even landline networks were overloaded, although calls did get through after longer connection times. Analysts Keynote said one in four attempts to load pages on 40 leading UK web sites failed on Thursday afternoon.

mTLD, a consortium of technology companies, including Vodafone, Microsoft and Nokia, aimed to regenerate interest in mobile access to the Internet by introducing a special web address for sites customised for wireless devices. The .mobi address was approved by Icann, which oversees Internet domain names, and the first .mobi domains will be available in the first half of 2006. mTLD executives said users will know the sites they visit will be optimised for delivery to mobile devices.

Bernie Ebbers, the disgraced former CEO of WorldCom, was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for his role in the $11 billion fraud that brought the US telecoms giant to its knees and prompted strict regulation of corporate activity. The sentence handed out was one of the most severe yet in a white-collar crime case, triggered by the collapse of WorldCom in 2002. It was the largest bankruptcy filing in US corporate history.

The European Parliament overwhelmingly rejected a law that would have introduced a standard method for patenting software across member states. Legislators had intended to allow software makers to apply for patents to protect their intellectual property but opposition looks to have killed off the concept.