Micron Technology and Rambus sign a "broad patent cross license agreement"-- one bringing 13 years of legal disputes to an end as Micron agrees to pay Rambus up to $280 million over the next 7 years.

In exchange Micron gets the rights to use any Rambus patent for the manufacture of specified integrated circuit products, including memory, as well as the dropping of all pending litigation.

"This milestone agreement puts years of legal disputes behind both companies and opens doors for future cooperation," Rambus CEO Dr. Ron Black says. "We continue to focus on developing innovative technology and furthering our more open, collaborative relationship with the broader industry."

The deal sees Micron making quarterly royalty payments reaching around 0.6% of revenues from products using Rambus patents. The payments are capped at $10m per quarter (with a fixed cap of $40m per 4 quarters), meaning during the next 7 years Rambus will make up to $280m according to sales volume.

Cloud provider Akamai coughs up $370 million and bolster its security offering with Prolexic, developer of cloud-based security solutions for data centres and enterprise IP applications.

The Prolexic specialty is protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and application-layer attacks. The company has a "comprehensive" solution portfolio covering web and IP infrastructure. 

Founded in 2003, Prolexic counts banks, energy firms, gaming sites, government agencies and healthcare companies as customers. 

"By joining forces with Prolexic, we intend to combine Akamai’s leading security and performance platform with Prolexic’s highly-regarded DDoS mitigation solutions for data center and enterprise applications protection," Akamai says. "We believe that Prolexic’s solutions and team will help us achieve our goal of making the Internet fast, reliable, and secure." Read more...

HP fiscal Q4 2013 revenues reach $39.1 billion with a 3% Y-o-Y drop-- better than expected results as HP Enterprise Group sales manage to turn around by growing by 2% Y-o-Y to $7.59 billion.

Overall fiscal 2013 revenue reaches $112.3bn with a 7% decline, while Q4 2013 cash flow drops by -31% Y-o-Y to $2.8bn.

Personal systems revenue drop by -2% Y-o-Y during Q4 2013, with a 4% increase in commercial revenues and a -10% decline in the consumer revenues. Total unit shipments grow by 2%, as split by a -5% decline in desktops and 3% rise on notebooks.

Meanwhile printing revenues fall by -1% Y-o-Y.

Intel shows off the first 64-bit "Bay Trail" Atom processor designed for tablet applications at its 2013 Investors Meeting, and claims the combination of 64-bit capability and low-cost/lower-power microarchitecture will boost mobile devices further.

“What we are doing with our product roadmap and SoCs is that we drive to lower costs and profitable stages But that is not enough," Intel CEO Brian Krzanich says. "What we really want to do is to take a lot of the innovation and differentiation we are able to do up on the PC and bring that down into tablets.”

Acer founder Stan Shih exits retirement and takes place as company chairman and interim corporate president few weeks after the stepping down of CEO J.T. Wang and corporate president Jim Wong.

The board also dumps the CEO position from Acer hierarchy, placing leadership in the hands of the chairman or president in order to "boost... decision-making efficiency"-- thus effectively returning the company to its founder, if for the time being.

J.T. Wang and Jim Wong will stick around as advisers during the "transfer of the management team."

“Due to the situation that now faces Acer and my personal social responsibilities, I must stand up and take the reign without salary," Shih says. "I will also fully support Acer’s ICT device business and carry out the company transformation."

Top executives are supposed to be a hardnosed lot, but Microsoft's head honchos are not afraid to show their softer sides-- Bill Gates "choked up" at the 2013 Microsoft shareholder meeting, and Steve Ballmer's eyes "well up" during a Wall Street Journal interview.

While giving an update on the hunt for the next Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates apparently got emotional as he told his feelings about the company he founded so many years ago. “[Microsoft] has only had two CEOs in its 38-year history,” Gates said. “It’s been a real privilege to lead the company.”

As for the subject on hand, Gates only said he was "pleased" with board's progress so far, making no mention of potential candidates. Names currently suggested by the rumour mill include former Nokia CEO turned Microsoft EVP Stephen Elop, Ford CEO Alan Mulally, former Skype CEO (now MS exec) Tony Bates, Pivotal CEO Paul Maritz, Computer Sciences Corp (CSC) boss Mike Lawrie and-- wait for it!-- Bill Gates himself.

Gates rarely makes public appearances as Microsoft chairman, since he prefers to focus on charity work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.