Sun Microsystems is expected to announce a major reorganization that will focus the company on business units instead of product-oriented divisions, industry sources said. Top Sun executives, including Ed Zander, recently-appointed chief operating officer, were expected to announce the changes to employees at Sun's Leadership Conference this week.
One source said that Sun will move away from its current organizational structure of five different operating companies. These self-contained units, also called "planets," will be combined to share resources, sales staff, and other assets. "There are no more planets, it's just Sun," said one source who asked not to be named.
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MIPS files to go public: Silicon Graphics subsidiary MIPS Technology Inc. Tuesday filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission an initial public offering for up to US$88.6 million worth of common stock. The registration is for up to 6.3 million common shares and the company has applied to the Nasdaq to trade under the stock symbol "MIPS." The offering will be made through Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, BancAmerica Robertson Stephens and Hambrecht & Quist. Net proceeds will be added to working capital and used for general corporate purposes, MIPS said. MIPS is a designer and developer of RISC-based high-performance 32- and 64-bit microprocessor intellectual property for embedded systems applications.
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Apple's about-face: Apple Computer said the press may attend its annual meeting today, reversing a decision the company made last week. "It was a miscommunication," said Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton. On Friday, an Apple spokeswoman said the press and industry analysts who are not shareholders would not be allowed to attend the meeting, saying it was focused on the shareholders. Now the press is allowed in, but the company will not host media briefings or press conferences as it has at other annual meetings.
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7th Level cancels merger plan: Games developer 7th Level Inc. on Wednesday said it has canceled its plan to merge with privately-held Pulse Entertainment Inc. of Los Angeles, noting that it would be more profitable for each party to remain independent. In November, 7th Level said it would buy Pulse with stock and rename the company P7 Solutions. 7th Level would have issued about 21 million shares to Pulse and would have had to raise $15 million financing in a private placement.
Donald Schupak, chairman of 7th Level, and Bill Woodward, chief executive of Pulse, said in a joint statement that the decision to end the merger was mutual and friendly. "After thorough due diligence," they said, "we concluded it would be more profitable for each company to develop and market its own technology separately."
Meanwhile, 7th Level said it has obtained commitments for a $4.5 million bridge loan and a $10 million private placement to finance the ramp up and rollout of 7th Level's new line of technology products.
