EBay boosted the price range of its shares for its initial public offering, signaling strong demand for shares of the online auction house.
Goldman, Sachs, eBay's lead undwriter, said the price range has been increased to US$16 to $18 a share, up from $14 to $16. The shares are expected to be priced after the close of market today and could begin trading as early as Thursday.
EBay plans to sell up to 3.5 million shares. At the new price range, eBay could raise as much as $63 million from the IPO.
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Speedier EarthLink: Charter Communications and EarthLink will team up to deliver high-speed Internet access to Charter's cable-TV customers, the companies said Wednesday.
The Internet service, called Charter Pipeline, would reach 1.8 million customers in 19 states. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In July, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen agreed to buy Charter as part of his "wired world" investment strategy, which looks for technologies that would help give consumers fast and inexpensive entertainment, information, and communications services. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.
Allen plans to combine Charter with another of his cable investments, Marcus Cable. By stringing together a series of smaller operators, Allen hopes to broaden his geographic base and challenge cable-industry heavyweights like Tele-Communications Inc. (TCOMA) and Cox Communications (COX).
St. Louis-based Charter is the 10th largest US cable operator. The firm already offers Internet access to its customers in Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Connecticut. Partnering with a national Internet service provider like EarthLink would help the company roll out services in other parts of the country quickly, Charter said.
Under the new arrangement, Charter provides the infrastructure, the high-speed local connection, and marketing for Pipeline. EarthLink (ELNK) provides the Internet access and the technical and customer support. The high-speed cable services would also be marketed to EarthLink's customers in Charter's service areas.
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"Open the pod bay doors, HAL": IBM said Wednesday that it would equip new models of its personal computers with speech-recognition technology that lets users operate the machines with voice commands.
The company unveiled three new Aptiva PC models with IBM's ViaVoice speech technology, which takes dictation from a user and automatically translates it into computer text. ViaVoice also lets the computers speak with "incredible clarity," according to the company.
By adding speech-recognition technology to its PCs, IBM (IBM) is attempting to differentiate its products in the brutally competitive consumer-PC market. The company is trying to regain market share it lost to rivals like Dell (DELL) and Compaq (CPQ).
The three speech-enabled computers are priced between $1,099 and $1,799. Eventually, all IBM Aptiva computers will include the speech-recognition technology, a spokesman added. By 2001, maybe?
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Testing, testing: Iridium has begun final tests of its satellite-telecommunication network in the republics of the former Soviet Union, expanding the worldwide field test that began 23 September.
Potential Iridium customers in Russia and other republics can now make calls on their satellite phones free of charge as part of a test of the low-earth-orbit satellite communications network, said Iridium's Eurasia president, Spartak Kurilov. Iridium expects to begin charging for its services on 1 November.
Iridium (IRIDF) said it has received more than 5,000 conditional orders from potential customers in the former Soviet Union and believes it could eventually sign up 300,000 customers there. The first customers for the satellite-phone services are expected to be major transportation firms, utility companies, and government agencies like the customs office and security services.
Iridium, a spinoff of Motorola (MOT), is one of several ambitious projects that plans to let customers call or fax from anywhere in the world over a satellite network. The $5 billion project had a minor setback this month, when Iridium was forced to delay until November the launch of commercial services in order to complete testing and debugging.
Reuters contributed to this report.
