The following stories can be found in the Tech Watch section of InfoWorld's print edition dated July 31:

HP buys CIO access with Mercury deal
In the Jane Austen novel that has become Mercury Interactive's financial story throughout the last 12 months, it was HP playing the role of Mr. Knightley last week, riding to the rescue with an offer to buy the company for $4.5 billion and, thus, save the company from itself. Of course, the deal has considerable advantages for HP: adding Mercury's application management wares to HP's OpenView family, creating an end-to-end IT management platform. Still, this deal isn't done yet, and Mercury will have to set its books straight before HP will step up to the altar.

IBM, Oracle, SAP update SOA-standards effort
Execs from leading vendors SAP, Oracle, BEA and IBM announced progress on a common architecture for SOA development, including SCA (service component architecture) and SDO (service data objects). Vendor-backed standards efforts often fall flat on their face. This one seems to be working -- and gaining momentum.

AMD's ATI purchase will yield long-term payout
No matter what you've read, AMD's CPU price cuts and its acquisition of silicon artisan ATI are not signs that AMD is heading for a downward slide. Both moves strengthen AMD's already strong position in the market.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on July 31, 2006 04:33 AM