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Transmeta, Sun, Mozilla and Salesforce

Transmeta gets sold, Sun could be had cheap, Mozilla has excess of money, and Salesforce surviving

Transmeta Gets Sold for Next to Nothing
Transmeta, the uppity microprocessor wannabe that pushed Intel to create low-power chips before Intel crushed it, is getting bought by Novafora Inc for $255.6 million in cash, roughly what Transmeta has in the bank thanks largely to an IP licensing deal with Intel.

Novafora is a fab-less semiconductor house that makes digital video processors and wants Transmeta's power management widgetry to give its parts broader range.

Separately, Transmeta cut a patent license with AMD, which is paying for it with 700,000 Transmeta Series B preferred shares.

Sun Could Be Had Cheap
If it weren't for the cost of firing 5,000 or 6,000 people, you could pretty much buy Sun for nothing. The money it's got in the till would cover its $2.48 billion market cap.

Mozilla Has More Money Than it Knows What to do With
The non-profit Mozilla Foundation has so much money coming in from its open source Firefox browser that it's being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. It could lose its non-profit status. The subject came up when it released its 2007 - yes, 2007 - financial statement the other day. Revenues totaled $75 million, up 12%, most of it - $66 million - coming from Google royalties related to the default Google search box in the browser.

Salesforce Surviving

As the world went to hell in a hand basket Thursday, Saleforce.com said its revenues for the October quarter were up 43% to $276 million, $2.5 million better than expected, earning $10.1 million, eight cents a share, up from $6.5 million. It'll disappoint in Q4 however. It figures to clear $284 million-$285 million, ~$5 million-$6 million short of consensus, and earn six or seven cents a share.

More Stories By Maureen O'Gara

Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara

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