Yahoo confirmed that it has laid off 600 people, following news reports often based on Twitter messages from employees who had been let go.

The intrusion isn't seen as an inside job but China staff will be scrutinized.

The move comes after not enough employees participated in a program to walk away voluntarily in December.

A picture of an experimental Android handset given out to Google employees had blogs buzzing over the weekend amid signs that the company could offer a Google-branded smartphone next year.

Many companies make it possible for employees to work remotely, but without a structured telework program in place, they could be putting corporate data at risk and stifling employee productivity.

Amid reports that it is moving thousands of jobs from the US to India, IBM said Thursday it is notifying employees that some jobs are being eliminated.

SAP laid off an undisclosed number of employees last week as part of its previously announced plan to trim 3,000 jobs, a company spokesman confirmed Monday.

Sun is laying off 15 percent to 18 percent of its employees as part of a restructuring plan aimed at saving $700 million to $800 million a year, and its top software executive is leaving the company, Sun said Friday.

Yahoo has not reached a decision about Microsoft's acquisition offer and is considering "a wide range of potential strategic alternatives," Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said in an e-mail to employees on Wednesday.

An analyst who covers IBM called the report "hogwash," saying IBM's business is doing well and that the company's overall number of employees has gone up in the past five years.

A Google Inc. employee mistakenly posted information to an official Google blog that she had intended to publish in her personal blog, the latest blogging faux pas for the search engine giant.

Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs apologized to shareholders Wednesday after an internal investigation found that he had been aware of the company's practice of "backdating" employee stock options.

Sun Microsystems Inc., plans to lay off as many as 5,000 employees, sell real estate and "simplify" its product line in an effort to boost profits, its newly appointed CEO Jonathan Schwartz said.

Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates will detail on Wednesday how the company is adding search capabilities in its enterprise software, emphasizing how employees waste time trying to find information.

In an effort to bounce back from slumping sales in the first quarter of 2006, Intel Corp. told 17 employees at its Glasgow, Scotland, site earlier this week that it would shut down the site by September.

McAfee Inc.'s auditor, Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, may be thinking of buying some security software itself, after a Deloitte employee left an unencrypted CD containing sensitive information on thousands of McAfee employees in the back of an airline seat last December.

The integration of Siebel Systems Inc. into Oracle Corp. will result in a reduction of 2,000 in the total workforce of the combined companies, but a majority of the layoffs will affect Oracle employees, Oracle said Thursday.

Microsoft Corp. has blocked the site of a Chinese blogger critical of the government, raising sharp questions from its own employees over how far the company should go in abiding by restrictive laws used to curtail free speech and press in the communist country.