Qualcomm Corp

Major technology and telecom companies reported solid first-quarter earnings gains Tuesday, but some analysts were concerned about pockets of weakness in the reports. America Online, Intel, IBM and Qualcomm were among the companies that beat consensus profit estimates from Wall Street analysts. Partly in anticipation of the reports, those stocks have helped lead the market's dramatic rebound during the last two days.

Major technology and telecom companies reported solid first-quarter earnings gains Tuesday, but some analysts were concerned about pockets of weakness in the reports. America Online, Intel, IBM and Qualcomm were among the companies that beat consensus profit estimates from Wall Street analysts. Partly in anticipation of the reports, those stocks have helped lead the market's dramatic rebound during the last two days.

Qualcomm Corp. said an international arbitration panel ruled that it must share royalties with a former South Korean partner, which will result in a one-time charge of $80 million in the earnings this quarter. Shares of Qualcomm fell $3.75 to close at $99.50 on Nasdaq.

Qualcomm Corp. Chairman Irwin Jacobs has pledged $110 million to UC San Diego, the largest single gift in the school's history. The money from Jacobs and his wife is earmarked for the engineering school that bears his name. The gift includes $10 million payable over the next five years and $100 million that will be bequeathed to the school. Jacobs was a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the school from 1966 to 1972. He and his wife also have given $120 million to the San Diego Symphony, most of it in an endowment fund.

Motorola Inc. was dealt a setback as the U.S. Court of Appeals issued a ruling that means Qualcomm Corp. can continue to sell its Q wireless telephones while the companies are embroiled in a patent dispute. The court upheld a lower court's denial of Motorola's request for a preliminary injunction that would have prevented sales of Qualcomm's Q phone. Motorola is accusing San Diego-based Qualcomm with infringing on patents Motorola holds on its StarTac product, another very small wireless phone.

Orange County likes to toot its horn as a major technology center. Adding volume to the symphony, a major telecommunications technology trade group has opened a new office in Costa Mesa. The CDMA Development Group, with eight employees under the direction of digital wireless guru Perry LaForge, represents the interests of companies like AirTouch Cellular in Irvine and Qualcomm Corp. in San Diego, which rely on CDMA technology.

An American telephone technician, charged with spying in Russia but allowed to go home for Christmas, arrived in Moscow on Wednesday and said he hopes to make it home to San Diego for Christmas dinner with his family. "It depends on whether we can get a plane down there in time," Bliss said upon his arrival at Moscow's Vnukovo airport from the southern town of Rostov-on-Don.

Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday it acquired a majority stake in Japan's second-biggest cable TV company in an effort to expand the markets for its software beyond the company's personal computer stronghold. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant bought a 60% stake in Titus Communications that had been held by the MediaOne Group, a U.S. cable TV company that is being acquired by telecommunications giant AT&T Corp. Microsoft would not disclose financial terms.

Sexy new Internet stocks such as Commerce One and VA Linux helped make 1999 a record year for initial public stock offerings, and the year's hottest stocks overall came from none other than the Internet sector. Investors poured $69 billion into 546 first-time stock offerings in the United States--almost half of them technology companies--an 88% jump from 1998.

The stock market's volatility adds urgency to a flood of data this week that could help signal whether investors have been prescient or premature in the bets they've been placing on a rebound in the economy. Much of this week's data on employment, manufacturing, services and home sales will provide investors more up-to-date snapshots of the economy than last week's numbers on the third quarter. The Federal Reserve also will weigh in after it wraps up a two-day meeting on interest-rate policy.

The project was ambitious from the start: a $185-million central public library downtown. Turner Construction, the New York-based firm selected for the project, built the new Yankee Stadium, the John F. Kennedy Library and the world's tallest building in Dubai. The architects made sure the nine-story design had all the flourishes and amenities to rival new libraries in style-conscious San Francisco and Seattle: airy reading rooms, a sculpture garden, a domed terrace, a special-collections wing and more.