“Star Wars” fans got a lot to think about following the announcement Tuesday from LucasArts and BioWare that the two companies have teamed up on a project. “LucasArts has a deep commitment to developing compelling stories and characters for the unique medium of interactive entertainment, and we have been searching for a developer that shares this value,” said LucasArts’ Jim Ward.

“Star Wars” fans got a lot to think about following the announcement Tuesday from LucasArts and BioWare that the two companies have teamed up on a project. “LucasArts has a deep commitment to developing compelling stories and characters for the unique medium of interactive entertainment, and we have been searching for a developer that shares this value,” said LucasArts’ Jim Ward.

For those who may have missed the previous news, or had put off applying, the deadline for signing up to the Wholesale Broadband Connect ADSL2+ trial is Friday the 2nd of November- just 2 days away.

For those who may have missed the previous news, or had put off applying, the deadline for signing up to the Wholesale Broadband Connect ADSL2+ trial is Friday the 2nd of November- just 2 days away.

Analytics software solutions provider Verint is leveraging the workforce optimization capabilities it developed for the call center space so that it can move into other areas. The company, having digested its acquisition of Witness Systems earlier this year, tailored its scheduling, monitoring and performance analysis platform for call center agents to mesh with the front- and back-office needs of the financial services industries.

In an effort to further streamline its operations and somehow become more competitive, French-American telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent is planning to ax about 4,000 workers during the coming year. Cutting jobs is nothing new at Alcatel-Lucent. The company in February announced it would lay off 12,500 workers due to its financial struggles.

Garmin has fired the first salvo in a possible bidding war as it announced an indicative 24.5 euro per share cash offer for all of Tele Atlas’s outstanding shares, outgunning an earlier offer from its Dutch rival TomTom. Garmin said its offer implies an 2.3 billion euro equity value of Tele Atlas, topping the existing 21.25 euro per share bid by TomTom.

In order to remain both competitive and viable in today’s business world, companies of all sizes continue to employ business process improvement techniques. In its simplest form, a business process can be described as any linked set of activities that transform inputs into outputs having more value.

As an intern at Red Hat in 2003, Michael Chen was no gofer. He didn’t fetch coffee or make copies. He helped craft the Raleigh, N.C., software company’s strategy for entering the Chinese market. Soon after earning an MBA from UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, he headed to Beijing to oversee Red Hat’s operations in the greater China region.

U.S. networking firm Cisco and Indian software major Wipro on Wednesday said they have entered into a strategic alliance to jointly develop and deliver information technology service solutions to meet the needs of their clients in fast-growing markets around the world.