Sunnyvale

Innovation in the trillion-dollar-per-year construction industry has been pretty sluggish over the past century. The low-tech method for producing standard gypsum drywall, for instance, was invented in 1917. It has plenty of drawbacks -- including the release of some 20 billion pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere annually -- but is still in use.

Fortinet Inc. plans to go public Wednesday in an initial public offering, giving investors a chance to tap a network security provider with sales expected to grow.

If shares price at the top end of their projected range of $9 to $11, the IPO could be valued at $137.5 million, or more if the offering's underwriters exercise their overallotment options.

With its stock in a three-year funk, Yahoo Inc. set out Wednesday to persuade investors that the Internet company's struggles are nearly over.

"We have fallen and we really want to get back up," Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz said as she kicked off an all-day meeting with financial analysts. "We really want to get back on our tippy toes."

Bartz vowed to make the company more profitable, and said she hoped Wednesday's session would win back some of the respect that the company lost as two previous CEOs were unable to deliver on their turnaround promises.

Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is "thoroughly reviewing" published reports fingering former chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz as the AMD executive who gave confidential company information to a defendant in the Galleon Group insider trading case.

"We are not aware of any allegation of criminal misconduct on the part of any current or former AMD employees, nor have any current or former AMD employees been charged with a crime," AMD said in a statement Tuesday. A spokesman for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company declined to comment further.

Activist investor Carl Icahn has decided his work is done at Yahoo Inc. after muscling his way on to the slumping Internet company's board nearly 15 months ago.

In a resignation letter Friday, Icahn said he felt like it was time to leave Yahoo so he could spend more time on his investments in other companies.

"I don't believe that it is necessary at this time to have an activist on the board of Yahoo and currently my attention is focused on other matters," Icahn wrote.

Yahoo Inc. believes a lot of its good work has been overlooked by investors and the media so it's spending more than $100 million to get the word out to consumers directly.

The money is going toward the Internet company's most expensive marketing campaign since Stanford University graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo started Yahoo's Web site 15 years ago. Yahoo provided a peek at the 15-month blitz Tuesday in New York.

Microsoft Corp.'s souped-up Internet search engine gained a little more ground on industry leaders Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in July, according to data released late Monday.

Despite the progress, Microsoft's search engine still remains a distant third in the United States - the main reason that the world's largest software maker plans to team up with Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo next year.

By working together in online search, Microsoft and Yahoo are betting that they can pose a more serious threat to Google in the most lucrative part of the Internet advertising market.

Microsoft Corp. will hire at least 400 workers from Yahoo Inc. if government regulators approve the companies' proposed Internet search partnership, and Yahoo will receive $150 million to cover any unexpected costs during the switch to new technology.

Those details emerged Tuesday in a regulatory filing that elaborated on an agreement announced last week.

Carol Bartz has already shown off her cost-cutting skills in her first six months as Yahoo Inc.'s chief executive.

Now, she will try to prove she isn't making a bad bet by spending more money while the Internet company's advertising sales are still sagging.

Firing the latest salvo in a bidding brawl, data storage company EMC Corp. boosted its offer for Data Domain which has already accepted a lower bid from NetApp Inc.

EMC's new offer of $33.50 a share in cash, announced Monday, is $3.50 per share above its previous offer and values Data Domain Inc. at $2.1 billion.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Data Domain has already accepted a sweetened bid of $30 a share in cash and stock from NetApp, which said Monday its board would examine in options.