Applications Software

Broadcom Inc. AVGO -0.55% is in advanced talks to buy VMware Inc., VMW 0.80% according to people familiar with the matter, setting the stage for what would be one of the year’s biggest deals. The technology companies are discussing a cash-and-stock deal that could come soon, assuming the talks don’t fall apart, the people said. VMware has a market value of $40 billion, while…

Match sued Google over Google’s Play Store payment system. Photo: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg News…

A Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.37% search engine has made it harder in North America to look up people who are politically sensitive for China, according to a cybersecurity and surveillance group report.Bing’s autofill system, which offers guesses on what users are searching for after a few keystrokes, often fell silent in connection to names the Chinese government deems sensitive, Citizen Lab said in the report Thursday. Last year Microsoft suspended the autofill feature in…

Nevada gambling regulators approved on Thursday a limited license for MGM Resorts International shareholder Barry Diller to work in the state’s casino industry, after questioning the billionaire about a federal investigation into his purchases of Activision Blizzard Inc. shares.The Nevada Gaming Commission, which enforces anticorruption regulations in the state’s gambling industry, voted 4-1 to approve Mr. Diller for a two-year…

MicroStrategy Inc.’s new chief financial officer on Wednesday said its strategy to buy and hold bitcoin long term won’t change despite the recent selloff in the digital asset, which has dented the value of the analytics-software company’s holdings.Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have plummeted this month, in part due to investor concerns over persistent high inflation and the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin. Bitcoin’s price has slumped by 32% over the past year to $29,128.50 through…

Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz debuted a $600 million fund dedicated to gaming startups, stepping up its bets on so-called Web3 technology just as a broader market decline underscores the volatility of the cryptocurrency-based sector. The venture firm, known as a16z, said Wednesday the fund is its first dedicated to the games industry, pointing to the billions of dollars in annual revenue that hit games such as “Fortnite” and…

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has deepened its bet on videogames by taking a 5% stake, worth about $3 billion, in Japan’s Nintendo In a Japanese regulatory filing, PIF said it held just over 5% of Nintendo as of March 31. It said the stake was purely an investment, suggesting it didn’t intend to try to influence the company’s strategy. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has deepened its bet on videogames by taking a 5% stake, worth about $3 billion, in Japan’s NintendoIn a Japanese regulatory filing, PIF…

Tencent Holdingsposted its worst-ever quarterly profit drop and slowest revenue growth in nearly two decades, as China’s pandemic resurgence hit a technology giant already struggling with a yearlong regulatory crackdown.The social-media and videogame behemoth said Wednesday that first-quarter revenue rose 0.1% from a year earlier to 135.47 billion yuan, or $21.3 billion, based on an exchange rate of 6.3482 yuan to a dollar that Tencent used. Net profit fell 51% to 23.41 billion yuan, the world’s largest videogame…

Microsoft’s move to spend more on staff follows similar moves by rivals in its core cloud-computing sector. Photo: Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg News…

Some of the economy’s most in-demand employees are about to find out how much power they have over where and how they work. After months of return-to-work starts and stops, many tech companies, including Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG 2.96% Google, Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. MSFT 2.26% , are telling remote workers it’s finally time to come back for good, or at least show up part of the week. Employees who fled the Bay Area…