The information technology company, headquartered in Armonk, New York, provides everything from cloud computing to application management, data warehousing and security systems software.

IBM’s board declared a cash dividend of 85 cents per share, which will be paid to stakeholders on June 9, 2012.

This marks the 17th year in a row IBM has raised its quarterly dividend, and the ninth year in a row of double-digit percent increases, the company said in a statement.

Since the beginning of 2000, the tech company has raised its dividend by more than 600 percent. With the payment of the June 9th dividend, IBM will have paid consecutive quarterly dividends every year since 1916.

Additionally, the company’s board authorized a $7 billion share buyback program to be purchased on the open market or in private transactions, depending on market conditions.

This amount is in addition to around $5.7 billion remaining at the end of March from a prior authorization. IBM will now have about $12.7 billion for its stock repurchase program.

The company expects to request for more repurchase authorization at its board meeting in October this year.

“We continue in our commitment to deliver value to our shareholders,” chief executive Ginni Rometty said in a statement.

“At the same time, we continue to invest in capital expenditures, acquisitions and research and development, to keep IBM at the forefront of innovation.”

The company’s share price rose 1.24 percent to stand at $201.08 in trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Thompson said that the two sides are now talking about a simpler deal that would enable Yahoo to pay most of the proceeds to shareholders.

As of March 31, Yahoo estimated its holdings in Alibaba were worth $14 billion.

The previous guidance was for total revenues of $79.0 to $81 million.

Shares in the company rose eight percent Tuesday afternoon to $3.90.

In a statement, AirMedia chairman and chief executive Herman Guo said: "The company is able to raise guidance for the fourth quarter of 2011 due to stronger-than-expected advertising demand in the fourth quarter and less-than-anticipated impact from the flood in Thailand."

In November, the digital advertising screen company said third quarter revenues jumped 16 percent from a year earlier, topping its own guidance and helping to narrow losses for the third quarter.

Interclick shareholders will get $9 per share, a 22 percent premium to Monday's closing price for Interclick. The deal is expected to close by early 2012.

Interclick founder and chief executive, Michael Katz, said: "Having worked closely with Yahoo! for the past few years, we have a deep appreciation of the quality of the inventory that Yahoo! brings to market.

"The combination of Yahoo!'s premium data and inventory with our platforms will create tremendous value for clients."

Yahoo could use the purchase to revive sales of display advertising which stalled in the last quarter. The company is still seeking a chief executive officer after firing Carol Bartz in September, and has embarked on a strategy review as it battles competitors such as Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Facebook.

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California fell 3.7 percent to $15.05, while Interclick was up 21 percent to $8.95 late Tuesday afternoon.

For the three months that ended September 30, Syntel expects to see revenue of $167 million, up 19 percent from last year and up about 7 percent sequentially.

To reflect third-quarter performance, the company now expects annual sales of $635 to $640 million, raising the low end of its initial forecast. That is up from the original prediction of $625 to $640 million.

However, third quarter results will also include a one-time charge related to an arbitration proceeding with a former client, stemming from a 2004 engagement. Details relating to the arbitration are confidential, the company said.

Syntel estimates this one-time charge will eat into earnings per share by roughly 17 cents for the year 2011.

Syntel said it forecasts adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $2.65 to $2.73, down from its previous outlook of $2.75 to $2.90 a share.

Analysts, on average, expect Syntel to earn $2.84 a share, on revenues of $635 million, according to Bloomberg.

Syntel plans to carry out a conference call on Thursday, at 10 a.m. to discuss financial and operating performance for the quarter.

The Troy, Michigan-based company’s stock fell $1.34, or 2.71 percent, falling to $48.06 per share Monday afternoon on the Nasdaq.

Falls Church, Virginia-based CSC offers a range of services to clients in the commercial and government markets, including IT and business process outsourcing, emerging services, such as cloud computing and cybersecurity protection, and a variety of other IT and professional services. CSC receives a large percentage of its revenue through government contracts.

Under the terms of the definitive agreement, CSC will receive a lump sum upfront cash payment of $277 million, and five-year contract extension, with an estimate value of $1 billion to continue to support the capabilities of the systems covered by the original contract.

The government will receive expanded rights in CSC's intellectual property used in performance of the contract.

CSC said in August, when it announced the preliminary settlement, that it anticipated the deal would result in a non-cash pre-tax charge to earnings in its second fiscal quarter of roughly $250 million, reducing earnings per share by an estimated $1.15.

In the first quarter, the company reported net income of $183 million, or $1.17 per share, on revenues of $4.03 billion from $3.91 billion in the same quarter last year.

Shares of the company were down more than 2% on Wednesday afternoon, to trade at $27.29 as of 2:06pm EDT.

Watson is a computing system designed by IBM scientists, and named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson. The system rivals a human's ability to answer questions posed in natural human language with speed and accuracy.

Earlier this year, Watson proved its ability to do just that, when it beat the two most celebrated contestants in the history of the television question-and-answer game show, "Jeopardy!". This episode will be re-broadcast over the next three days, the companies said.

The machine can analyze and respond to an equivalent of approximately 200 million pages of information in less than three seconds. Now, WellPoint and IBM are developing the system to advance patient care.

In the medical field, Watson can help physicians to identify and diagnose a patient's medical issues, as well as aid in the decision-making process for an appropriate treatment option.

"There are breathtaking advances in medical science and clinical knowledge, however; this clinical information is not always used in the care of patients,"

"Imagine having the ability to take in all the information around a patient's medical care -- symptoms, findings, patient interviews and diagnostic studies," explained WellPoint's chief medical officer, Sam Nussbaum.

"Then, imagine using Watson analytic capabilities to consider all of the prior cases, the state-of-the-art clinical knowledge in the medical literature and clinical best practices to help a physician advance a diagnosis and guide a course of treatment.

"We believe this will be an invaluable resource for our partnering physicians and will dramatically enhance the quality and effectiveness of medical care they deliver to our members."

IBM's general manager of the Watson Solutions, Manoj Saxena, added: "With medical information doubling every five years and health care costs increasing, Watson has tremendous potential for applications that improve the efficiency of care and reduce wait times for diagnosis and treatment by enabling clinicians with access to the best clinical data the moment they need it."

In morning trading, WellPoint shares rose before falling flat at $61.81, while IBM's stock slipped 0.84% to $160.01.

The technology, known as cognitive computing, mimics the brain's neural and synaptic responses through complex algorithms and silicon circuitry.

The chips – not programmed the same way as traditional computers – are expected to learn from experiences, recognize patterns, remember and learn from mistakes. It is a sharp departure from traditional concepts and computer design, IBM said.

Systems built with these cognitive chips may be able to perceive their surroundings in real-time through multiple sensory modes. For example, they could issue tsunami warnings based on their decision making, monitoring the world's water supply through a network of sensors and actuators that constantly record and report metrics such as temperature, pressure, ocean tide, and more.

"Making sense of real-time input flowing at an ever-dizzying rate would be a Herculean task for today's computers, but would be natural for a brain-inspired system," the company said in a statement.

Project leader for IBM Research, Dharmendra Modha, commented: "Imagine traffic lights that can integrate sights, sounds and smells and flag unsafe intersections before disaster happens or imagine cognitive co-processors that turn servers, laptops, tablets, and phones into machines that can interact better with their environments."

With no set programming, the chips mimic the event-driven, parallel-processing abilities found in the brain. The chips do not contain biological elements, as IBM’s first cognitive computing prototype chips use digital silicon circuits inspired by neurobiology to make up what is referred to as a "neurosynaptic core", with integrated memory, computation, and communication.

The neurosynaptic chips took three years to develop, and involved IBM, and university researchers with the support of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  Collaborators include Columbia University, Cornell University, the University of California, Merced and the University of Wisconsin.

IBM said it has received $21 million in new funding from DARPA to begin phase two of the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project.

Its first two prototype chips have already been fabricated, and are currently undergoing testing, IBM said.

Cognitive computing architecture will create a single integrated system of hardware and software, using less power and space than traditional computers.

The team's long-term goal is to build a chip system with ten billion neurons and hundred trillion synapses, while consuming merely one kilowatt of power and occupying less than two liters of volume.

"This is a major initiative to move beyond the von Neumann paradigm that has been ruling computer architecture for more than half a century," added Modha.

The von Neumann paradigm is the design architecture of how a computer should store programs and process data.

Recently, IBM created Watson, a computing system capable of answering questions to complex questions posed in natural language, at rapid speeds. Watson was tested on quiz show Jeopardy in February, in the show's only human-versus-machine match up to date.

In a two-game, combined-point match, broadcast in three episodes, Watson beat Brad Rutter, the biggest all-time money winner on Jeopardy, and Ken Jennings, the record holder for the longest championship streak.

"Since 2003, we have returned over $100 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases, while continuing to invest in capital expenditures, acquisitions and research and development. Our commitment to delivering value to our shareholders remains as important today, as it has ever been,” Samuel Palmisano. Chairman, President and CEO said.

IBM made a number of small acquisitions in 2010, including  Unica, a provider of marketing software solutions, Storwize, a privately held company focused on providing real-time data compression technology, Datacap, a software provider that help organizations to digitize and manage their information assets, and OpenPages,  a risk management software specialist.

According to smartFOCUS the new product, currently referred to as code name Arjuna, will directly address the many challenges faced by modern direct marketers around the globe. 

It said that specifically it is designed to meet the growing need to deploy and evaluate marketing efforts across all channels - including social media.

"I am excited about the launch of the first ever complete multi-channel SaaS marketing solution, which offers marketers the power they need to execute sophisticated campaigns and the ease of use and flexibility that SaaS deployment enables,” interim chief executive Curt Bloom said.

He adds: “Beta customer feedback to date has been phenomenal and shows promising results."

Arjuna, which is slated for launch in the second half, represents a comprehensive revision of the group’s core analytic and campaign management software. 

SmartFOCUS said it will include new features like integrated workflow management as well as flexible data loading capabilities.

Bloom added: “This solution provides marketers the capability to rapidly target, design and execute marketing campaigns, without having to manage the peripheral data and application infrastructure associated with traditional analysis and campaign management engines.”

This week smartFOCUS is taking part at the annual Technology for Marketing & Advertising convention (TFM&A) in Earl's Court in London.

ABI Research, a market research company, projects mobile marketing and advertising spending to reach $28.9 billion by 2014.

"Adenyo's technology, mobile marketing and advertising expertise and their long-standing relationships with powerful enterprise customers will significantly strengthen our position in the mobile data services ecosystem," said CEO of Motricity, Ryan Wuerch.

Under the terms of the agreement, Adenyo will be bought for an initial $100 million in cash and stock, with a minimum of 50% in cash.  Motricity may also pay up to $50 million in a combination of cash and stock based on Adenyo’s financial performance during the twelve months after transaction close.   

Under International Financial Reporting Standards, Adenyo's unaudited  2010 revenues are about $20 million.  Excluding transaction and expected integration costs, Motricity expects the acquisition to be accretive to its earnings per share for 2011.

The deal, subject regulatory approvals and approval of Adenyo's shareholders, is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2011. 

As of 1:25 pm EST, Motricity’s shares are up 0.8% to trade at $19.52.  Since the company’s initial public offering in last July, its shares have more than doubled.

African Eagle Resources’ (LON:AFE, JSE:AEA) largest investor MWB Limited has increased its stake to 9.71 percent, after it bought more than five million shares.

MWB is one of a few significant investors that have been increasing their interest in the junior mining group. It has been involved in a couple of notable transactions recently - including the recent placing - which have seen it build its stake since it initially bought 30.2 million shares, 7.86 percent, back in December.

It now owns 39.7 million African Eagle shares.

Anglo Pacific is African Eagle’s second largest shareholder with 26.8 million shares, a 6.57 percent stake. It also participated in the recent placing. Anglo Pacific built its stake from 14.3 million shares, 3.74 percent, since November 2010.

Separately African Eagle was also brought to the front of investor’s attention as Edison Investment Research initiated its coverage of the stock, valuing the stock at 25 pence per share valuation - which implies over 60 percent upside to the current price of 15 pence.

Michael Starke, Edison analyst, highlights that African Eagle’s flagship project, the Dutwa nickel laterite in Tanzania, benefits from unique mineralogy. Consequently, African Eagle can achieve fast and efficient nickel extraction without the need for costly extraction techniques, unlike many other nickel laterites.

“Complex metallurgy has historically hindered production of nickel from laterites, despite their relative abundance. However, in Dutwa’s case, the deposit’s particular mineralogy makes it amenable to heap leaching at atmospheric pressures,” Starke said.

“Initial column tests suggest relatively rapid recoveries of 73 - 82 percent within 30 days.” 

Starke points out that Dutwa’s JORC-compliant resource already has one million tonnes of contained nickel - with 98.6 million tonnes grading 0.96 percent nickel - and this is expected to increase further, by 8 – 10 million tonnes, with extra drilling this year.

The analyst reckons Dutwa is currently worth around US$870 million - net present value (NPV) – based on this he calculates that African Eagle’s expected attributable stake in Dutwa (76 percent) is worth 25 pence per share.

A pre-feasibility study is currently underway at Dutwa and it is expected to be delivered in the third quarter of 2011.

There is plenty more to come from African Eagle Resources (LON:AFE) even though its share price is up almost 270 percent since last year, according to research from City broker Killik & Co.

African Eagle is currently developing a major nickel project in Tanzania. The Dutwa deposit was discovered in 2008 and since then the AIM-listed junior has made a lot of progress.

This morning it revealed that its £3.7 million placing was oversubscribed. Shares are being sold to investors for 15.5 pence each and the proceeds will be used to fund work on its pre-feasibility and bankable feasibility study on the Dutwa.

Dutwa is split between two separate deposits - Wamangola and Ngasamo – with 98.6 million tonnes (Mt) in total JORC resources grading 0.93 percent nickel and 0.02 percent cobalt. Earlier this month the company upgraded 46.2 million tonnes from the Wamangola inferred resource to give Dutwa its maiden indicated resource.

Killik analyst Jonathan Jackson recommended African Eagle in a note to clients. 

Jackson highlights that Dutwa contains around 950,000 tonnes of nickel metal equivalent, which would be worth around US$24.5 billion dollars – if they can recover it all of course.

He equates the deposits scale and value to that of an 18 million ounce gold deposit. 

“The company’s recent economic modelling of the project indicates a pre-tax net present value of US$650 million at a nickel price of US$8 per pound (lb), with an estimated average cash cost of production of US$3.37 per pound nickel,” Jackson said.

“The model was based on throughput of three million tonnes per annum for 26 years with processing by atmospheric tank leaching. 

“This would require an estimated initial capex of US$600 million and would yield life-of-mine earnings of US$8.2 billion at US$8 per pound nickel (the current price is closer to US$11.70 per lb).”

Jackson also highlights the potential of the nearby Zanzui project - where exploration drilling is underway to find further resources that could be processed via the Dutwa facility - which is just 50 kilometres away.

“African Eagle enjoyed a transformational period last year, making excellent progress on the pre-feasibility stage of the Dutwa and achieving favourable results at Zanzui,” the analyst adds.

“Although the company’s share price has appreciated by nearly 270% in the past 12 months, given that the pre-feasibility study is due to be completed later in the year, and with the potential for further near-term resource upgrades in the meantime, we are happy to join the story at these levels and believe there is plenty more to come from African Eagle.”