A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.
Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We’ve assembled the day’s most newsworthy bits below.
- In Bloomberg Businessweek’s profile of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, the publication declares, “Thank heavens.” Despite smack-talking HP’s board for letting Mark Hurd go and questioning the choice of new CEO Léo Apotheker (“maddening,” he once said), Ellison’s reportedly done a great job of taking a relatively boring database company and focusing on its most exciting areas and features. (Bloomberg Businessweek)
- Microsoft (MSFT) discussed the possibility of an Adobe (ADBE) acquisition to take on Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) in the mobile market. (The New York Times)
- A document has surfaced offering proof that Amazon’s App store is definitely in the works, though the company is still in top-secret closed-door discussions about it. (The Street)
- Nokia (NOK) is taking advantage of this week’s CTIA Enterprise and Applications show in San Francisco to try and win over more developers to devolop mobile apps for its Ovi store. The company views Ovi as a vital component in its overall strategy to regain U.S. market share from Apple and Google. (The Wall Street Journal)
- Former Skype CEO Josh Silverman is joining venture firm Greylock Partners as an “executive-in-residence.” Though he was recently replaced by Cisco exec Tony Bates, Silverman is viewed as someone who brought stability to Skype during a tumultuous time, right after both Skype founders quit the company. (GigaOm)
- IBM (IBM) unveiled a new, midrange disk storage system designed to better manage the increasing amount of data flowing through the Internet and growing volume of Web transactions. (The New York Times/IDG)
- Social messaging company Plannr is shutting down because of its acquisition by Google. (TechCrunch)
- Daily deal aggregator Yipit, which conveniently compiles several deals from deal sites like Gilt and Groupon into one email, raised $1.3 million during its latest round of funding. Investors include V Angel, RRE Ventures, Mike Yavonditte (Quigo), Jason Finger (SeamlessWeb), Josh Stylman and Peter Hershberg (Reprise Media). (TechCrunch)
- URL-shortening service Bit.ly raised another $10 million during its second round of funding to build out new features and potentially monetize growing traffic. (GigaOm)
- Gap’s new logo hasn’t gone over well with designers and web-savvy fans of the retail store, so much so that the company is planning a crowd-sourcing logo project asking people to come up with their own designs. (Mashable)
- Twitter has overhauled the back-end infrastructure of its search engine, boosting its speed and capacity to index posts, process queries and deliver results, while making the system more stable and better suited for the addition of new features. (PCWorld)
- Mashable has a handy “How To” on nailing your elevator pitch compiled from tips provided by startup execs. (Mashable)
- Unlucky Jacksonville, Florida resident Justin Bieber — no, not that Bieber — was kicked off Facebook for allegedly (but not really) using a fake name. (Gizmodo)
- Duke Nukem Forever, the latest installment in the irreverent first-person shooter franchise, claims the dubious title of “longest videogame in development” (12 years). For gamers who can’t wait until next year for the full experience, here’s a link to some honest-to-blog NSFW gameplay footage. (Kotaku)
- Square, the free service co-founded by Twitter creator Jack Dorsey that turns your mobile device into a credit card reader, released a new ad featuring Sandwich Dynamics editor and software developer Adam Lisagore. In it, Lisagore uses Square to cap off an afternoon of cocktails with an attractive lady. (Because, who wouldn’t be impressed at the end of a date by the “smooth card swipe?) (Engadget)
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