Intel, world's biggest chip-manufacturer, has enhanced optimism that technology sector will recover soon from the slump.

Santa Clara-based Intel said on October 13 that its sales jumped 17 per cent to settle at $9.4 billion during the third quarter.

Santa Clara-based Intel pocketed 80.6 per cent of the global microprocessor revenue in the second quarter of the current year, highest in the last four years.

This is the largest market share captured by Intel since its 82.4 per cent market share in 2005. Intel had enjoyed 79.2 per cent of the market share during the same period a year ago.

Intel, California based chip-making giant, has acquired two software companies during the past one month period in an effort to gain additional expertise in the development of applications that aims at multi-core processors.

Intel has acquired Waterloo-based RapidMind, which provides a development platform that assists software developers to target multi-core processors.

The bidding war for the Santa Clara, California-based little-known specialty storage maker, Data Domain, took a somewhat dramatic turn on Monday, when data-storage biggie EMC boosted its offer to $2.1 billion, in the hope of pushing out its rival bidder NetApp.

In a new venture capital funding led by Mayfield Fund, Nokeena Networks, the industry's leading media infrastructure solution, has raised $6.5 million, thereby resulting in a total $15 million funding for the company. Existing and strategic investors also participated in the latest funding round.

Two of the technology bigwigs Intel and Nokia struck a broad deal on Tuesday, according to which they would together develop designs for new types of portable gadgets as well as the specific chips to be used in them.

As leading chip maker Intel Corp plans to expand its presence in new markets, like mobile devices, its shift in focus in obvious from its recent decision to phase out "Centrino" as a PC brand; and undertake re-branding for the forthcoming Core series of processors - including chips like 'Lynnfield' and 'Clarksfield'.

With the Computex 2009 show, from June 2 to 6 in Taipei, Taiwan, set to kick off, leading chip-maker Intel Monday used the spotlight on the show to introduce three new Core 2 Duo mobile processors, along with the launch of an ultra-low-voltage Pentium processor, particularly designed for ultra-thin laptops.

In a $33-million cash upfront deal announced on Friday, the Santa Clara-based McAfee Inc. is set to acquire the Cupertino-based 'whitelisting' technology vendor - Solidcore Systems Inc. As per the agreement, McAfee would pay another $14 million to Solidcore after its achievement of certain performance targets.

Posting its better-than-expected first quarter results on Thursday, the Santa Clara-based security software maker McAfee Inc. reported a $51.8 million net income, or 34 cents per share, as against the last year same-quarter figures of $30.2 million or 18 cents per year.