SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo’s dysfunctional turnaround efforts have morphed into a Silicon Valley soap opera, one that has taken another strange twist with the Internet company’s ousting of CEO Scott Thompson just four months after his arrival.

Thompson’s hasty departure, amid a furor over an inaccurate resume, ushers in a new cast of characters led by interim CEO Ross Levinsohn and New York hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb. It was Loeb’s sleuthing skill that uncovered Thompson‘s misleading biography. With a 5.8 percent stake in the company, Loeb now gets even more leverage with three seats on Yahoo’s 11-member board of directors. He and the rest of Yahoo’s board will appoint one more “mutually agreeable” director, according to a Monday regulatory filing.

If Yahoo’s saga is to end happily, the company’s new leadership will have to develop a strategy to lure back Web surfers and advertisers who have been defecting to Internet rivals Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. At the same time, they will likely need to complete the complicated negotiations to sell part of the company’s prized stake in China Alibaba Group.

Those objectives ranked high on Thompson‘s priority list, too, but a ficitious college degree that appeared on his official biography ended his brief tenure.

Another factor may have contributed to Thompson‘s short stay. Citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported that Thompson, 54, had informed Yahoo’s board last week that he has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Even so, Thompson was still scrambling to save his job last week as he deflected responsibility for a bio that included a college degree in computer science that he never received. Thompson, in fact, graduated from Stonehill College, near Boston, in 1979 with a degree in accounting —not computer science.

Incensed at initially being denied a seat on Yahoo’s board, Loeb exposed the phantom degree earlier this month.

In a sign that he was forced out, Thompson left Yahoo without a severance package, according to documents filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He is also surrendering unvested stock awards valued at $16 million. Thompson will get to keep a $1.5 million cash bonus and restricted stock valued at $5.5 million that Yahoo paid him to compensate for benefits he gave up at his former job at PayPal, an online payment service owned by eBay Inc. Yahoo had been paying Thompson a $1 million annual salary, which could have been supplemented by a bonus of up to $2 million.

Analysts are divided on whether Yahoo is now in a better position to lift its long-slumping stock price and revive its revenue growth.

Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter thought Yahoo was making its greatest progress in years under Thompson‘s aggressive leadership. Now, there’s a risk that Thompson‘s exit will waste four months of turnaround work — a setback that Schachter says Yahoo Inc. can’t afford at this critical juncture.

“What is really scary about all this is the Internet is the fastest moving industry in the world, so the time they are losing is very dangerous,” Macquarie said.

Other analysts believe Levinsohn is a better fit as Yahoo’s CEO than Thompson, who had spent the previous seven years immersed in processing digital payments at PayPal.

“Levinsohn is an extremely qualified executive, in our view, and will serve as a calming force amid the turmoil,” Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan wrote in a Monday email. “He has a visceral understanding of what it takes to succeed in the media business. We believe that under new leadership, Yahoo is more likely to re-emerge as a premier, highly profitable online media.”

It’s a sentiment shared by some investors. Yahoo’s stock added 31 cents, or 2 percent, to close Monday at $15.50.

Levinsohn’s name had been bandied about as a CEO candidate before the company hired Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz to fill that role in January 2009. Bartz subsequently hired Levinsohn as one of her top lieutenants in late 2010 and then his name came up as a potential successor to Bartz after Yahoo fired her eight months ago. Yahoo instead appointed its chief financial officer, Tim Morse, as interim CEO before settling on Thompson.

Levinsohn, 48, is best known for running the Internet operations of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. when that company bought MySpace, then the Internet’s top social network, for $580 million in 2005. Levinsohn then negotiated a lucrative advertising deal that made the MySpace deal look like a coup. But then Facebook emerged as the Internet’s social hub, and News Corp. wound up unloading MySpace for just $35 million last year, long after Levinsohn had left.

In previous jobs, Levinsohn also held top media positions at CBS Sportsline and Alta Vista, a once-popular search engine that was supplanted by Google.

As the head of Yahoo’s media and advertising services, Levinsohn had been striking more exclusive online video deals featuring well-known talents such as former CBS news anchor Katie Couric and actors Tom Hanks and Jeff Goldblum. Yahoo has also been gearing up to increase its coverage of the Summer Olympics and U.S. presidential election in the fall.

Levinsohn has publicly described Yahoo’s audience of more than 700 million users as an “untapped jewel” that should be able to attract more advertising than it has in recent years.

Yahoo’s annual revenue has fallen from a peak of $7.2 billion in 2008 to $5 billion last year. Advertisers aren’t spending as much money at Yahoo largely because they have been getting better returns at Internet search leader Google and at Facebook, where people have are spending more of their online time. In March, for instance, Web surfers in the U.S. spent an average of six-and-half hours on Facebook compared to four-and-three-quarters hours on Google services and three-and-half hours on Yahoo.

Despite the downturn in revenue, Yahoo has become more profitable by cutting costs under both Bartz and Thompson. After laying off 2,000 workers last month, Thompson had started to identify about 50 Yahoo services that he intended to close or sell. Levinsohn, who was working closely with Thompson, hasn’t indicated if he still intends get rid of all those services.

Although Levinsohn has been labeled as interim CEO, Yahoo’s board is probably hoping he performs well enough to be appointed the company’s permanent leader, said Gayle Mattson, an executive vice president for executive search firm DHR International.

“I am sure the board is auditioning him because to try to bring someone from outside the company right would be a total disaster,” Mattson said.

Levinsohn isn’t getting a raise with his expanded responsibilities, Yahoo said Monday. His salary as a Yahoo executive vice president in charge of media content and advertising remains at $700,000 salary with an annual bonus of up to $840,000. Yahoo gave Morse, a 25 percent raise that lifted his salary to $750,000 when he was named Yahoo’s interim CEO after Bartz’s ouster.

Loeb, who runs the Third Point LLC hedge fund, has muscled his way on to a Yahoo board that has undergone a radical makeover. All but three of the directors have been appointed since February. One of the recent appointees, former technology executive Alfred Amoroso, is the new chairman of the board, but Loeb “is clearly calling the shots right now,” Schachter said.

Loeb has gained investors’ respect with scathing public criticism that eventually pressured Yahoo to get rid of the remaining directors that sat on the board when the company committed perhaps its biggest blunder — a squandered opportunity to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. for $33 per share, or $47.5 billion, per share, four years ago. Yahoo’s stock price hasn’t traded above $20 since September 2008.

The breakdown in Microsoft negotiations triggered a shareholder mutiny that culminated in billionaire investor Carl Icahn and two of his allies being appointed to Yahoo’s board in 2008. Icahn resigned after just 15 months on the board.

Loeb is expected to play a more influential role in the boardroom than Icahn did, particularly in Yahoo’s on-again, off-again negotiations to sell part of its roughly 40 percent stake in Alibaba, one of the hottest companies in China’s rapidly growing Internet market. Yahoo had been discussing a complex deal with Alibaba that would have avoided incurring a large tax deal, but those talks unraveled shortly after Thompson’s hiring.

Thompson had renewed the Alibaba discussions and, last month, expressed some hope that a deal would get done this year.

Signaling Loeb’s key role in the Alibaba talks, Yahoo appointed him to the board’s strategic planning and transactions committee.

Selling part of the Alibaba stake would be welcomed by Loeb and other major shareholders because it would probably produce a multibillion-dollar windfall. As of March 31, Yahoo estimated its holdings in Alibaba were worth $14 billion. That indicates investors see little remaining value in the rest of Yahoo, which currently has a market value of $19 billion.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft’s Bing search engine is heading in a new direction as it drills deeper into Facebook‘s social network and Twitter’s messaging service to showcase information unlikely to be found on Google.

The changes, unveiled Thursday, will reshape how Bing displays its search results. It represents Microsoft’s most dramatic shift in Internet search since the software maker introduced Bing as a “decision engine” nearly three years ago.

Microsoft Corp. is counting on the new format to loosen Google’s stranglehold on the lucrative Internet search market. In the process, Microsoft hopes to turn a profit in its online division, which has lost more than $6.3 billion since Bing’s June 2009 debut.

Bing replaced “Live Search,” a mostly futile attempt to challenge Google. Microsoft touted Bing as a Google alternative that would provide more meaningful results by helping people make important decisions, such as picking a doctor and finding the best time to buy an airline ticket.

For the past two years, Bing has been taking advantage of Microsoft’s close relationship with Facebook to make search results more personalized and more relevant to users. It’s an advantage Bing has over Google because its rival is shut out from the personal data Microsoft has access to on the world’s largest network. But Bing has failed to come up with an approach compelling enough to lure away most Web surfers from Google.

Bing is trying to fix that with the latest changes, which come out next month. Microsoft plans a marketing blitz on television and the Internet to promote the changes. Anyone seeking a peek during the next few weeks of testing can go to http://www.bing.com/new Thursday to sign up for an invitation. The testing period will begin Tuesday.

The revised system presents Bing’s results in three columns, or panes.

The left column will feature the familiar blue links drawn from Bing’s computer formula for finding the most relevant results.

The middle section, called “Snapshot,” is reserved for completing tasks, such as getting directions, making a hotel reservation or buying movie tickets. This feature isn’t expected to be available during the testing phase.

Once available, Snapshot will provide a space featuring movie show times and an option to buy tickets in response to a search for “The Avengers.” Searches for hotels will bring up pictures of rooms and information on amenities, as well as the ability to make reservations.

The “Sidebar” column on the far right side will be the centerpiece of the new Bing.

Sidebar is where Bing users logged into Facebook will see recommendations culled from their Facebook network. From there, people will be able to pose questions for their friends on their own Facebook pages without leaving the results page. The results from a Bing search can even be shared on Facebook.

For instance, a search for “Kauai hotels” might list your Facebook friends who have been to the island. You can then use the Sidebar box to post a note about it on Facebook and even seek advice from a specific friend.

The Sidebar column also will highlight relevant tweets, including those from people you might not follow. The feature will also suggest experts on topics related to certain search requests and list their Twitter handles, along with any blogs or other websites where they share their insights.

Most of the personal data that Bing is pulling from Facebook and Twitter is unavailable to Google because its search engine doesn’t have the same access to those information-sharing hubs as Microsoft does through its partnerships.

“This is a big, bold bet that we think is going to surprise a lot of people,” said Lisa Gurry, Bing’s senior director. “It’s a fundamentally different way of looking at search.”

It’s also an admission by Bing that its previous attempts to incorporate Facebook data into its search results haven’t worked out.

Although Bing has been far more successful than Live Search, virtually all of its gains have come at the expense of Yahoo Inc., which began relying on Microsoft’s search technology in 2010 as part of a 10-year partnership between the companies. Bing’s latest changes won’t affect how Yahoo users get search results.

For the past year, Bing has been customizing search results based on the recommendations expressed by the number of times a user’s Facebook network had pressed a “like” button on topics related to a search request. Gurry said Bing discovered that most Web surfers didn’t want the results influenced by their friends to be co-mingled with answers generated by a computer program.

That culminated in the decision to create Sidebar so a separate area of the results page is devoted to the social-networking suggestions.

Bing’s experience underscores the difficulty that all search engines have had figuring out how to blend the influence of social networking into their results, said Altimeter Group analyst Rebecca Lieb.

“Different parts of the social graph are good for different reasons,” she said. “When I am looking for advice about a movie, I probably don’t want to see a recommendation from one of my ‘foodie’ friends. What Bing is doing looks like a very elegant approach, but it remains to be seen if people are going to like it.”

Lieb doesn’t believe it’s a coincidence that Bing is announcing its Facebook-friendly makeover as the world’s largest social network prepares to complete the biggest initial public offering of stock in Silicon Valley history. The media frenzy surrounding Facebook Inc.’s IPO, expected next week, can only make more people more curious to see how Bing is highlighting results from the social network, Lieb said.

Microsoft has been working closely with Facebook since it bought a 1.6 percent stake in the social network for $240 million in 2007. It has proven to be a tremendous investment. Microsoft’s Facebook stake is now worth $900 million to $1.2 billion, depending on the price set in the IPO.

And now Bing can pore through the reams of information being posted by Facebook’s more than 900 million users, 18 times more than the social network had when Microsoft bought its stake.

Twitter also has been selling Microsoft expanded access to its tweets since 2009. Google Inc. lost its special privileges to the same stream of data last summer because Twitter didn’t renew a licensing agreement.

That partnership unraveled right around the same time Google launched its Plus social network to counter the growing popularity of Facebook and Twitter. In a move that has amplified questions about its objectivity, Google began this year to favor results drawn from Plus while excluding publicly available information from Facebook and Twitter — data Google doesn’t need a licensing deal for.

The bias has provided more fodder for an intensifying Federal Trade Commission investigation into allegations that Google has been stifling competition by highlighting its own services and burying or completely ignoring links to its rivals’ websites.

Despite Microsoft’s massive investments in search, Bing hasn’t been able to ding Google so far. Microsoft has nearly doubled the 8 percent share of the U.S. search market that it held when it rolled out Bing, but virtually all of those gains have come at the expense of Yahoo.

Google ended March with a 66 percent share of the U.S. search market, up by a percentage point from June 2009 when Bing entered the fray, according to the research firm comScore Inc. Bing’s share currently a distant second at 15 percent.

Unlike its rival, Bing intends to include relevant recommendations from a wide range of social-networking services, including Google Plus.

“We are not trying to build an empire by favoring some services over others,” Gurry said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Cisco raised the specter of a sharp slowdown in technology spending late Wednesday, rattling investors already fretting about the economy’s fragile condition.

The red flag raised by the world’s largest maker of computer-networking equipment overshadowed a solid showing in the most recent quarter.

Investors instead fixated on a sobering forecast for the current quarter that Cisco Systems Inc. CEO John Chambers traced to skittish customers who are waiting longer to close deals and spending less money because of growing uncertainty about the economy, particularly in Europe and India.

“We are still in an uncertain environment economically,” Chambers told analysts in a conference call.

The cautionary remarks sparked worries that Cisco might be about to fall into a slump similar to the one that it just pulled out of late last year after trimming about $1 billion in its annual expenses.

Those fears caused Cisco’s shares to plunge $1.58, or more than 8 percent, to $17.20 in extended trading Wednesday. The sell-off doesn’t bode well for the Dow Jones industrial average Thursday, as Cisco is one of the 30 stocks in the closely watched market barometer.

As a maker of big-ticket technology equipment with an international reach, Cisco is considered to be a good gauge of the swings in the global economy.

Cisco underscored its concerns about the economy by predicting its revenue for the current quarter, which runs May to July, will increase by just 2 percent to 5 percent from the same time last year. The average estimate among analysts surveyed by FactSet had called for a 7 percent increase in revenue.

The company, which is based in San Jose, Calif., expects its adjusted earnings for the period to range from 44 cents to 46 cents per share. Analysts had predicted adjusted earnings of 49 cents per share.

The prospect of weak revenue covers Cisco’s fiscal fourth quarter — typically the company’s busiest period. Although management didn’t look beyond the current quarter, investors are likely wondering whether the business climate for Cisco will be even worse in the late summer and early fall.

Chambers sought to reassure analysts telling them, “We will muddle through this with a little bit of bumps on the road.”

Cisco earned $2.2 billion, or 40 cents per share, during its fiscal third quarter, which ended April 28. That compared with net income of $1.8 billion, or 33 cents per share, at the same time last year.

If not for certain accounting items unrelated to its ongoing business, Cisco would have earned 48 cents per share. On that basis, Cisco’s earnings were a penny above the average estimate among analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue rose 7 percent from last year to $11.6 billion, matching analyst projections.

Cisco’s showing contrasted with revenue downturns in the most recent quarters at two of its major rivals, Juniper Networks Inc. and Alcatel-Lucent. The earnings growth also provided the latest sign that Cisco’s recently completed overhaul is paying off. In that reorganization, Chambers laid off workers and dumped operations that he believed were distracting the company from its main business of selling computer-networking equipment.

But, Chambers stressed Wednesday, Cisco may be facing economic challenges beyond its control.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is sorry for allowing an inaccuracy about his education to appear in his official bio, but not remorseful enough to heed calls for him to resign.

Thompson apologized for the uproar caused by the misinformation in a memo sent Monday to the troubled Internet company’s employees. Yahoo Inc. provided a copy of the memo to The Associated Press.

The memo didn’t offer any explanation why Thompson‘s bio has periodically listed a bachelor’s degree in computer science that he never received. The exaggeration was most recently repeated in documents that Yahoo filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“We have all been working very hard to move the company forward, and this has had the opposite effect,” Thompson wrote. “For that, I take full responsibility, and I want to apologize to you.” He assured Yahoo employees that he remains focused on taking the steps that he believes are needed to revive Yahoo’s revenue growth and boost its long-sagging stock, even with his own job imperiled.

Thompson’s note of contrition came on the same day that an activist hedge fund that owns a 5.8 stake in Yahoo escalated its effort to oust the CEO for unethical conduct.

The fund, Third Point LLC, issued a legal demand to review internal Yahoo documents that may explain how much research the company’s board did about Thompson’s background before hiring him in January. Third Point contends it’s entitled to the records under the laws of Delaware, where Yahoo is incorporated.

Yahoo didn’t respond to requests for comments about Third Point’s demand.

After initially brushing off the misinformation as an “inadvertent error,” Yahoo’s board opened an investigation into the circumstances that led to the computer science degree being including on Thompson’s bio. Thompson told employees that he “respects the process” and will provide whatever information the board requests.

Besides appearing in Thompson’s bio in the recent SEC documents and on Yahoo’s own website, the bogus degree also appeared in other summaries about the executive’s accomplishments during his previous job running eBay Inc.’s online payment service, PayPal.

Several experts in corporate ethics and board governance have said the recurring deception regarding Thompson’s education is probably serious enough to end his short reign as CEO.

In his memo, Thompson sounded like a man determined to stick around so he can carry out a turnaround plan that so far has focused on cutting costs. Last month, he laid off 2,000 employees, or 14 percent of the workforce, and now he is working on closing or selling about 50 Yahoo services that have been financial laggards. He is also exploring selling part of Yahoo’s roughly 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group, a thriving Chinese Internet company investors view as Yahoo’s most valuable asset.

“I am hopeful that this matter will be concluded promptly,” Thompson wrote of the Yahoo board’s investigation. “But, in the meantime, we have a lot of work to do. We need to continue to act as one team to fulfill the potential of this great company and keep moving forward.”

Yahoo has promised to share its findings about Thompson’s illusory degree with shareholders when the board completes its inquiry.

After exposing the fabrication on Thompson’s bio last week, Third Point set a noon Eastern Time deadline Monday for Yahoo to fire Thompson. Yahoo’s inaction triggered Monday’s demand for internal records so Third Point’s manager, Daniel Loeb, can dig deeper into the matter.

The push to dump Thompson is unfolding against the backdrop of Third Point’s campaign to gain four seats on Yahoo’s board. Loeb believes he and three allies could help boost Yahoo’s fortunes.

Besides demanding the internal records leading to Thompson’s hiring, Third Point is seeking documents on the selection of six directors.

Five of them have been appointed since Yahoo hired Thompson. They are: Peter Liguori, John Hayes, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb Jr. and Fred Amoroso.

Third Point also wants records concerning the appointment of Patti Hart to the board in 2010. Hart led the committee in charge of the search for new directors after co-founder Jerry Yang resigned from Yahoo’s board in January and four other members announced they would step down later this year.

Third Point also wants Hart to resign from the board because of an inaccuracy that the hedge fund uncovered on her bio. Hart’s bio had claimed she held a bachelor’s degree in marketing and economics. After being confronted by Third Point, Yahoo clarified that Hart graduated from Illinois State University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration with specialties in marketing and economics.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal jury in San Francisco is expected to deliver at least a partial verdict Monday in a copyright-infringement trial pitting Oracle against Google.

The 12 jurors informed U.S. District Judge William Aslup that they have unanimously agreed on three of the four issues at stake in the opening round of the trial. The jury foreman says there appears to be an impasse on the remaining issue.

Aslup was leaning toward accepting a partial verdict Friday until the foreman mentioned some jurors believe some of the holdouts could change their mind over the weekend.

The jury is debating Oracle Corp.‘s allegations that Google Inc. built its popular Android software for mobile devices by stealing some of the technology from Java, a programming platform that Oracle bought two years ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A disgruntled Yahoo shareholder questioned the qualifications and integrity of recently hired CEO Scott Thompson after exposing a misrepresentation about the executive’s education.

The fabrication confirmed Thursday by Yahoo Inc. gives New York hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb more artillery as he tries to topple a board of directors favored by Thompson, who became CEO of the troubled Internet company four months ago.

Loeb, whose fund Third Point owns a 5.8 percent stake in Yahoo, gained more leverage when he discovered Thompson doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree in computer science from a small college in Easton, Massachusetts, as Yahoo stated in a regulatory filing last week.

Thompson only has an accounting degree from Stonehill College, an accomplishment that Yahoo also listed in the filing. The accounting degree was the only one listed in Thompson’s resume last year by eBay Inc. when he was still running that company’s PayPal payment service. He graduated in 1979, according to Stonehill’s website.

Yahoo confirmed Thompson’s credentials had been exaggerated in the recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, which is based in Sunnyvale, California, brushed off the distortion as an “inadvertent error.”

But Loeb pounced on the misinformation as a violation of Yahoo‘s code of ethics and called for an independent investigation to determine whether Thompson had misled the company’s board about his technology credentials. He also cited the mix-up as an example of Yahoo‘s poor corporate governance.

“If Mr. Thompson embellished his academic credentials we think that it 1) undermines his credibility as a technology expert and 2) reflects poorly on the character of the CEO who has been tasked with leading Yahoo at this critical juncture,” Loeb wrote in a letter to Yahoo‘s board on Thursday. “Now more than ever Yahoo investors need a trustworthy CEO.”

In the past, other companies have suspended or fired executives who were caught lying on their resumes.

Yahoo hired Thompson to reverse years of financial lethargy that set in at the company even as more advertising shifted to the Internet. The funk has weighed on Yahoo’s stock, which has been hovering between $10 and $20 for most of the last three years. Yahoo shares fell 27 cents to close at $15.40 on Thursday. That’s well below the $33 per share that stockholders could have gotten in May 2008 if the board had accepted a takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.

The company stood behind Thompson in its statement. “This in no way alters that fact that Mr. Thompson is a highly qualified executive with a successful track record leading large consumer technology companies,” Yahoo said. “Under Mr. Thompson’s leadership, Yahoo is moving forward to grow the company and drive shareholder value.”

Tensions between Loeb and Thompson escalated since late March when Yahoo appointed three new directors to its board. In doing so, Yahoo snubbed Loeb, who had been lobbying for a board seat along with three allies who he believes have the skills necessary to help Yahoo rebound from its long-running struggles. At the time, Thompson made it clear that he and the Yahoo committee overseeing the search for new directors had concluded Loeb wasn’t the best candidate.

Loeb is waging a campaign to persuade Yahoo’s shareholders to elect him and his allies to the board at the company’s annual meeting. The date of that meeting still hasn’t been set.

Besides ripping Thompson, Loeb also sought to discredit Patti Hart, one of the Yahoo directors he wants bounced from the board. Hart led the committee that recommended Yahoo’s new appointments to the board.

In his letter, Loeb noted that Yahoo’s recent SEC filing says Hart holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and economics from Illinois State University. In its response, Yahoo clarified Hart received a bachelor’s degree in business administration with specialties in marketing and economics.

Thompson, 54, has mostly cut costs to boost profits since taking over as Yahoo’s CEO. Last month, he laid off about 2,000 employees, or 14 percent of the workforce, in the biggest payroll purge in Yahoo’s 17-year history. He also disclosed plans to close about 50 Yahoo services that haven’t been attracting enough users or generating enough revenue.

He has made modest progress on other financial fronts. Yahoo registered its first year-over-year increase in quarterly net revenue since 2008 during the three months ending in March.

Even though he doesn’t have a computer science degree, Thompson has a background in technology. He served as PayPal’s chief technology officer for three years before being promoted to the payment service’s president in 2008. He also previously worked as chief technology officer at credit- and debit-card processor Visa USA.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A jury has started deliberations in a closely watched copyright infringement trial pitting Oracle against Google.

The federal case in San Francisco centers on Oracle’s allegations that Google’s popular Android software for mobile devices relies on technology stolen from Java. That’s a programming platform that Oracle Corp. acquired in 2010 as part of its $7.3 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Google Inc. says it drew upon small parts of Java that aren’t protected by copyright and traditionally have been freely available to all programmers.

The case was turned over to the 12-person jury Monday afternoon after two weeks of testimony and arguments. Oracle is seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in damages.

After a verdict on copyright infringement is reached, the parties will address allegations of patent infringement.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft produced a surprisingly strong quarter to start the year, pleasing investors looking forward to even bigger things from the software maker’s much-anticipated overhaul of Windows operating system next fall.

The performance announced Thursday defied the conventional thinking that Microsoft would have trouble selling more Windows licenses as more people snapped up tablet computers, such as Apple Inc.‘s trendsetting iPad, while other prospective personal computer buyers delayed making their purchases until the next version of Microsoft’s operating system hits the market.

That didn’t turn out to be the case during the three months ending in March as revenue at Microsoft’s Windows division edged up by 4 percent from last year to $4.6 billion. Microsoft attributed the gain to an uptick in businesses who bought licenses for Windows 7. It marked only the second time in the past six quarters that Microsoft has registered a year-over-year gain in the Windows division.

“We’re driving toward exciting launches across the entire company, while delivering strong financial results,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

High hopes are riding on the revamped system, Windows 8, because Microsoft designed it to run on devices that can be controlled by touch, as well as keyboards and computer mice. That means Windows 8 can serve a dual purpose: it could help spur the development of sleeker PCs that spur more sales and also give Microsoft a chance to grab a piece of the rapidly growing tablet computer market.

Although Microsoft hasn’t announced a target date yet, most analysts believe Windows 8 will go on sale in September or October.

Microsoft Corp. earned $5.1 billion, or 60 cents per share, during the period marking first three months of the year — the Redmond, Wash company’s fiscal third quarter. That was a 2 percent decline from net income of $5.2 billion, or 61 cents per share, a year ago.

Last year’s results were boosted by a tax benefit of $461 million, or 5 cents per share.

Revenue rose 6 percent from last year to $17.4 billion

Analysts had anticipated earnings of 58 cents per share on revenue of $17.2 billion, according to a FactSet survey.

Microsoft’s shares gained 87 cents, or nearly 3 percent, to $31.88 in Thursday’s extended trading.

While the Windows division held up better than expected, one of Microsoft’s recent strongholds weakened. The deterioration occurred in the entertainment division as Microsoft’s shipments of its Xbox 360 video game console plunged by nearly 50 percent to 1.4 million units. The sagging demand occurred as more people are playing games on phones and tablet computers. Revenue in the entertainment division declined 16 percent from last year to $1.6 billion.

Microsoft’s long-suffering online division, which has struggled for years to compete against Internet search leader Google Inc., managed to narrow its losses in the latest quarter. The division, which includes its Bing search engine, posted an operating loss of $479 million compared to a loss of $776 million at the same time last year. Microsoft’s online revenue totaled $707 million, a 6 percent increase. By comparison, Google’s revenue during the same period surged by 24 percent.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft produced a surprisingly strong quarter to start the year, pleasing investors looking forward to even bigger things from the software maker’s much-anticipated overhaul of Windows operating system next fall.

The performance announced Thursday defied the conventional thinking that Microsoft would have trouble selling more Windows licenses as more people snapped up tablet computers, such as Apple Inc.‘s trendsetting iPad, while other prospective personal computer buyers delayed making their purchases until the next version of Microsoft’s operating system hits the market.

That didn’t turn out to be the case during the three months ending in March as revenue at Microsoft’s Windows division edged up by 4 percent from last year to $4.6 billion. Microsoft attributed the gain to an uptick in businesses who bought licenses for Windows 7. It marked only the second time in the past six quarters that Microsoft has registered a year-over-year gain in the Windows division.

“We’re driving toward exciting launches across the entire company, while delivering strong financial results,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

High hopes are riding on the revamped system, Windows 8, because Microsoft designed it to run on devices that can be controlled by touch, as well as keyboards and computer mice. That means Windows 8 can serve a dual purpose: it could help spur the development of sleeker PCs that spur more sales and also give Microsoft a chance to grab a piece of the rapidly growing tablet computer market.

Although Microsoft hasn’t announced a target date yet, most analysts believe Windows 8 will go on sale in September or October.

Microsoft Corp. earned $5.1 billion, or 60 cents per share, during the period marking first three months of the year — the Redmond, Wash company’s fiscal third quarter. That was a 2 percent decline from net income of $5.2 billion, or 61 cents per share, a year ago.

Last year’s results were boosted by a tax benefit of $461 million, or 5 cents per share.

Revenue rose 6 percent from last year to $17.4 billion

Analysts had anticipated earnings of 58 cents per share on revenue of $17.2 billion, according to a FactSet survey.

Microsoft’s shares gained 87 cents, or nearly 3 percent, to $31.88 in Thursday’s extended trading.

While the Windows division held up better than expected, one of Microsoft’s recent strongholds weakened. The deterioration occurred in the entertainment division as Microsoft’s shipments of its Xbox 360 video game console plunged by nearly 50 percent to 1.4 million units. The sagging demand occurred as more people are playing games on phones and tablet computers. Revenue in the entertainment division declined 16 percent from last year to $1.6 billion.

Microsoft’s long-suffering online division, which has struggled for years to compete against Internet search leader Google Inc., managed to narrow its losses in the latest quarter. The division, which includes its Bing search engine, posted an operating loss of $479 million compared to a loss of $776 million at the same time last year. Microsoft’s online revenue totaled $707 million, a 6 percent increase. By comparison, Google’s revenue during the same period surged by 24 percent.