Jackson mourning crashes Google

A flurry of Web surfing for news about Michael Jackson's untimely death flattened Google News on 25 June, states eWeek.

The search engine and Web services providers refused to serve searchers' Web pages for nearly a half an hour.

Facebook, Twitter and other Web sites also experienced a burst in traffic, the second spike in as many weeks, thanks to the Iranian election.

Microsoft is putting Internet ad agency Razorfish up for sale, according to Financial Times, reports cnet.

Microsoft, which acquired Razorfish in 2007 as part of its $6 billion takeover of Aquantive, has reportedly hired Morgan Stanley to find a buyer.

The report identified French marketing company Publicis Groupe as a potential buyer.

Giant online retailer Amazon.com may be plotting a broader foray into software for smartphones, reports ZDNet.

In the past several months, the online retailer has been expanding its team of mobile engineers.

The goals may be to sell new programs that can run on Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, make Amazon's digital titles available for more devices, and ring up revenue from sales of mobile applications, say several software executives and analysts.

Dell has announced a range of services for European customers that will allow them to outsource some IT functions to Dell or a reseller partner for a monthly, quarterly or annual fee, says Computing.co.uk.

The new offerings are similar to the managed IT services already operating in the US.

They will be available in English first, with other major European languages set to follow by October.

Sony Ericsson is reportedly working on a phone that combines PlayStation games with a cellphone, says The Standard.

It's not the first time that such rumours have floated, but Nikkei, a big Japanese business publication, reported Sony has a team working on the product now.

The iPhone and its game capabilities have threatened to make portable game devices obsolete.