Hewlett-Packard Company has announced that it is planning to cut 24600 jobs over the next three years on account of combining operations with Electronic Data Systems Corp.

Hewlett-Packard is the global leader in personal computer business and recently acquired Electronic Data Systems which is an electronics services company. The acquisition was intended to take on IBM’s portfolio of services business in a major way. The integration of HP and Electronic Data Systems will however mean a reduction of the formers work forced by almost 8 % which signals a job cut affecting more than 24,600 employees.

Hewlett-Packard intends to save around $1.8 billion annually after the restructuring of its workforce is over. However in ongoing three month-period, HP is expected to incur a $1.7 billion charge for presenting a goodwill package as well as other costs related to restructuring. Before the acquisition of Electronic Data Systems, HP had 178000 employees while the former company had 142000 people working for it.

In recent times, competition for services contracts has been intensifying among technology companies as more and more businesses look for ways to offload their computing chores. With rising costs and increasing complication of newer technology, businesses prefer to outsource these jobs to outside companies in order to save costs.

Best Buy Co Inc is reported to have arrived at a deal with Napster Inc. according to which it will acquire the digital music company for $121 million.

On Monday, Best Buy spokesperson announced that under a merger agreement the Richfield-based company will buy all outstanding Napster shares at a price of $2.65 in cash which is double the closing price of Napster shares last Friday. The deal is yet to be approved and will most likely close in the fourth quarter.

The acquisition of Los Angeles-based Napster will give Best Buy an opportunity to expand its digital music offerings as well as its online media operations. While Best Buy already has a subscription-based digital music store, which was launched in 2006, Napster is expected to figure prominently in the area of downloadable music.

Napster has a market base of 700000 subscribers to its Web-based digital entertainment services. According to the terms of the deal with Best Buy, current Napster CEO Chris Gorog and his senior management will become employees of Best Buy. The latter also claimed that there were no immediate plans of restructuring Napster’s 140-person strong workforce and nor was there any need of moving Napster’s operations to new location.

The Bank of Japan took steps to infuse cash into the Japanese market in an attempt to maintain stability of the financial market. This became necessary in the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers which resulted in a fall in stock but a rise in yen as well as government bonds.

As news of Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy spread to world markets, Tokyo’s Nikkei share average crashed almost 5% to a three-year-low even as the yen reached a four month high against the dollar and JGB recorded a rise of 3% to their daily limit.

Fluctuating market conditions compelled Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to call an emergency meeting of his key ministers. Along with the meeting, the Bank of Japan decided to pump in 1.5 trillion yen or $14.4 billion into the financial market as an attempt to maintain stability. This is the largest same-day injection of cash in the last five months. The governor of the Bank of Japan, Masaaki Shirakawa also announced that the Bank will continue to keep an eye on the developing situation surrounding the US financial institutions as act accordingly.

Japanese authorities ordered Lehman Brothers Japan Inc to halt trading and according to sources, Lehman Japan is also expected to file for bankruptcy at the courts with debts amounting to 3 trillion yen or $29 billion.

Lehman Brothers became the latest among the most high-profile investment banks to crash in the ongoing meltdown gripping the US financial markets.

On Monday, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in the largest such instance of the country’s financial history. The company listed $613 billion in debts and approximately $639 billion in assets. It also revealed that it owed more than $157 billion to ten of its biggest unsecured creditors most of which were American and Japanese banks. News of bankruptcy led shares of Lehman to tank by 93% from $3.44 to 21 cents on Monday.

The news of Lehman’s bankruptcy resulted in stock markets crashing all over the world on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 504 points or 4.4% which was the biggest point drop since September 17 2001 which was the day the stock markets re-opened after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US. Monday’s bloodbath at the stock markets totaled a loss of $700 billion in shareholder wealth.

However analysts believe that severe though the financial market crash, it has still not collapsed. An outright catastrophe has been mainly avoided by some prompt steps taken by the US federal government which has ensured that by and large the average person on the street remains safe.

The crisis in the Wall Street has raised questions on how the presidential candidates propose to regulate the financial system. Neither the Democrat nor the Republican candidate has come up with a detailed financial plan of restoring confidence among the investors as well as the average person on the street.

The chaotic events in the US financial sector prompted Republican candidate Sen. John McCain to lay the blame on certain greedy elements at Wall Street even as he asserted that the fundamentals of the economy remained strong. However going by previous records, it seems likely that will continue to support deregulation and rely more on market forces than on government intervention. On the other hand Democrat candidate Sen. Barack Obama has frequently called for greater regulation of the financial institutions which would include investment banks, mortgage brokers and hedge funds.

The Bush administration, which had initially decided to give a free hand to market forces, made an about turn by providing federal support to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the biggest housing financiers in the US whose collapse threatened to take down the whole credit market.

The unraveling of the investment banking industry gained momentum Last week with the demise of Bear Stearns. However on Monday morning news of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the acquisition of Merrill Lynch sent the Wall Street in a tizzy which resulted in stock markets all over the world falling sharply.