Business Notes

LAS VEGAS— Members of an alliance promoting Blu-ray Disc as the next-generation optical disc standard, used CES here earlier this month to announce that Hewlett-Packard and Dell will soon join their effort, giving the format key support from the IT industry. Maureen Weber, general manager of HP's optical storage solution business, and Gerry Smith, Dell's vice president for peripherals, said they supported Blu-ray Disc over competing formats for high-definition optical disc standardization. This is, in part, because of its "open architecture," and affordability through the use of MPEG2, which will not require additional compression resources from a PC's CPU. The current 10-company Blu-ray Disc Founders Group, also proclaimed Blu-ray Disc's superiority in storage capacity over rivals — especially the HD-DVD Disc format being championed by Toshiba and NEC. Proponents of the HD-DVD format said here they have met key Hollywood requirements needed to enlist content development on their media, and have a more affordable standard for disc replicators, compatible with current DVDs.

WASHINGTON— XM Satellite Radio Holdings has put into motion the underwriting of a public offering of 18 million shares of its Class A Common Stock, including the offering of 7 million shares of XM, representing new financing, and 11 million shares by certain selling shareholders.

SUNNYVALE, CALIF.— PalmSource has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission proposing a public offering of 2.75 million shares of its common stock. In addition, the company has granted the underwriters an option to purchase an additional 412,500 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.