Business Highlights

LOS ANGELES — Struggling computer maker Gateway Inc. said Thursday it has eliminated nearly 100 jobs as part of a cost-cutting effort designed to save it between $30 million and $35 million a year.

The company, which also makes plasma TV sets and other electronic devices, said it will take a charge in the fourth quarter for severance costs. The jobs were corporate positions, including some in the marketing, accounting and legal departments, Gateway said.

The announcement came as the Irvine-based company reported slightly higher third-quarter earnings on lower revenue and flat personal computer sales.

Gateway has been under intense shareholder pressure to improve its performance and, in September, rejected a $450 million offer to buy it’s retail business.

Electronic Arts income falls, beats expectations

SAN JOSE — Electronic Arts Inc., the world’s biggest video game publisher, beat Wall Street’s earnings expectations with strong fiscal second-quarter sales on Thursday, though profits fell 57 percent, hurt by the new accounting requirement of stock option charges.

Redwood City-based EA also boosted its fiscal year outlook.

Net income for the three months ended Sept. 30 was $22 million, or 7 cents per share, compared with $51 million, or 16 cents per share during the same period last year, the company said Thursday. The results included stock-based compensation charges of $33 million.

On an adjusted basis, excluding certain items, the Redwood City-based company said it would have earned $65 million, or 21 cents per share, compared with $46 million, or 15 cents per share, last year. Revenue rose 16 percent to $784 million from $675 million a year ago.

MySpace investor sues, claims site blocked links

SAN JOSE — An early investor in MySpace sued the popular social networking Web site on Thursday, claiming the company violated antitrust laws by blocking links to his new online video-sharing venture.

Brad Greenspan, chief executive of Los Angeles-based LiveUniverse Inc., claims that last month MySpace began deleting references on user pages to his new Web site, vidiLife.com, and has dismantled video links and blocked users from mentioning the site.

Both sites allow users to post videos and create online profiles for swapping media and collecting Internet pen pals.

"MySpace has no legitimate business justification for its actions,” read the suit, filed in a Los Angeles federal court. Instead, MySpace’s actions constitute "an attempt to monopolize the market for Internet-based social networking services in the United States.”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an order that MySpace restore all references to vidiLife.

MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said in a statement that it routinely blocks links to Web sites for violating copyright protections, and that vidiLife.com had been identified by Universal Music Group as a "primary source of infringing UMG content.”

It declined to comment further because it had not yet reviewed the complaint.

Greenspan formerly was chief executive of Los Angeles-based Intermix Media Inc., which owned MySpace and was sold last year for $580 million to News Corp.

An outspoken opponent of the sale, Greenspan submitted his own bid for the company but was denied by Intermix’s board. Last month, a state court judge in Los Angeles rejected his lawsuit challenging the sale. Greenspan vowed to appeal.

Greenspan left Intermix in 2003 amid an informal regulatory inquiry into accounting restatements.

The New York Attorney General’s office then began looking into allegations the company secretly installed adware and spyware on millions of home computers, and Greenspan agreed to a pay $750,000 in a settlement that did not include an admission of guilt.