Business Highlights

ATLANTA — Ted Turner was uncharacteristically understated Friday as he departed Time Warner Inc., the media conglomerate that swallowed his cable network company and slowly sidelined him as a mover and shaker in the businesses that he helped to create.

The CNN founder told Time Warner shareholders at their annual meeting he regrets not being able to do more for them.

"I just wish the last five years I could have made a bigger contribution,” Turner said. "I hung in there as long as I could. I’ve done my best.”

With that, he borrowed newscaster Edward R. Murrow’s famous sign-off, said "Good night and good luck” and left the Georgia World Congress Center after not standing for re-election to Time Warner’s board of directors.

Dell: bowing to demand

DALLAS — The world’s largest PC maker says it was merely bowing to customer demand when it decided to start offering microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in some of its high-end servers.

But the announcement, disclosed as Dell reported an 18 percent drop in its first-quarter profit Thursday, represents a significant change from the company’s long-standing use of chips only from Intel Corp., AMD’s much larger rival.

After months of rumors and some analysts suggesting that the company’s Intel-only policy was hurting business, Dell said it will use AMD’s Opteron Dual-Core processors in Dell’s multiprocessor servers by year’s end for the first time.

Ford gears up for strike

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. has made preparations for a strike by auto supplier Delphi Corp., but Ford Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford said he’s been encouraged by reports of progress in negotiations that could avoid a strike.

Ford also said he supports President Bush’s effort to let the administration — not Congress — set new fuel economy standards for cars, saying that would ensure the rules are dictated by science instead of politics. But he said he was hurt earlier this year when Bush implied that the Big Three automakers aren’t making relevant products.

Beer buyout underway

ST. LOUIS — Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., citing consumers’ need for variety in beer, said Friday it will pay $82 million to purchase the Rolling Rock beer brand from InBev USA, the U.S. subsidiary of Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev SA.

The company, the nation’s largest brewer, said it will begin producing Rolling Rock and Rock Green Light in August at its Newark, N.J., facility, one of 12 Anheuser-Busch breweries across the country.

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