Urgency drives Lenovo deal in Brazil

Lenovo's planned purchase of local PC maker CCE underscores the company's global ambitions.

NBA's Kevin Love is latest player in celeb-tech mashup

Stealth startup 12Society is adding to a roster that includes Michael Strahan and Nick Cannon.

FORTUNE -- A marketing startup targeting the Maxim set will announce today that Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves is joining as a co-founder.

The company,12Society, is a lifestyle site that aims to help products and services reach young, male audiences. Other co-founders of the venture include actor Nick Cannon, former New York Giant Michael Strahan and MORE

Exclusive: Huawei employees ask U.S. for right to compete

The fast-growing gear maker has been thwarted in the U.S. by national security concerns. Now, employees are rallying on behalf of the company.

FORTUNE -- Earlier this year Fortune chronicled China-based telecom equipment maker Huawei's efforts to win private contracts in the United States. Thus far the fast-growing gear maker, which last year had sales of $27 billion, has been thwarted by national security concerns.

Now FORTUNE has learned that external relations MORE

Disruption today: All about managing customers' expectations

Or, the art of selling change.

FORTUNE -- How do you disrupt when your customers don't want to be disrupted?

At a roundtable conversation at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colo., a group of entrepreneurs and fast-growing company executives convened to discuss the ways upstarts are trying to shake up the status quo. But rather than focusing on the incumbents they are seeking to displace, the disruptors engaged in a lively MORE

Breaking: Telcos' mobile payment platform in major credit card tie-up

FORTUNE -- Isis, the mobile payments platform backed by AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and T-Mobile USA, has inked deals with the four largest credit-card networks, a move that the companies say will help accelerate the long-awaited "cellphone-as-a-wallet" concept in the U.S.

New York-based Isis today will  unveil alliances with American Express (AXP), Discover (DFS), Master Card (MA) and Visa (V) -- the major companies that settle payments among banks, consumers, merchants and MORE

El Bulli chef and Telefónica spokesman doesn't use Facebook

Chef Ferran Adrià loves the Internet but is too busy to tweet.

Spanish chef Ferran Adrià, the foodie favorite who raised the profile of molecular gastronomy at his El Bulli restaurant in Catalonia, stopped by Fortune Wednesday afternoon to discuss his new role as brand ambassador for telecommunications giant Telefónica SA. (TEF)

At first blush the Adrià-Telefónica alliance may seem incongruous--like a delicate fish paired with a hearty Zinfandel--but Adrià insisted that MORE

Why the Verizon 'dream phone' matters

The Verizon iPhone won't be big news. Until it is.

There are plenty of good reasons to be blase about the forthcoming Verizon iPhone, which, according to news reports, will be announced tomorrow. The arrival of an Apple (AAPL) phone for Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon (VZ) and Vodafone  (VOD),  is pretty old news. (For a recap of its path to the marketplace, see "Get Ready for Verizon's 'Dream Phone'" MORE

Videogaming's online explosion

Online games such as Age of Conan and Farmville are hot. Now industry leader Activision Blizzard is jumping into the fray with a new Internet strategy.

When videogame publisher Activision announced its merger with Vivendi Games in late 2007, analysts predicted that Vivendi's Blizzard unit, maker of the hugely popular Internet-based fantasy game World of Warcraft, would help Activision migrate to the online world.

Three years later the combined company, Activision Blizzard, MORE

Non-profits to tech: We need your brainpower...and money, too.

Philanthropists say tech companies can help with BHAGs (That's Big, Hairy Audacious Goals)

A panel of non-profit and foundation executives urged the technology community to provide educational and philanthropic institutions and others with its entrepreneurial and business-building know-how, in addition to increasing its financial contributions.

"What the tech world and entrepreneurs and VCs, they're not afraid of BHAGs -- Big Hairy Audacious Goals," says John Wood, a former Microsoft (MSFT) executive and MORE

Team Droid X: the anti-Apple?

Verizon, Google, Motorola and Adobe join forces on new mobile phone.  Is this a tech "dream team" or merely an alliance of Apple foes?

The press conference for the forthcoming Droid X was filled with some subtle and not-so-subtle signals that the new Motorola (MOT) device is not an iPhon

e, and that Apple (AAPL) isn't the only smartphone maker that matters.

For starters, there was the lineup of speakers, a rogues' gallery MORE