Furthering corporate America’s move away from pensions, International Business Mach-ines Corp. said on Thursday that it will freeze its $48 billion pension plan in 2008 and instead enhance its 401(k) benefits for its 125,000 US workers.Nearly all IBM’s US employees — everyone hired before January 1, 2005 — have pension benefits accruing under a traditional annuity-like plan or a cash-balance plan, which gives workers interest-bearing funds that they can take with them if they leave the company.

But these "defined-benefit" plans are becoming rarer. Companies say the plans carry too many uncertainties, largely because swings in interest rates and investment performances change accounting considerations and the amounts businesses must contribute to their pension funds in a given year.Industrial giants such as IBM and airlines that still carry pension obligations say the costs and complexities hamper their ability to compete with younger, more nimble rivals that aren’t saddled with pension obligations. Beginning in 2008, then, IBM workers’ pension benefits will be locked in place, based on salary and length of service. The accrual of benefits will stop, meaning future raises or additional years with the company will not signify bigger pension checks upon retirement.

Instead, IBM will increase its contribution to its 401(k) plans, in which workers get a defined, predictable amount from the company that they're responsible for investing. IBM will double the percentage of employees’ contributions that it matches, to 6 per cent of salary. (AP)

Two ascending Internet giants, Google and Yahoo, are to make plain on Friday that they intend to move aggressively beyond the Internet browser and onto the television screen. The two companies, alre-ady the most popular services for searching and organising the vast information on the World Wide Web, want to perform the same function for television, which will increasingly be delivered over the Internet.

Indeed, much of the innovation at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where top executives of both companies are speaking on Friday, rev-olves around video gadgets of all sizes that connect online to new programming services. Both Yahoo and Google have emerged as potent thr-eats to television networks because they are drawing ad dollars to their existing sites. And they are poised to cause further disruption if they can establish themselves as major players in advertising on Internet video.

Moreover, Google and Yahoo want to play a role in the emerging market for paid downloads of video programming, a market pioneered in 2005 by Apple Computer, which introduced a video iPod player and video downloads priced at $1.99 from ABC, NBC and other sources.One of those speaking today in Las Vegas, Terry S. Semel, Yahoo’s chief executive, said in an interview on Thursday that he would unveil an initiative called Yahoo Go to extend the company’s personalised services — from weather forecasts to e-mail — across multiple devices, from televisions to cellphones.

Most significant, the company is to introduce free software — designed for computers hooked up to television sets — that will compete with the Windows Media Centre of Microsoft. This software will allow viewers to use a television set, not merely a computer screen, to see any of Yahoo’s offerings of video content — from music videos to original news reports — and the more than one million video clips in its video search service. It will offer a TV programme guide, similar to those offered on digital cable services, but Yahoo’s version will include reviews and ratings of shows from its users.

Google’s plans will be laid out by one of its two founders, Larry Page. A Google spokesman declined Thursday to discuss Mr. Page’s speech.
But several executives briefed on the company’s plans said that he would announce a way to allow content producers to charge fees for Google users to watch programs on their PCs — either as downloads for later viewing or as streaming files.