Google's New Record: 57 Acquisitions

Every week, Mountain View makes news with technology developments, discoveries and sometimes controversies.

Today, Mountain View Patch brings you “Bits and Bytes,” where we’ll relay the past week’s news highlights from our backyard giants, start-ups and small businesses alike.

Is tech giant Google considering financing an offer to acquire arch-rival, Yahoo! Inc.? Though the executives of both companies have declined to comment, according to reports, Google, which has $42.6 billion in cash and short-term investments, is considering helping finance acquisition of Yahoo! Inc.by other bidders, rather than trying to acquire Yahoo outright. Yahoo! shares rose about 3 percent Monday, as investors reacted to the news.

Google has spent over $1.4 billion on 57 acquisitions between January and September this year, outdoing its previous best of 48 acquisitions in 2010. With three more months to go, the internet search company is not done just yet. Google reportedly paid $941 million in cash for three deals alone. ITA Software accounted for a huge chunk of the pie at $676-million, while Zagat and Daily Deals followed – with $151 million and $114 million, respectively.

Bank of America has partnered with Intuit, provider of financial and business management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses, to provide Intuit(R) Full Service Payroll to its small business customers. The service includes guaranteed error-free paychecks, payroll taxes, and a team of experts to address payroll issues to small business owners.

Data backup, disaster recovery and business continuity platform, Axcient, Inc. announced the launch of Axcient Cloud Continuity, a service which enables businesses to launch their servers in Axcient’s Cloud with a few clicks. Built on HP hardware and available as a pay-as-you-grow service, with Cloud Continuity, small and mid-sized businesses can now have “total business continuity,” meaning access to both their data and applications at all times.

Mobile Intelligence solutions provider, Carrier IQ has been named by leading market research firm, IDC as an “Innovative Business Analytics Company to Watch Under $100M.” Carrier IQ was recognized in the Mobile Analytics category.

What’s cooking at your workplace? Five Silicon Valley firms, including Mountain View-based Google and LinkedIn make it to top ten list of the best workplace food of Glassdoor, a workplace review website. Facebook tops the list; with Google a close second.