In an effort to bolster its flash capabilities and gain a bigger chunk of the enterprise market SanDisk acquires data centre storage developer Fusion-io for $1.1 billion in cash.

“Fusion-io will accelerate our efforts to enable the flash-transformed data center, helping companies better manage increasingly heavy data workloads at a lower total cost of ownership,” SanDisk says.  “Customers will benefit from the addition of Fusion-io’s leading PCIe solutions to SanDisk’s vertically integrated business model.”

The acquisition follows the current storage industry trend toward vertical integration, as well as that of big vendors buying smaller specialist companies. SanDisk already stabs at enterprise flash, but it hopes the Fusion-io buy will broaden both its product and technology portfolios.

Apple might claim it pays its taxes, but the European Union is not too convinced-- so much so the European Commission opens an investigation into the corporate income tax paid by the iPhone maker.

The investigation probes Apple's subsidiaries in Ireland, the company's low-tax jurisdiction of choice, namely Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe. The EC is also looking into the taxes paid by two other non-tech companies-- Starbucks in the Netherlands and Fiat Finance and Trade in Luxembourg.

"In the current context of tight public budgets, it is particularly important that large multinationals pay their fair share of taxes," the EC says. "Under the EU's state aid rules, national authorities cannot take measures allowing certain companies to pay less tax than they should if the tax rules of the Member State were applied in a fair and non-discriminatory way."

Wireless charging developer WiTricity signs a technology licensing agreement with Intel, leading to the two companies working together to create wireless charging solutions for Intel devices.

The agreement hinges on Rezence, the wireless charging specification developed by the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP). Both Intel and WiTricity are A4WP board members, meaning the results of their relationship should trickle down to the rest of the alliance.

“Mobility has become central to all forms of computing, and wireless charging is becoming a necessity, not a luxury,” WiTricity says. "We look forward to helping Intel enable the industry to create a new generation of wirelessly-powered devices.”

Intel shows off the next generation 14nm Core M (aka Broadwell) processors at Computex-- a chip lineup designed for fanless device use the company claims is its most energy-efficient yet.

The Core M reveal was accompanied by "Llama Mountain," a 2-in-1 fanless PC reference design. The amusingly named device features a 12.5-inch display, weighs 670g and is all of 7.2mm thick sans detachable keyboard.

In comparison the similarly-sized Surface Pro 3 is 7.6mm thick and 800g heavy.

This is not the first Broadwell appearance, mind-- not when the CPU lineup has been delayed to ship just in time for the holiday season…

Lenovo describes fiscal Q4 and full year ending 31 March 2014 as "outstanding", reporting full-year revenues of $38.7 billion, a 14% increase over the previous year.

Meanwhile pre-tax profits total $1 billion, a 27% increase and a record for the company.

When it comes to devices Lenovo combines PCs and tablets in a single category-- and says Q4 shipments total 26m units with 18% growth, outpacing the market by over 13%. Total device volume reaches 114m with 37% growth, making a 4th quarter where the company sold more tablets and smartphones than PCs.

Lenovo laptop sales are up by 16% Y-o-Y for Q4, while desktops grow by 6.8% against an overall industry decline of -3.1%, the company continues.

In a bid to bolster its presence in tablets Intel forms a "strategic agreement" with Chinese mobile chip maker Rockchip in the production of Intel-based chipsets for entry-level Android tablet use.

The agreement does not include investment between the two companies.

One Rockchip-made, Intel-branded result of the agreement is an Atom-based quad-core chipset making part of the SoFIA entry-level mobile SoC family.

In fact the SoFIA family to grow by 3 different offerings-- a dual-core 3G version to ship on Q4 2014, a quad-core 3G version to ship on H2 2015 and an LTE version also due in H2 2015.

After weeks of speculation Apple confirms its acquisition of Beats, shelling out $3 billion for the headphone maker, music streaming platform and, perhaps most crucially, the services of co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Andre Romelle Young, aka "billionaire rapper" Dr. Dre.

"I’ve always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple,” Iovine remarks. “The idea when we started the company was inspired by Apple’s unmatched ability to marry culture and technology. Apple’s deep commitment to music fans, artists, songwriters and the music industry is something special.”

This is Apple's largest ever acquisition, and the first of such scale ($2.6 billion in cash, $400 million in stock). Historically the company shows a preference for deals of a much smaller and secretive nature.

Reuters reports Apple and the Google-owned Motorola Mobility settle all smartphone-related patent litigation, bringing an end to one of the higher profile legal battles in mobile industry space.

"Apple and Google have agreed to dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies," a joint statement from the two companies says. "Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform."

Unsurprisingly enough the settlement does not involve any cross-licensing agreements.