Is LinkedIn worth $1bn? Yes. Why? Because Bain Capital says it is. The stock is not public, so you and I cannot trade it. The whole notion of the average punter trading tech stocks (or the average punter's pension fund trading it on your behalf) seems rather quaint, from some bygone era. But why has the public market for tech stocks disappeared?

Microsoft's chief software architect said the company will not rush to integrate its Web advertising system with that of possible merger partner Yahoo. Ray Ozzie, the Lotus Notes inventor and Groove Networks founder who took over the software architect role from Bill Gates in 2006, told the Financial Times that Microsoft would take its time integrating the two companies' Web technology ...