MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs shine in merger Monday

Merger mania was raging at midday Monday, as techs snapped each other up and drove the Nasdaq into its sixth day of wins. The Nasdaq rose 32.26 to 4,276.40, and the Dow Jones industrial average slipped 64.53 to 10,899.27.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index gained 2 to 562.94.

Corel Corp (Nasdaq: CORL) dropped 13/16 to 19 3/16 after it announced its intentions to acquire Inprise/Borland Corp., in a $2.44 billion stock swap that the companies say will create a "Linux powerhouse." VA Linux (Nasdaq: LNUX) was down 3 1/2 to 121 1/2 and Red Hat Inc. (Nasdaq: RHAT) lost 3 13/16 to 88 7/8.

Visual Networks (Nasdaq: VNWK) fell 10 5/8 to 52 3/4 after it said it had agreed to buy privately held Avesta Technologies for about $415 million in stock.

Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) rose 1/2 to 76 3/4 after it acquired the Silicon Valley Networking Lab, Inc., a networking-industry test lab.

Kana Communications (Nasdaq: KANA) dropped 15 7/8 to 243 after it announced it would combine its online customer support software with Silknet's e-business applications and systems.

Akamai Technologies (Nasdaq: AKAM), down 11 1/4 to 223 3/4, said it plans to acquire InterVu, which develops systems to deliver video and audio over the Internet, for about $2.8 billion in stock.

Metrocall Inc. (Nasdaq: MCLL) was up 1 3/4 to 13 3/8 after it said several companies were taking a stake in the Internet data and two-way messaging company.

EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK) and MindSpring announced their combined quarterly results Monday, just after the two ISPs completed their merger Friday.

Go2Net (Nasdaq: GNET) gained 5/16 to 83 1/4 after it announced a three-year agreement to make NDB.com (NYSE: NDB), up 1 5/16 to 25 1/16 the exclusive brokerage service for the Go2Net Network.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) fell 2 11/16 to 75 7/8. Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) rose 2 33/64 to 356 1/64, and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) fell 7/8 to 56 15/16.

Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL) fell 3/8 to 38 1/8, Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ) gained 1/4 to 27 5/8 and IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) rose 1/8 to 115 3/4.