Influx of visitors to Zillow.com crashes Web site

Pacific Northwest

Six hours after Zillow.com, a Seattle-based Web site that offers free home valuations, launched its beta version Wednesday, the site crashed under the onslaught of 300,000 page views. It was out for several hours.

"What caught us by surprise is how much people used it and how deeply they used it," company spokeswoman Amy Bohutinsky said.

Indeed one man contacted her to say he'd used Zillow.com to research the home values of every person on his Christmas list.

Bohutinsky said the Zillow.com team thinks it has resolved the technical problems that shut the site down.

"We feel pretty good, but that's why we call ourselves beta," she said.

Final assembly begins of last 717

The last 717 jet entered final assembly this week at Boeing's Long Beach, Calif., plant. This 156th and final model is due to be delivered to AirTran Airways in May, ending production of commercial airplanes in California.

A 100-seat aircraft developed by McDonnell Douglas as the MD-95, the jet was renamed the 717 after the 1997 merger with Boeing.

Though the 717 didn't sell well, the program pioneered an industrial model of heavily outsourced production and a moving final-assembly line that Boeing adopted and refined after the merger.

Drug qualifies for swift review

Regulators will speed review of Cell Therapeutics' experimental drug for lung cancer once it's submitted for approval, the Seattle company said Wednesday.

The drug, Xyotax, is now in a large clinical trial of women with nonsmall cell lung cancer, for which there are few treatments and cures are rare. That's why the Food and Drug Administration said Xyotax qualifies for "fast track" review, to be completed within six months of the application. A standard review takes 10 to 12 months.

Cell Therapeutics' stock gained 19 cents, or 10.3 percent, to close at $2.03 on 28 times its average trading volume Wednesday.

Trubion

Veteran executive named to board

Trubion Pharmaceuticals has added seasoned biotech executive Steven Gillis to its board of directors, the Seattle company said Wednesday. Gillis, a founder of Corixa and Immunex, last summer joined Arch Venture Partners, which was an early investor in Trubion.

Umpqua Holdings

Western Sierra deal announced

Umpqua Holdings said Wednesday that it is buying California's Western Sierra Bancorp for about $355 million in stock.

The acquisition will add Western Sierra's 31 branches in Northern California to Portland-based Umpqua's banking network, which includes 95 branches in Oregon, Northern California and Washington.

Pacific Northwest

SourceLabs

Oracle partnership will boost exposure

Seattle open-source-software company SourceLabs is announcing today a new partnership with Oracle, which certified SourceLabs' SASH software product and is distributing it via its Web site.

"It will certainly increase our exposure among Oracle customers, which are many of the largest companies in the world," said Cornelius Willis, vice president of sales and marketing.

SourceLabs also announced a new version of SASH for Java software developers.

SASH is a bundle of enterprise software developed by the open-source community that SourceLabs tests and supports for corporate users, such as Motorola and Merrill Lynch.

Nation and World

Nortel Networks

Tentative pact made on shareholder suits

Telecom-equipment maker Nortel Networks said Wednesday it has reached a tentative agreement to pay $2.47 billion in cash and stock to settle two shareholder class-action lawsuits over the company's accounting scandal.

Nortel, which has been working to recover after it had to restate previous financial results and terminate several senior executives, said it wants to avoid prolonged litigation.

Shareholders filed numerous lawsuits against Nortel for allegedly violating U.S. and Canadian securities laws after it issued revised financial expectations for the 2001 fiscal year.

Radio companies payola-probe target

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said Wednesday he has subpoenaed nine of the nation's largest radio conglomerates in his "payola" investigation of major artists and songs that he claims got air time because of payoffs by recording companies.

"A lot of the major songs have been implicated in this and it showed how pervasive the payola infrastructure had become," Spitzer said.

"Major artists, major songs were sent up the charts through improper payments to buy spins on the air that translated into sales."

The companies that have received subpoenas control thousands of stations nationwide, including Clear Channel, Infinity, Citadel, Cox, Cumulus, Pamal, Entercom, Emmis and ABC, according to court records filed by Spitzer.

Two major recording companies agreed last year to settle their parts of the investigation. Warner Music said it would pay $5 million, and Sony BMG agreed to pay $10 million.

Settlement expected in AIG accusations

Federal and state regulatory authorities are expected to announce a $1.6 billion settlement today with American International Group (AIG), which has been accused of involvement in an insurance bid-rigging case and the use of deceptive accounting practices, according to people familiar with the settlement terms.

The settlement will be split by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which will receive about $800 million to compensate injured investors, and New York regulators who brought a civil case against AIG last summer.

Chris Winans, a spokesman for New York-based AIG, said the company had no immediate comment.

AIG, one of the world's largest insurers, was accused by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer last May of using unacceptable accounting tactics to make the company's financial performance appear better than it was, misleading both investors and regulators.

Loudeye

Music-service deal with retailer is off

Loudeye said Wednesday that a deal has fallen through to create a custom digital music service for a North American retailer.

Loudeye and the unnamed retailer have terminated their contract.

The Seattle company also said it would consolidate its digital media-store operations at its European headquarters in the United Kingdom but would continue to run digital media content services in Seattle.

The company reported fourth quarter revenue of $8.8 million, up from $5.5 million for the year-ago period, and said it would have a net loss.

It plans to release more detailed financial results for the quarter and for 2005 on Feb. 23.

Compiled from Seattle Times staff and The Associated Press