Tom Glocer's position as CEO of Thomson Reuters had seemed shaky since problems with the company's former markets division were widely publicized earlier this year. And the company has announced that he will retire and be succeeded on January 1 by James C. Smith, currently the company's COO. The company also announced a new organizational structure that replaces its recently abolished division.

Xero, which makes web-based accounting applications for small businesses, has gotten a lot of buzz in the American market but isn't yet a force here. However, the New Zealand company says it is ramping up infrastructure to support 1 million end users. That came as it narrowed its loss while more than doubling revenue for the six months ended September 30.

Washington D.C.-based tax prepared has been sentenced to three years in prison for willfully aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false income tax return for 2004. Onuoha "Iggy" Nwokoro was also ordered to pay $510,389 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

An electrical short that occurred just under two weeks ago caused the problems that led to Intuit's online banking system being down for several hours. The problem and the efforts to fix it were outlined this week by CEO Brad Smith during this week's conference call regarding the company's results for the first quarter ended September 30.