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From Wire Reports The Spokesman-Review

The maker of BlackBerry e-mail devices, fresh from settling a lawsuit that threatened its very business, is buying a company that will allow it to marry BlackBerries with corporate phone systems.

“It makes your BlackBerry perform just like your desktop phone,” said Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive of the company behind the BlackBerry, Research in Motion Ltd.

RIM will announce today that it has bought Ascendent Systems, a San Jose, Calif., company that makes software for connecting cell-phones to a corporate phone switch, or PBX.

Ascendent’s software will be merged into RIM’s later this year, enabling office-phone functions like simultaneous ringing at several locations, call transfer and spontaneous teleconferencing, Balsillie said.

•Final bids were coming due for Knight Ridder Inc. Thursday, the end of a process that could not only determine the future of the No. 2 newspaper publisher in the country but also provide an important read on investor sentiment toward the industry.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company is keeping quiet about the sale process, but the interested parties are known to include The McClatchy Co., publisher of The Sacramento Bee and other newspapers; industry leader Gannett Co. as well as MediaNews Group Inc., a privately held company based in Denver.

At stake is the ownership of 32 newspapers throughout the country, including the San Jose Mercury News, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald. Knight Ridder was forced to put itself up for sale last November by its largest shareholders, who were frustrated with the company’s lagging share price.

•Merck & Co. said Thursday that Chief Executive and President Richard T. Clark received a salary of $917,733 in 2005, up from the $541,674 he got in 2004 as a division president.

Clark, who became chief executive of the Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based pharmaceuticals company in May of last year, also got restricted stock awards valued at $1.9 million for 2005, up from awards valued at $410,699 for 2004 as president of Merck’s manufacturing division, according to a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the SEC filing, Merck also said it granted the CEO options to purchase 167,500 shares for 2005, up from the 51,250 he got for 2004. He also received a bonus of $1.3 million for 2005, up from the $400,000 he got for 2004.