BRIEFCASE JANOLLARI WILL HEAD WB ENTERTAINMENT.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

David Janollari, an independent producer who helped get ``Six Feet Under'' on the air at HBO, was named entertainment president of the WB network Tuesday.

The job became open Monday when Jordan Levin, one of the top executives at the WB, quit rather than take a demotion to become entertainment chief.

Janollari was partners with Bob Greenblatt, currently at Showtime. The team also produced ``Eve'' and ``One on One'' for UPN.

Janollari worked at Warner Bros. Television as head of comedy development, bringing the ``Friends'' creators to the studio. He also worked at Fox with Garth Ancier, the new chief executive at the WB.

Acacia sues over video-on-demand

A firm that says it holds the rights on technology needed to power video- on-demand services and streaming video over the Internet sued major cable and satellite TV companies Tuesday, alleging patent infringement.

Acacia Media Technology Corp., a division of Newport Beach-based Acacia Research Corp., alleges that nine companies are violating five of its patents, some of which date back to 1992, that describe a method of transmitting audio/visual content.

The defendants include cable giants Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc. and Charter Communications Inc., as well as satellite providers DirecTV Group Inc. and Echostar Communications Corp. and some smaller companies. The complaint was filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco.

Citigroup to offer binational cards

Catering to the large U.S. Hispanic market, Citigroup Inc. is introducing binational credit-card programs that can be used by Mexican clients living in the United States and by their family and friends in Mexico.

The world's largest financial services group said in a news release Tuesday that the new program will allow Mexican residents to benefit from credit lines granted to Citigroup's U.S. clients and to withdraw cash from American accounts.

Citigroup's unit California Commerce Bank will issue the binational credit cards to Mexican clients in the United States, according to the release. The U.S. cardholder can then authorize Banamex, Citigroup's Mexican unit, to issue their family members or friends a card on the same account.

Oracle again has double-digit gains

SAN FRANCISCO - Oracle Corp. registered its sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth as the world's second-largest software maker continued to capitalize on corporate America's gradual upturn in technology spending.

The Redwood Shores-based company said Tuesday that it earned $990 million, or 19 cents per share, for the three months ended May 31. That represented a 15 percent improvement from net income of $858 million, or 16 cents per share, at the same time last year.

Quarterly revenue totaled $3.08 billion, a 9 percent gain from $2.83 billion last year. The quarter marked the final three months of Oracle's fiscal year - generally the company's peak sales period.

Oracle is widely regarded as a software industry bellwether because of its size and the timing of its fiscal quarter, which ends a month before most of its major rivals close their books.

Attack closes off major Web sites

SAN JOSE - Several major Web sites - including Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google - were inaccessible at times early Tuesday due to what the company that distributes them online called an attack.

The problem began about 5:45 a.m. PDT and lasted about two hours, said Jeff Young, a spokesman for Akamai Technologies Inc., whose network of servers mirror some of the Web's top destinations to improve their performance.

Young called it a ``large-scale, international attack on Internet infrastructure.'' However, there was no evidence that non-Akamai infrastructure was affected.

Amit Yoran, head of the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity division, declined to comment on the alleged attack and its scope, deferring questions to Akamai. The government-funded CERT network emergency response team said it was too early to determine what happened.

Schwab will miss forecasts for Q2

NEW YORK - Discount brokerage firm Charles Schwab Corp. on Tuesday signaled that it won't meet analysts' second-quarter earnings expectations because customers are hesitant to trade stocks.

Schwab Chief Financial Officer Chris Dodds said an 11-cent-a-share average estimate of analysts is too high. He blamed investors' reluctance to trade and lower commission rates that Schwab put into effect Tuesday.

The San Francisco-based firm hopes to match its 2003 second-quarter profit of 9 cents a share when it reports earnings in late July, he said.

He made the forecast after Schwab said daily average trades on which it collects commissions fell 15 percent in May from April and that it attracted 45 percent fewer new accounts last month.