Also ...

Chatsworth-based Great Western Financial Corp. said it is ending its stock-repurchase plan in connection with its pending $6.6-billion merger with Washington Mutual Inc. . . . International Business Machines Corp. agreed to buy a majority interest in Redwood City-based NetObjects, a closely held provider of software for creating World Wide Web sites on the Internet. Terms were not disclosed. . . . Avant Corp. of Sunnyvale said a federal judge denied Cadence Design Systems Inc.’s motion to stop Avant from selling chip-design software products that allegedly use programming stolen by Avant. But the judge ruled that San Jose-based Cadence can press ahead for a trial. . . . Mountain View-based Netscape Communications Corp. will join with Yahoo Inc. of Santa Clara to provide a personalized guide to favorite Internet sites. The new service will be called Netscape Guide by Yahoo; Yahoo will pay Netscape $5 million to use the Netscape name. . . . Flextronics International Inc. of San Jose said it’s in talks with the Securities and Exchange Commission on questions over how it accounted for last year’s $45-million purchase of Astron Group Inc. of Hong Kong. . . . Atmel Corp. of San Jose said the International Trade Commission agreed to investigate the company’s complaint that several Asian chip makers sell products that infringe its patents.