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EBay Speculation: Shares of online auction company EBay Inc. rose on a report that it is in talks with America Online Inc. about developing a closer business relationship. “This report is purely speculative,” EBay said in a statement. Company officials were not immediately available for further comment. EBay shares rose as high as $246 before closing up $1.88 at $233. The Wall Street Journal said AOL could acquire a minority stake in San Jose-based EBay. AOL does not comment on speculation, a company spokeswoman said.

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Motorola Transition: Motorola Inc.’s board elected Chief Executive Christopher Galvin as chairman, effective June 1, to succeed Gary Tooker, who reconfirmed he will retire at the end of the year. Tooker will serve as vice chairman from June 1 through the end of the year to assist Galvin in the transition. Galvin, 48, has been credited with pushing through a massive restructuring of the company in response to increased competition in the semiconductor and cell phone industries.

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Lotus Release: IBM Corp.’s Lotus unit has pushed back the shipping date of the next major release of its Lotus Notes software to the end of March from its previous end-of-February deadline. Lotus said testing for bugs is taking longer than anticipated but added that no problems have emerged.