Briefly

Quattrone gets 18-month sentence

NEW YORK -- Frank Quattrone, whose deft dealmaking made him an investment banking star during the Internet stock bubble and a millionaire many times over, was sentenced Wednes-day to 1½ years in prison for obstructing justice.

U.S. District Judge Richard Owen ordered Quattrone to begin serving the time in late October.

RealNetworks ends promotion

RealNetworks Inc. is ending a temporary money-losing promotion that slashed the price of its downloadable songs to 49 cents, but bargain hunters will still be able to find some deals at its online music store.

The company said it will continue to offer 10 of the most popular songs on its Web site at the cheaper price, in a promotion with music magazine Rolling Stone.

The Seattle-based company launched the 49-cents-per-song promotion Aug. 17 to compete with market leader Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes service. RealNetworks said Wednesday that it sold 3 million tracks over three weeks of the 49-cent promotion, almost double its normal sales.

Jo-Ann Fabrics opens new stores

Ohio-based Jo-Ann Stores Inc., the nation's largest crafts supplies and fabrics retailer, will hold grand opening events for four new Jo-Ann ``superstores'' in the Puget Sound area, including a 35,000-square-foot store at Bellevue's Crossroads Shopping Center, Sept. 23-25. The other new stores are in Puyallup, Tacoma and Lynnwood.

The superstores are twice as large as Jo-Ann's traditional stores.

Mercent signs up Car Toys

Mercent -- a Seattle-based startup formed by a former Amazon.com executive to provide technology services that help merchants sell products via the Internet -- has landed a new customer, Car Toys, a specialty retailer of audio sound systems for cars, mobile electronics and cell phones. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Car Toys is a Seattle-based company that was founded in 1987 in Bellevue by CEO Dan Brettler.

Mercent is led by CEO Eric Best, who also heads a technology consulting firm called Morse Best Innovation, Mercent's parent company. Mercent provides retailers with portals that link to Amazon.com and other e-commerce sites including Yahoo Shopping, MSN Shopping, AOL Shopping, and PriceGrabber.com.

180solutions hires vice presidents

180solutions, a Bellevue-based provider of Internet search marketing services, has hired Mike McHenry as its new vice president of sales and Ajay Murthy as its new senior vice president of strategic business intelligence.

McHenry's formerly led sales and marketing efforts at Global Media, iCat/Intel, Giga Information Group, Loudeye and Vendaria. He also founded The ePartners, a Seattle-based consulting company that helps Internet and e-commerce companies. Murthy was formerly senior vice president of strategic alliances at infoUSA and has held management positions at Bidpath, Microsoft and A.T. Kearney.

Tideworks acquires company

Seattle-based Tideworks Technology has acquired a Rotterdam, Netherlands-based company called Sonu Software Solutions, which will become part of Tideworks' wholly owned European subsidiary, Netherlands BV. Tideworks is a provider of software for terminal operators and shipping lines.