Cisco Systems is the world's top provider of products that link networks and power the Internet.
DuPont, which is based in Wilmington, Del., bought Antec International, a British provider of products to guard against conditions like avian flu and foot-and-mouth disease.
In an amicus brief, the trade groups wrote that because the word entrepreneur is in the public domain, "no provider of products or services to small business owners has had the right to bar others from using the term".
Mr. Apotheker, both in announcing the Autonomy deal on Aug. 18 and in previous comments, had spoken of software as transformational to H.P. It would unify the company from separate businesses in things like personal computers, servers and printers, and make H.P. a provider of products and services accessed and delivered anywhere, via the Internet, via the cloud.
At its operational stage, every enterprise can become such a provider of products or services to answer others' needs.
These include several "firsts" and the establishment of ESI, which aims to become the world leading provider of products and technologies derived from human embryonic stem cells.
Arrow Electronics, Inc. is a global provider of products, services and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions.
The company is acquiring Bayou Cos., a provider of products, including deep-water insulations, and services in the oil and gas industry for $125 million, and Corrpro, a provider of corrosion protection and pipeline maintenance services for $91 million.
Fresenius would like to "become a leading global provider of products and therapies for critically and chronically ill people".
Since the dawn of personal computing, software makers have sought to be not just providers of products, but universes unto themselves, into which users merge a piece of their identity.
