Boeing Co. has received a $659 million order from the Navy to produce more F/A-18 aircraft.

The order covers the purchase of 13 F/A-18F variants of the jet that is called the Super Hornet, as well as three E/A-18G Growler airborne electronic attack aircraft, the Defense Department said Tuesday. The Growlers are derived from the F/A-18.

Delivery of the aircraft will be completed by January 2012, and more than half of the work on the jets will be done in St. Louis and in El Segundo, Calif., the Pentagon said.

Boeing's F/A-18 deliveries rose 4.8 percent to 44 jets last year, and its defense sales of $32.1 billion accounted for 48 percent of total revenue.

Chicago-based Boeing gained $3.84, or 6.3 percent, to close at $65.20 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Treasury hires Morgan Stanley

The Treasury Department said Tuesday it has hired investment firm Morgan Stanley to help the government assess the risks facing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

For $95,000 to cover the company's expenses, Morgan Stanley will assess the state of the mortgage market and present a financial profile of the two companies.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were promised support from the government as part of a sweeping housing rescue bill passed by Congress, backed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and signed into law by President Bush last week.

"We are pleased to be able to offer our services to the government and look forward to working with Secretary Paulson and his team as they work to restore stability to the global capital markets and confidence in the U.S. housing market," said Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack.

IBM package snubs Microsoft

International Business Machines Corp. said Tuesday it's designing a package of programs that let customers run PCs without using any products from Microsoft Corp.

Canonical Ltd., Novell Inc. and Red Hat Inc. will help create a suite that includes the free Linux operating software and IBM's Lotus Notes and programs for e-mail, IBM said in a statement.

The product will cost at least 30 percent less than a personal computer that uses Microsoft's Windows operating system, IBM said.

The partnership will target companies with fewer than 5,000 employees. More than a third of Lotus revenue comes from smaller businesses, and IBM stands to make big money in the next year from the Linux venture, said John Dunderdale, vice president of IBM Lotus software.

"Microsoft has a bit of a stronghold there," Dunderdale told Bloomberg News. "A lot of their growth has come from small businesses, and we need to be more aggressive to capture some of that market share."

PCs with the Linux software package probably will begin shipping worldwide by 2009, said Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM.

The venture may win customers in countries such as Russia, where more PCs are sold without operating systems and where consumers aren't as familiar with Microsoft products.

Originally published by Bloomberg, AP and staff reports.

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