acquisition

Microsoft to sell Mediaroom IPTV business to Ericsson

Ericsson plans to buy Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV platform business so that Microsoft can tune in on its Xbox gaming system.

The companies didn't disclose the purchase price, but a person familiar with the deal terms said the price was "just south of $200 million." The deal should close in the second half of the year.

One of the next big battlegrounds among industry players is video. Many companies, such as Amazon and Netflix, already provide content, but others are looking to provide a full package to consumers. Chip maker Intel is building an IPTV service and set-top box, … Read more

Report claims Google in talks to acquire WhatsApp for $1 billion

Google is in talks to acquire cross-platform messaging application WhatsApp, claims a Digital Trend report.

Google and WhatsApp have been talking for "four or five weeks," according to Digital Trends, citing a person who claims to have knowledge of the negotiations. So far, WhatsApp has been able to push the acquisition price to nearly $1 billion by "playing hardball," the source says.

WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging applications available to mobile users. The app allows users on almost any mobile platform -- including Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone -- to send instant … Read more

Verizon denies Vodafone buyout

Contradicting a report from earlier today, Verizon said it has no plans to acquire Vodafone, either on its own or with a bidding partner.

Citing "usually reliable people," the Financial Times had reported that Verizon was teaming with AT&T to buy Vodafone, in a deal worth $245 billion.

Under the deal, the FT reported, Verizon would acquire the 45 percent stake Vodafone currently owns in its U.S. operations. The remainder of Vodafone's business outside the U.S. would go to AT&T.

But in a regulatory filing made today in response to media … Read more

Yahoo to buy news-summarizing app Summly for undisclosed sum

Yahoo's acquisition push under new CEO Marissa Mayer continues today, with the company saying it's buying news-reading app Summly.

Yahoo announced the move today in a blog post by Adam Cahan, senior vice president of mobile and emerging products. Summly is an app that uses an algorithm to pull out relevant information from news articles and turns them into neat paragraphs that fit on an iPhone screen, while also linking to the full article. The app, created by teenager Nick D'Aloisio, is a sort of CliffsNotes for the news.

The Summly app will be shut down, but … Read more

Blackstone, Icahn to make offers to buy Dell -- reports

Asset-management firm Blackstone Group has reportedly submitted a tentative offer to buy Dell, rivaling a $24.4 billion offer from founder Michael Dell and investment firm Silver Lake, which was announced last month.

Both Bloomberg and The New York Times are citing unnamed insiders in reporting the preliminary deal proposal, which, Bloomberg said, will commit Blackstone to hold takeover discussions with Dell. The letter was reportedly sent last night, and, Bloomberg said, Dell has till Tuesday to respond.

Details of the proposal were not available, and it's not known if Dell will go along. Bloomberg said Blackstone wouldn't … Read more

Belkin completes acquisition of Linksys from Cisco

Belkin announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Linksys from Cisco.

The privately held networking vendor unveiled its interest in Linsys in late January, and now the deal is complete. This means Linksys' technologies, including its routers and the Smart Wi-Fi portfolio and services, will be managed and maintained by Belkin, but as a separate brand and product portfolio.

This also means that Cisco Connect Cloud, with which users can manage and control control home networks powered by a Smart Wi-Fi router via the Internet, will also be branded without Cisco in its name.

Cisco bought Linksys back … Read more

Google snaps up object recognition startup DNNresearch

Google has acquired a three-person Canadian research company that specializes in voice and image recognition.

DNNresearch, which was founded last year within the the University of Toronto's computer science department, specializes in object recognition and now belongs to Google.

As part of the deal, which was first reported by TechVibes, Google gets the technology and founder university professor Geoffrey Hinton, along with two graduate students -- Alex Krizhevsky and Ilya Sutskever.

"Geoffrey Hinton's research is a magnificent example of disruptive innovation with roots in basic research," University of Toronto President David Naylor said in a statement. &… Read more

HP's Autonomy acquisition probed by U.K. regulators

Hewlett-Packard has a way of quietly announcing its dealings with Autonomy in its annual and quarterly regulatory filings.

In its quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today, the company announced that the U.K. Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into the alleged irregularities of HP's acquisition of Autonomy.

Here's what HP wrote in its filing:

As a result of the findings of an ongoing investigation, HP has provided information to the U.K. Serious Fraud Office, the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC related to the accounting improprieties, disclosure failures … Read more

Opera buying Skyfire for mobile-video technology

Opera Software is acquiring Skyfire Labs and its technology for squeezing video onto congested mobile-phone networks in a deal worth up to $155 million, the Norwegian browser maker said tonight.

Opera, the fifth-ranked browser maker in terms of global usage, gets paid for adapting its browser for mobile network operators and for driving searches to sites like Yandex and Google. It's been gradually expanding its business into domains such as advertising, though, and the Skyfire deal adds a new dimension to its business selling technology to operators.

"Both companies have evolved far beyond their browser roots," said … Read more