acquisition

Google upped its original offer to acquire Motorola Mobility by 33 percent, or about $3 billion, according to regulatory documents filed yesterday.

Last month, Google announced it had signed a deal to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

According to a Motorola filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google senior vice president of mobile, Andy Rubin, contacted Motorola Mobility Chief Sanjay Jha in early July to discuss possible responses to the recent $4.5 billion purchase by Microsoft, Apple, RIM, and others, of Nortel Networks' patent portfolio.

Google's behind-the-scenes reaction to the patent auction seems to follow … Read more

Another blockbuster acquisition has hit the tech industry.

Semiconductor company Broadcom announced today that it has agreed to acquire NetLogic Microsystems for $50 per share, or about $3.7 billion. The $50 per share represents a nearly 57 percent premium on NetLogic's closing stock price on Friday of $31.91.

NetLogic seems to be a reasonable acquisition for Broadcom, which focuses on chips for networking gear. Both companies compete in the semiconductor market, but NetLogic offers components in areas that Broadcom needs to bolster its own lineup, including knowledge-based processors and multicore embedded processors, the companies said in a … Read more

Adobe Systems will beef up its digital video software through the acquisition of technology and employees from Iridas, the company announced Thursday.

The company's video software--Premiere Pro and After Effects--are geared for higher-end users, and the company is investing heavily in them at the same time that videography is democratizing. The arrival of video SLRs, most notably Canon's 5D Mark II, has brought relatively affordable gear into the hands of a much larger audience.

The Iridas Speedgrade software offers the ability to refine video in a number of ways, notably what's called color grading, which can shift … Read more

Add Sprint to the list of big names choosing to speak now rather than hold their peace on AT&T and T-Mobile's dreams of corporate matrimony.

Saying it would violate the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, Sprint today filed a lawsuit opposing the deal before the same Washington, D.C.-based federal judge who received a related suit filed last week by the Department of Justice.

"Sprint opposes AT&T's proposed takeover of T-Mobile," said Sprint Vice President of Litigation Susan Haller in a statement. "With today's legal action, we are continuing that advocacy … Read more

Samsung may not be interested in buying Hewlett-Packard's PC business, but the company may be eying HP's mobile WebOS division, according to a report from DigiTimes.

Last week, Samsung denied rumors that it plans to buy HP's PC business. But now some sources are telling tech blogs that Samsung may be considering purchasing WebOS. HP announced plans earlier this month to spin off its PC business. The company also killed its mobile product line, which uses software from its acquisition of Palm called WebOS.

Samsung's potential interest in WebOS might make sense given Google's recent … Read more

Cisco Systems has acquired Versly, a private startup that specializes in developing software and solutions for more effective collaboration and productivity.

Versly's primary tool is a plug-in on Microsoft Office applications that enables collaboration on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and e-mail.

So far it appears all of Versly's employees will be moving over to Cisco when the deal is complete.

Cisco has said that collaborative solutions will be a top focus for the company as it continues to reprioritize--especially as the San Jose, Calif.-based enterprise sees this field as an addressable market worth $45 billion. Consumer devices don't meet these requirements … Read more

AOL is seemingly inching closer to putting itself up for sale, a new report from AdWeek claims.

According to the publication, which cites anonymous sources, AOL met with law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and investment bank Allen & Company this week in what could have been a discussion about putting the online company on the block.

In an e-mailed statement to AdWeek, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong confirmed that the two companies have been put on retainer with AOL but would not confirm that AOL is, in fact, looking for a possible suitor.

"There is no deal on … Read more

Verizon said today it acquired CloudSwitch, a company whose software eases the transition between using software that runs on a company's own servers and running it on a cloud-computing infrastructure.

The technology is helpful as companies try to strike the right balance between the two approaches to IT--sometimes in very short time frames when sudden spikes in computing demand occur. "With CloudSwitch, applications remain tightly integrated with enterprise data center tools and policies, and can be moved easily between different cloud environments and back into the data center based on the requirements of the business," Verizon said. … Read more

I'm probably going against the will of the people here, but I sighed heavily this morning when I read in The New York Times that Facebook plans to release filters to give photos artsy effects.

You know what I'm talking about--the shots with the heavily darkened corners that old cameras produced, the desaturated colors from faded Polaroids, the sepia tones and cyanotype blues from 19th-century photography techniques, the wacky hues when one type of film was processed with another type's chemistry, the smeary Vaseline-on-the-lens look of old portraits.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this kind of … Read more