acquisition

Forbes may acquire social bookmarking site Clipmarks

VentureBeat reported this evening that "an inside source" had informed them that Forbes Magazine--home publication of the now-outed Fake Steve Jobs--has acquired Clipmarks, a New York-based start-up that allows users to share snippets and bits of Web pages rather than simply a hyperlink or an entire article. This is done through a downloadable browser plug-in that enables "highlighting" up to a certain amount of text on a site.

No financial details were provided, but VentureBeat's Eric Eldon wrote that "Forbes finds the service useful for helping their reporters collect and share information … Read more

Dell to add some Zing to its lineup

Dell said it would be doing some interesting things this year, and lo, it has: the company announced Monday it will purchase Zing Systems, maker of streaming audio technology.

Zing currently licenses its technology to SanDisk, for the Sansa Connect, and Sirius, for its Stiletto 100 product. Privately held Zing Systems is based in Mountain View, Calif., and all 120 of its employees are expected to be retained by Dell, said David Frink, a spokesman for Dell. Other details of the transaction were not released.

After almost 20 years of very few acquisitions, Dell's latest streak of buying three … Read more

TreeHugger acquisition confirmed

A representative for eco-blog TreeHugger has confirmed that the site has been acquired by Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, Animal Planet, and several other properties. A report of the deal initially surfaced in the New York Post today.

A press release from Discovery and TreeHugger confirmed that the blog will be part of the upcoming Planet Green network, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The New York Post had suggested a $10 million price tag.

"TreeHugger.com is a strategic complement to our digital media portfolio, aligning perfectly with Discovery?… Read more

Report: Discovery may have bought TreeHugger

The New York Post is reporting that green-centric uberblog TreeHugger may have been purchased by Discovery Communications as a companion blog to its forthcoming new cable network, Planet Green. The new channel is slated for a launch in the first quarter of next year, and has already built up some buzz for its series Eco-Town, created in collaboration with actor and Prius poster boy Leonardo DiCaprio; an already-trendy eco-blog would indeed be a desirable companion for the company.

According to the Post's Peter Lauria, the price tag for TreeHugger was somewhere around $10 million.

The New York-based TreeHugger, which … Read more

Nokia buys media-sharing site Twango

Media-sharing site Twango updated its Web site on Monday to announce that it's been chomped up by cell phone manufacturer Nokia. With its cool new toy, Nokia hopes to make it easier for handset owners to share multimedia content among desktop, Web, and mobile platforms.

"The Twango acquisition is a concrete step towards our consumer Internet services vision of providing seamless access to information, entertainment, and social networks--at any time, anywhere, from any connected device, in any way that you choose," said Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive vice president and general manager of multimedia at Nokia, in … Read more

Facebook snatches up Parakey

Facebook on Thursday made its first acquisition. The social-networking site bought a Web start-up called Parakey.

Parakey was started by Firefox's two founders, Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. The site gives this description of the service: "Computers are frustrating. Creating documents, finding files, sharing information--why do everyday things still seem so tedious and counterintuitive? We hope that Parakey will make your life easier."

According to Inside Facebook, "Parakey is intended to be a platform for tools that can manipulate just about anything on your hard drive: e-mail, photos, videos, recipes, calendars."

What is Facebook planning … Read more

The ultimate open-source M&A 'poison pill'

Luis Villa commented on an earlier post wherein I had asked, "Why doesn't Oracle just buy Red Hat?" His remark was, "Because Red Hat employees would leave en masse."

Think about that. To the extent that an open-source company is driven by a culture of freedom, would-be purchasers might be put off by one of two things:… Read more

Linux seller Xandros acquires Scalix server software

Linux specialist Xandros has acquired Scalix, a seller of Linux-based server software for e-mail and calendar management, the companies announced Wednesday.

The acquisition expands Xandros' attempt to grow beyond its original roots as a desktop Linux supplier to a seller of a broader range of server products including Linux and management tools. Scalix is proprietary software, like competitor Microsoft Exchange but not Open-Xchange.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Scalix will operate as a separate subsidiary, New York-based Xandros said, but will be able to use Xandros resources and technology. Scalix will continue to support versions of Linux from … Read more

Google + Postini = 'a perfect fit'

I just got off the conference call on Google's $625 million cash acquisition of security firm Postini, which executives said is expected to close in the third quarter.

Basically, the move will enable Google to flesh out its Google Apps hosted applications, which include e-mail, calendar, instant messaging, Docs & Spreadsheets and Web page creation, with the security and government regulation compliance services that businesses need.

There wasn't much detail revealed on how the companies will integrate their products, but Google execs made it clear that Postini will continue to offer its services to other e-mail and IM … Read more