acquisitions
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Microsoft to acquire Perceptive Pixel, pair up with 82-inch touchscreen manufacturer
Microsoft has already expressed its fondness for Perceptive Pixel's gigantic capacitive touchscreens, which became apparent during a live demo at the company's Windows 8 presentation at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, but now that friendship has become a bit more official. During Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference keynote in Toronto this morning, Steve Ballmer announced that Perceptive Pixel would be coming in-house, with Microsoft acquiring the display maker. The move seems to be in line with the company's recent shift to hardware manufacturing, beginning with last month's Surface introduction and its reinforced commitment to the recently renamed PixelSense smart table solution -- MS has just seized an opportunity to get a bit more hands-on. Full (limited) details are in the press release after the break.
Beats buyout of MOG worth $14 million, splits company not-so-neatly into two
More official details are emerging from Beats Electronics' acquisition of MOG, and they paint a considerably messier picture of the deal than we saw just a day ago. HTC (which has a big stake in Beats) has confirmed that the move into streaming music was worth $14 million -- not a whole lot considering that MOG had raised $33 million through its entire independent lifetime. The low price might come as the result of Beats being very surgical with its deal. The Jimmy Iovine- and Dr. Dre-founded outfit is taking control of the core audio service as a separately-managed company, while the ad and music blog components are mostly left untouched. MOG's loss of independence is coming on a very ignominious note as a result, but it could be good news for subscribers anxious about the service's future as well as HTC phone owners wondering just where Sense UI's Beats integration might go next.
Micron scoops up Elpida Memory, 50-percent production boost for $2.5 billion
There's no question that Micron has shifted its focus away from PCs in favor of producing components, shipping everything from SSDs to CMOS sensors in recent years, but the semiconductor manufacturer just took a $2.5 billion step even closer to bridging its gap between other companies in the same market, including Samsung, the chip producer's top competitor. Under the deal, Elpida Memory, which is headquartered in Tokyo, will fall within the Idaho-based conglomerate's growing umbrella, netting Micron a 50-percent boost in production capability. That increase did come at great expense, however -- the transaction included $750 million in cash and $1.75 billion in future installments (1,750 easy payments of one million dollars?), which are set to continue through 2019. The acquisition was also paired with a 24-percent stake in Rexchip Electronics for an additional $334 million, which will complement Elpida's investment, yielding a total 89-percent stake for Micron. While the amount does seem quite significant, investors appear to be on board, with Micron's stock ($MU) currently up more than 4 percent since this morning. Both deals will reportedly close within the next year.
Verizon to buy Hughes Telematics for $612 million in cash
After a recent round of good, and potentially not so good news for residential customers, Verizon plans to show a little love to its enterprise clients. Big Red is about to spend $612 million of its spare pocket change to buy Hughes Telematics, a company that primarily works within the realm of automotive communications. The board-approved purchase should be wrapped up by Q3 of this year and Hughes' management team will remain intact. The premium offer by Verizon works out to $12 per share for a stock that was trading at just $4.35 as of yesterday's closing bell. Facebook investors: eat your hearts out.
Samsung buys Nanoradio, hints at very low-power WiFi in your next Galaxy
Samsung hasn't had a lot of need for hardware acquisitions as of late, so it's a bit of a surprise that the company has snapped up chipset manufacturer Nanoradio. Neither side has outlined the terms of the deal or the exact plans. Nanoradio is best-known for "ultra low power" WiFi in phones and other mobile devices, however, so we'd venture that Samsung is looking to improve the performance of its own wireless-laden smartphones and tablets. Don't be surprised, then, if your next Galaxy S or Galaxy Tab is a little gentler on the battery while you're on the local coffee house hotspot.
Seagate to acquire LaCie
Storage giant Seagate has announced intentions to buy controlling interest in LaCie, a boutique hard drive and storage company. Seagate has offered to purchase from Philippe Spruch, LaCie's chairman and CEO, and his affiliate, all of their shares, representing 64.5% of the outstanding shares of LaCie. Following receipt of governmental approvals and the close of this transaction, Seagate would commence an all-cash simplified tender offer to acquire the remaining outstanding shares in accordance with the General Regulation of the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF). Seagate will acquire LaCie for US $186 million. LaCie drives have been known for their physical design. At times, LaCie has contracted out to companies like Porsche Design for enclosures. Seagate products have been a bit more establishment, and it looks like Seagate wants to have some impact in upscale consumer devices. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval in the United States (antitrust filing), France (approval of foreign investments by the Ministry of Finance) and other jurisdictions (antitrust filing in Germany) and to other customary closing conditions. LaCie has been popular among Mac users, and its drives and accessories are currently sold in Apple Stores worldwide. Late last year, LaCie began selling the first Thunderbolt drives for Macs priced under $1000.
Seagate to buy LaCie for $186 million, expand its storage empire
Seagate and LaCie have gotten friendly before -- the former company's drives are in the LaCie 2big Thunderbolt HDD, for instance -- but the storage makers are about to get even cozier. Today, Seagate announced its plans to buy a 64.5-percent share in the French company, which is currently valued at $186 million. The acquisition will combine the two outlets' product portfolios and, according to the press release, "accelerate Seagate's growth strategy in the expanding consumer storage market, particularly in Europe and Japan." The deal should go through by late 2012, and Seagate will bring over LaCie CEO Philippe Spruch to head the consumer storage products division.
Facebook snaps up mobile photo sharing firm Lightbox, decides Instagram isn't enough
We get the impression that Facebook is on a big mobile photo sharing kick: just weeks after it bought Instagram for a cool billion, the social network has just hired the staff behind Lightbox. The two-man team of Nilesh Patel and Thai Tran is bringing its mostly Android- and HTML5-focused knowledge over to Facebook, where it's hoping to reach many, many more people. You'll have to wait awhile to see what the Lightbox team brings to Facebook's ever more mobile platform, but you'll also want to hurry if you want to keep anything hosted on Lightbox: the service shuts down on June 15th. As a consolation for the shutdown, the startup's code is being posted to GitHub so that the fruits of its efforts live on in open-sourced form.
Twitter now sending email summaries, will keep weekly tabs on the Biebs
Twitter hasn't wasted any time in making good on its Summify acquisition. Not even half a year after the ink has dried, you can now opt to get a curated summary of the "most relevant Tweets" and linked stories sent to your email inbox. The layout borrows more than a few cues from the new Discover tab and will let you respond from the email message itself, although we can imagine friends being slightly irked at reviving a conversation that was so very three days ago. Even so, once the option has rolled out to everyone within the space of a few weeks, it'll be an easier way to keep up on one Mr. Bieber's Twitter adventures without others' pesky life events and politics getting in the way.
Samsung snaps up mSpot, teases a boost to media cloud efforts
Talk of a Samsung cloud service might not have panned out at the Galaxy S III event, but that doesn't mean the Korean electronics giant isn't interested in the space. Samsung has just acquired mSpot, best known for its cloud music storage and its earlier movie streaming tie-ins with carriers. The exact intentions aren't exactly clear -- Samsung is only promising that mSpot's technology will represent a "key integrated offering" on new mobile hardware. Still, the deal suggests that the Music Hub and Media Hub may get that much more cloud-savvy in the future. When asked for comment, Dropbox coyly stated: "It's cool. Being single is the new black."
Netflix snags DVD.com domain, invests in the future of optical media
Looking for a shortcut to Netflix's home on the web? Try hitting up DVD.com -- it'll take you there, for now. The latest address to join the family of Netflix redirects actually brings you to a subdomain -- dvd.netflix.com -- suggesting that the company could once again be planning to split its streaming and physical media services, at least from an access perspective. A shareholder letter lists the company's U.S. DVD subscriptions at 11.17 million at the end of Q4, bringing in a total of $370 million in revenue, with a profit of $194 million. Compare this to domestic streaming, which represents $476 million in revenue with a mere $52 million profit, and it's clear that the DVD rental market is still quite strong. So what could this latest domain acquisition mean for snail mail subscribers? DVD-only customers may soon have a new site to call home, with focused content and perhaps an upsell opportunity or two. At the very least, it certainly can't hurt when it comes to SEO.
Apple to buy flash chip maker Anobit for $500 million?
Disclaimer: Delving into Apple's business requires a hefty pinch of salt, okay? Good. Is Apple about to open that $84 billion war chest to make another one of its traditional flash-memory supply-chain land-grabs? Rumors from Reuters suggest it's planning to snap up Israeli outfit Anobit for $400 or $500 million. The outfit specializes in signal processing for the memory chips, increasing volume and performance, which you'll already find bolted onto the Samsung and Hynix flash drives inside the iPhone 4S. Whilst we're having a hard time believing Cupertino would buy a hardware maker (even P.A. Semi and Intrinsity were fabless designers), it seems a logical move from a company who probably see traditional HDDs as an evil to be eradicated from its simplistic designs. We've reached out for comment from the companies and we'll let you know if we get anything more substantial than the regular "no comment." Update: The initial reports suggested that Anobit had production facilities, but it's since been clarified that the company is a fabless designer in the same vein as P.A. Semi and Intrinsity.
Nokia Siemens Networks looks to unload WiMax division onto NewNet Communication
WiMax expansion isn't exactly all the rage as of late, and so it comes as no surprise that Nokia Siemens Networks is shedding itself of the extraneous baggage. Following its recent whopping round of layoffs, the move is a continuation of the company's efforts to bring stability to its bottom line. NewNet Communication Technologies has agreed to bring the castoff WiMax technologies into its fold, along with approximately 300 NSN employees -- all for an undisclosed price -- in a deal that's expected to be finalized before year's end. A full press release follows the break.
China Telecom looking to expand into US consumer market, eyes 2012 launch
Instead of resting on its laurels as China's third-largest wireless provider, China Telecom is now looking to branch out into relatively uncharted waters -- namely, the US consumer market. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Donald Tan, president of China Telecom Americas, confirmed that his company plans to bring its own branded wireless service to select US markets next year, in the hopes of capitalizing on the large Chinese communities and consumer bases scattered across the country. According to Tan, the proposed service would provide customers with handsets that could be used in both China and the US, theoretically appealing to Chinese-Americans, students or businessmen who travel frequently between the two countries. The exec didn't reveal much in the way of pricing, saying only that it would be "competitive," though he did acknowledge that the service is already undergoing trials with several unnamed wholesale partners. If the trial goes swimmingly, he added, China Telecom may expand it to Canada, as well, and would even consider purchasing or constructing its own network in the States (pending FCC approval, of course). The provider, which has already been marketing its services to US corporations for a decade, also has the capacity to spend "hundreds of millions or billions" on stateside acquisitions, though none are currently on the table. "We want some acquisitions in the U.S. and other countries on this continent," Tan explained. "It's a very quick way to growth."
HP pays $10.4 billion for controlling interest in Autonomy, which will remain autonomous
VoodooPC. 3Com. And, perhaps most notoriously, Palm. The list of HP acquisitions grows by one today, with the purchase of UK information-software maker Autonomy, long a target of former HP chief Léo Apotheker. Apotheker, you may recall, was just ousted in favor of former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. The deal began during Apotheker's tenure and went through with HP paying just about $10.4 billion for a controlling percentage of Autonomy stock. The UK firm will remain a separate unit, with Whitman saying, "Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making." Something tells us she's not the only one hoping for some better decision making. For full details on HP's latest buy, check the source link.
Bigpoint buys out sports game development firm
The Bigpoint browser monster has gobbled up another game development firm, and it's still hungry, according to a news blurb at Reuters. 49Games is Bigpoint's latest acquisition, and the former is best-known for its winter sports games on the Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 consoles. 49Games is based in Germany (as is its new parent) and boasts around 40 developers. Bigpoint now features over 700 devs and says that it is the "world's largest browser-based online game provider" thanks to more than 200 million registered users. Bigpoint is best known for its Battlestar Galactica MMO as well as its controversial stance on selling in-game advantages.
Facebook burns a little cash, buys group messaging and digital book outfit
Facebook gone and done some serious damage to the company credit card, but thankfully, it's being used for more than replacing chimneys and repairing pool liners. Zuck's prized possession has just snapped up Push Pop Press and Beluga, with the former being best known for creating interactive digital books, most notably gadget junkie Al Gore's "Our Choice" book for iPad. Beluga on the other hand, gained lots of attention for its group messaging app built for iOS and Android. Push Pop Press co-founders (and former Apple engineers) Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris were quick to say that Facebook has no plans to publish digital books; they did confirm, however, that "the ideas and technology behind Push Pop Press will be integrated with Facebook, giving people even richer ways to share their stories." Mysterious. Could the Push Press Pop acquisition be the key to the fantasmical iPad app we've yearned for since the dawn of the new millennium? Beluga confirmed the future of Facebook mobile messaging when it said, "we're excited to build our vision for mobile group messaging as part of the Facebook team." Equally mysterious. Unfortunately, no concrete details are being made available, with each site's homepage simply confirming that It's Complicated.
Google acquires PittPatt, wants to know you on a face-to-face basis
Google's quietly pitter-pattering its acquisitive ways back into the controversial realm of facial recognition technology. To do that, the company busted out its oversized wallet to fold Pittsburgh-based PittPatt into the Mountain View borg. Founded by a trio of PhD's from Carnegie Mellon University, this three-man strong outfit specializes in the sort of object recognition software you've come to know as "tagging." Is this a reversal of the Do No Evil tech giant's prior waffling on the dubious visioning tech, or just another massive weapon in its social networking crusade against Facebook? We'd err on the side of both, although the company's new employees aren't exactly playing their cards for us to see. A brief statement on the triumvirate's site makes vague mention of "computer vision technology" being core to Google's products and points to the tech's planned integration in photo, video and mobile applications. So, basically, expect to see Picasa, Goggles, YouTube and Google+ watch you as you flaunt your internet celebrity ways to that front-facing camera.
Apple may be putting in a bid to buy Hulu
According to Bloomberg, the online video service Hulu is up for sale, and Apple is reportedly considering bidding on it. Apple certainly has enough cash on hand to buy Hulu (about 35 times over), and if successful in its bid Apple would gain a huge foothold in video media services. Put together with iTunes, an Apple-Hulu deal would be a serious competitor for Netflix. Other entities interested in buying Hulu include Google, Yahoo, and AT&T (shudder). Microsoft has dropped out of the bidding, and Bloomberg's sources say Amazon is unlikely to bid unless it gets guaranteed access to shows. Several of the media companies associated with Hulu are offering a five-year extension of program rights that includes a two-year exclusive deal, so it's a very lucrative target for all interested. Hulu went up for sale last month, and Yahoo reportedly made a US$2 billion bid for it already. Whoever buys Hulu, I have just two requests: Make the service available to the roughly six billion humans who don't live in the United States. Like John Gruber says, get rid of the Flash-centric interface.
Nokia Siemens Networks chooses a suitor: its own shareholders
A lot of marriages hit rough patches from time to time, and it's no different for companies and their shareholders. The last three months have likely been especially tumultuous for Nokia Siemens Networks as it played the field, conducting a review to assess potential private equity interest. In the end, however, NSN determined the grass was indeed greener on its own side. According to the press release (found after the break), it concluded that "the current shareholders are in the best position to further enhance the value of the company." Given that NSN's reported three successive quarters of year-on-year growth, the troubled relationship appears to be out of hot water for now -- we just hope the shareholders are willing to kiss and make up.
