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White House to host innovation talk with tech CEOs
The White House is set to host a roundtable discussion next week that will include a number of tech CEOs, the Wall Street Journal reports. A White House email says those attending will discuss "bold, transformational ideas" that "can help ensure US leadership in industries of the future," and they'll do so December 6th. Among those reportedly participating are Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf, Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman and Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian.
Dell bidding war afoot as Blackstone Group and Carl Icahn both make offers (update: confirmed)
Thought that Dell buy out was a done deal? Well, the Blackstone Group and investor Carl Icahn clearly don't think so, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that both have contacted the committee of Dell's board just before Friday's shutoff deadline. The would-be bidders are reported to be working on their actual offer amounts, and in the process buying them four more days thinking time. Reuters reports that Blackstone's tentative offer is already in, according to sources, but at this time the company is yet to comment. Despite a recent slump in profits, Michael Dell surprised many when he announced his intention to buy back the eponymous firm in a deal with Microsoft for $24.4 billion. So, if the founder thought he had the keys to the old estate back, he might just have to wait a little longer. Update: The rumors were true, and now there's a PR to prove it. The Blackstone Group and Carl Icahn have indeed both made offers, and "Michael Dell has confirmed to the Committee his willingness to explore in good faith the possibility of working with third parties regarding alternative acquisition proposals."
DoCoMo and other Asian carriers eyeing FCC auction?
Everybody is sworn to silence until the auction is over, so we won't be seeing much more information about this until it's all over in the spring of next year, but for now it's still fun to speculate. Business Week is doing quite a bit of that speculating as well, with word that DoCoMo, KDDI, SK Telecom and even China (through the T-Mobile and Global Tower invested Blackstone Group) could be chipping in a few billion here and there to spice things up for Google and friends in the 700MHz C Block auction. DoCoMo, which got burned in the US a while back with pre-Cingular AT&T Wireless, mentioned to Business Week that it'd be interested in partnering with Google for its wireless network, and the other carrier might not be talking but have to be at least considering the possibility of being involved in US wireless data in a big way, and KDDI has a history of being chummy with Google in Japan. The word is that average North American data service bills are less than $10 a month, and are expected to grow to $38+ a month by 2012 -- and who wouldn't want in on that action? As growth slows in Europe and Asia, it seems only natural for the innovators over there to head over here and kick things into gear, but we'll try not too far ahead of ourselves.[Via The Inquirer]
