Looks like we're inching ever closer to getting our paws on the mythical Helio Ocean 2 -- the fun-loving regulators at the FCC just added a Pantech OZII dual-slider handset with Helio branding to their all-knowing database. Nothing you couldn't have guessed here -- QVGA display, EV-DO, 2 megapixel cam with video, full HTML browser, A2DP support -- but hey, this is The Phone That Could Have But Didn't Save Helio, you know? It's alright to be excited.

[Via Phone Scoop]

This is one of those classic tales of joy and sorrow -- a tale of a phone that could've been Helio's undisputed flagship model of the year, a phone that could've saved the scrappy little MVNO from Virgin Mobile's gaping maw (alright, it couldn't have even come close to doing that, but we're running with it for the drama factor). On the high side, we've now heard confirmation straight from the source that the Ocean 2 is, in fact, a real device, but the problem is that it won't be coming out until next year because they "want to put it out when it's the best it can be." It's sure looking just about the "best it can be" from the videos we've seen recently -- and frankly, we think they should just throw this out there while kicking off development on an Ocean 3 ASAP -- but it looks like the decision's already been made, and we all know there's no such thing as moving a release date forward.

[Thanks, Blade G]

The deed is done, and Virgin Mobile is wasting no time giving its fresh acquisition a giant bear-hug to welcome it to the family. Helio is now "Helio by Virgin Mobile," tagged with the line "Plan To Have It All" -- hopefully a nod to the fact that Virgin plans to keep Helio's offerings distanced from Virgin as a higher-end, feature-rich carrier that can compliment Virgin's typical lineup of ultra-cheap prepaid goods. To kick things off, Helio is now offering an upgrade to its $80 A La Carte plan, boosting the 1,500 included minutes to a limitless bucket -- nice, we'll take it -- and Virgin is stealing some of Helio's mojo to offer the Shuttle, a new handset marketed under the Virgin name that'll integrate Helio's Buddy Beacon service. Just stay on track with the Ocean 2, fellas, and everything's cool by us.

Back in the early days of Engadget, everyone -- including us -- thought mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) were totally poised to be the next big thing. And why not? You get to be a wireless carrier without having to operate your own infrastructure (which is by far the most expensive, difficult part). Just what the doctor ordered for the big, stodgy wireless carriers, each struggling to balance differentiating themselves while trapping their customers in their walled content and services gardens.

What we got instead was failed business model after spectacular failed business model, leading to a domino effect of collapses that left just a precious few companies standing. Let's take a look at the carnage over on Engadget Mobile, shall we?

We know, the little possibility that the whole deal could fall apart has been keeping you wide awake for months, but at long last, you can push aside your anxiety and hit the sack. Virgin Mobile USA announced today that it had "completed its acquisition of Helio," and all of the terms put forth on June 27th were used in the final close. Aside from garnering all the necessary regulatory approvals, Helio shareholders SK Telecom and EarthLink have received 13 million shares of Virgin Mobile USA Class A common stock, with a value of around $38 million. It's also noted that both SK Telecom and Virgin Group will each invest a cool $25 million in Virgin Mobile USA for preferred shares. And then, there was one.

So we heard from a very reliable source that mobile user interface guru Matias Duarte -- who you may know as the man behind the Sidekick and Helio UI / user experiences -- actually left Helio late last year to join up with Palm. Although no announcement was made, we hear he and his gang of designers jumped ship (well before Helio completely flooded) to take on the monumental task of designing the UI for Palm's next-gen mobile OS (aka "Palm OS 2.0 or II"). His resume online now lists him as "Senior Director, Human Interface and User Experience" doing "Something new..." since September 2007; we got in touch with Palm, who confirmed that he's now under the company's employ.

Of course, expectations should be pretty high -- Palm's only been promising this supposedly game-changing OS since around 2004, and the company's reputation and pedigree is (or at least it used to be) in groundbreaking mobile UI design. But this news also kind of makes us wonder: if they didn't have a killer UI and user experience team already in place and long-since working their asses off by late 2007, exactly how far along are they on this thing, anyway?

Money-losing companies with interesting technology and a small, if rabid, customer base still frequently tend to sell for healthy chunks of change -- especially in the wireless space. We know Helio was burning cash like crazy, but that doesn't entirely explain why SK Telecom was so absurdly desperate to dump their $500m investment. At a $39m acquisition price, SK didn't just lose its shirt -- it lost that, the shoes, and then the pants. You know, the pants with a half-billion dollars in them.

Now, if you look at nothing other than the price per subscriber of some other, larger mobile acquisitions, Helio's numbers seem even crazier. Alltel's subscriber base is going to Verizon for about $2,100 per customer, and back when Nextel sold to Sprint, each sub went then for about $2,350. Helio's $39m sale to Virgin nets them $230 per subscriber. That's now what you're worth to Virgin, Helio subscriber -- $230 on an $80 ARPU. Clearly there's a lot more value in acquiring more than ten million subs than under 200k, but is that value ten fold?

And then to add insult to injury, the piddly $39m Helio did get from Virgin was an all-stock deal, which basically means SK won't be recouping material costs any time soon. Granted, that does amount to 17% of Virgin Mobile USA's market cap, and SK gets two seats on VM's board, but damned if Helio isn't like the reverse-Brewster's Millions of cellphone companies. Basically our pet theory right now is that either SK is playing the Korean tax system for the maximum possible write-off, or they literally didn't have another soul to turn to in this whole wide world. We know Helio wasn't in good shape, but a $39m all-stock deal means they basically stood on the corner and gave the company away to whomever was passing by at the time.

We wanted some more expert opinions, so we hit up a couple of old Engadget pals. Om Malik had this to say: Their losses are huge and there is no hope in sight. Why Virgin bought so few subscribers, I don't get. My best guess is that SK Telecom wants to do something with Virgin. Helio was one giant misexecution -- it is a micropennies on the dollar sale.

Michael Gartenberg offered this: I suspect there were not a whole lot of options... who else would have bought this thing? It's clear the MVNO model doesn't work for the most part. Virgin was probably the only buyer who had interest and it was probably the best chance for Helio's investors to get some of that money back.

Bottom line, it looks like Virgin and its shareholders should be pretty stoked today, because by all accounts they got a pretty killer deal.

It's official, MVNO lone survivor Virgin Mobile is picking up the struggling Helio from SK Telecom and Earthlink for a cool $39 million in Virgin Mobile USA stock. They expect the deal to close in Q3 2008, pending regulatory approval. The acquisition comes as no surprise, but it's still sad to see the one true innovator in a mostly doomed MVNO space fall to that pesky little "completely failing to make money" thing. The good news is that it while the Helio brand will be phased out, Virgin Mobile isn't just in this for the 170,000-ish subscribers it'll be picking up. They plan to leverage Helio's technology and content offerings, not to mention the willingness of its customers to pay a few extra bucks for the perks, to build the Virgin Mobile brand into new spaces -- spaces which hopefully prove profitable and Ocean 2-ey.

The future of Helio is still up in the air -- one minute it's about to be sold to Virgin, the next the Ocean 2 is popping up in videos -- and it looks like this week will end with some equally ambiguous news: Helio stores appear to be shutting down. That's the word according to Fierce Wireless, which took this shot of a Helio store in Denver with a sign in the window that reads "The Helio Store is closed. Contact their customer support." Hmm, that sounds like some part of Helio is going to keep running -- hopefully we'll find out how this soap opera ends sometime soon.

Do you hear that, Helio? That [cue Sir Richard Branson's soothing voice] is the sound of inevitability. Rumors have been swirling for a few weeks now that SK Telecom -- Helio's majority owner -- is getting ready to cut, run, and offload its share to Virgin Mobile, rolling the scrappy MVNO into the one and only virtual network in the US that's been met with substantial, quantifiable success (more recent stock woes notwithstanding). Now, the Financial Times is reporting that a deal is cued up and ready for a public introduction as early as this week. The sooner, the better, because tons of questions remain about the fate of subscribers and the introduction of the pretty hotly anticipated Ocean 2, a device that at one time could've been Helio's savior; too late for that now, we guess.

So there's really no telling what's up with Helio as an MVNO, but there's plenty going on with the Ocean 2 handset. Just yesterday we noticed a spy shot of the elusive mobile, but unfortunately, the video in which it was captured from had been conveniently removed. Today, however, a whole host of new vids have surfaced over at HelioCity, one of which actually shows the unit while gaming. Check 'em out while you still can in the read link below.

[Via phonemag]

Sure, Helio is going through a bit of a rough patch right now, what with those retail outlet closings and nasty Virgin merger takeover, but as far as we can tell, the company is moving forward with the Ocean 2. As you can see by the above shot -- nabbed from a YouTube video -- the slider looks eerily similar to its predecessor, though we know it's getting spec bumps all around. Apparently the source material has been wiped out of existence, and if things keep moving in the same direction for the MVNO, this might as close as you get to one of these babies. Enjoy!

It ain't over until it's over, but we just got word that Helio store managers received notification this week that the axe is finally falling: (at least some of) the nationwide chain of retail stores will be shuttered during Virgin's takeover of Helio. As we've heard, "there is no 'merge' in this merger," so it sounds like after this year's big executive reshuffle, SK Telecom is bailing on their half-billion dollar enterprise a big way. No word if the fabled Ocean 2 will make it -- or if Virgin will even let Helio customers keep their phones.

Alongside Helio -- more or less the last man standing -- the great MVNO goldrush also dies. Unfortunate that besides Virgin and a few local and M2M providers (like Amazon's Whispernet), pretty much no one was able to make it work. Then again, no one ever never said making cellphones and running any kind of carrier was easy.

It may not be the largest photograph you've ever seen, but unless you work for Helio or Pantech, we'd be willing to wager a few pennies that it's the largest shot of the Ocean 2 you've ever seen. Dual sliders always get the blood pumping, so head on over to Mobile for a few leaked details of the phone that'll end up sitting atop Helio's lineup -- eventually, anyway!

Looks like Virgin Mobile USA and Helio parent SK Telecom didn't bother to get their stories straight before turning to the press over recent rumors that they've been talking marriage. Right on the heels of an SKT statement that talks of a Virgin Mobile takeover were "groundless," Virgin Mobile has come out with a super-brief statement saying something quite to the contrary -- that the two are, in fact, in "preliminary discussions" over "possible strategic opportunities." That's about as vague and unhelpful as it gets -- a level of vagueness that's really only saved for situations where something big is about to go down, actually. The MVNO goes on to say that it's gonna stay mum on the subject at this point unless "a definitive agreement is reached," but at least we know they're chatting.

[Via mocoNews]