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Fujitsu and Toshiba cellphone units merge, become second-largest Japanese mobile company
Merger mania in the Japanese smartphone market, as Toshiba and Fujitsu have decided to combine their mobile operations, creating what will be the second-largest Japanese phone maker after Sharp. The move comes just over a year after these two merged their hard drive operations, so clearly the love here is deep. Fujitsu will reportedly own 70-80 percent of the new company, as it's actually a bigger mobile player -- but it mostly makes dumbphones with gimmicky features for the domestic market, which is why it's buying Toshiba and its lineup of smartphones like the Snapdragon-powered TG02. Of course, the TG02 runs Windows Mobile, so it's not like it represents any sort of future, but we'd bet it'd look real nice running Android or Windows Phone 7. We'll see how quickly these two can get in the game -- the mobile market isn't for the faint of heart.
FTC approves Google's AdMob buy, cites Apple's iAd competition
Google's attempt to swoop in and buy AdMob out from under Apple was looking like a Pyrrhic victory for a second there, as Federal Trade Commission approval of the deal hung in the balance based on concerns that El Goog would control far too much of the online advertising market. It's ironic, then, that Apple's acquisition of Quattro Wireless and the introduction of the iAd platform in iPhone OS 4 is what convinced the feds to let Google's acquisition go through -- the FTC says that Apple's entry into the market will provide significant competition to AdMob, regardless of whether or not it's owned by Google. That means Google's free to pursue all the ad-based initiatives in Froyo it announced yesterday at I/O, and it means we should see the already-heated rhetoric between Mountain View and Cupertino get another notch hotter. It's going to be a wild summer, folks -- get ready. Update: Here's a statement from AdMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui on the deal -- he's got a fuller piece on his blog, linked below. "We are extremely pleased with today's decision from the Federal Trade Commission to clear Google's acquisition of AdMob. Over the past six months we've received a great deal of support from across the mobile industry – and we deeply appreciate it. Our focus is now on working with the team at Google team to quickly close the deal."
Cisco buys MOTO Development Group to beef up consumer design chops
Cisco's already taken some big steps into the consumer market by buying the Flip cam line and releasing the Valet routers, but the company isn't done yet -- it's just acquired the MOTO Development Group, a San Francisco design house that's worked on a variety of high-profile products like Zune 2.0 and the LiveScribe Pulse. MOTO's also done some work on Android-based e-readers and MIDs that never really went anywhere, but you probably know the company best for its controversial smartphone touchscreen linearity test, which caused so much ruckus the firm actually re-did the whole thing with a robot in charge. Cisco says the MOTO crew will live in the consumer products division, alongside Linksys, Valet, and Flip, so we should see some interesting cross-pollination soon -- and based on Cisco's middling recent efforts like the Flip Slide HD, we'd even say MOTO might do well to lead a total revamp of the company's approach to consumer design. We'll see how it goes.
HP bought Palm after a five-company bidding war
Palm and HP seem like the happiest of corporate couples right now, but theirs was a heated courtship: according to Palm's latest statement to shareholders, a total of 16 companies were contacted about a deal, and HP was the winner of a month-long bidding war that involved serious offers from five companies -- a bidding war that involved Jon Rubinstein personally warning HP that it had to "significantly and immediately" increase its offer to remain in the game. What's more, HP's winning bid came in at just 20 cents a share more than its primary rival. Yeah, it's juicy -- read on for the full blow-by-blow.
Entelligence: Meet H/Pre
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide. Adding even more drama to an pivotal and transformative year in tech, last week HP announced it will buy Palm for the nice round sum of 1.2 billion dollars -- a move that will position it as a major player in the crowded mobile market. HP is no stranger to mobility -- the iPaq was once a defining mobile product -- but over the years the company has been unable to replicate that success with similar efforts in as the dynamic shifted from PDAs to phones. Buying Palm is a quick way of getting back in the game. This deal underscores the velocity of mobile and how that speed is affecting long term winners and losers. Many had written off Palm's relevance in the market, which might have been a correct assessment if Palm had ended up elsewhere. But I think Palm found a good home. In addition to Todd Bradley, the former CEO of Palm who now leads HP's Personal Systems Group, there are many Palm alumni at HP. This means that there should be a relatively smooth transition and overall good cultural fit. That's important because time is of the essence -- the market won't wait around for HP to integrate Palm.
HP and Palm: what happens next
HP announcing that it's going to buy Palm in a $1.2b all-cash transaction certainly took everyone by surprise, but in many ways the deal makes perfect sense. HP is a gigantic player in the tech industry but has no appreciable presence in rapidly-growing mobile space, and Palm -- well, you should know how we feel about Palm by now. Even still, we can't say we were expecting this one, and it looks like most of you weren't either -- HP only got two percent of the vote in our "who should buy Palm" poll, while Engadget (that's us!) got... fourteen percent. Oops. But now that we've had a day to wrap our heads around the news and think about what Palm and HP said to us last night and to analysts on the conference call announcing the deal, we think we've got a pretty good set of educated guesses on how things might shake out over the next few months. Read on!
Pachter: First Activision-Bungie game 'well along' in development, will sell at least 10 million units
Though firm details about the terms of the Activision-Bungie partnership are still awfully slim, industry analyst extraordinaire Michael Pachter has given his two cents to Gamasutra about the financial potential of the merger, which should result in Activision earning a great deal more than two cents. First, Pachter suggests this is a publishing partnership instead of a mere distribution agreement, which will increase Activision's profit margins from around 10 percent to anywhere between 15 and 20 percent on all of Bungie's titles. He estimates that, should the developer's future titles be as popular as its Halo franchise (which typically sold 10 million units a piece), they could sell as many as 15 million units by virtue of Bungie's new multiplatform ambitions. According to his calculations, Activision stands to make $65 million off the first successful Bungie title should it match the success of the Halo series. The time to test Pachter's calculations might be closer than you'd think -- he reports that the first Bungivision product, which is set in an "action game universe," is "well along in its development." We're not sure how "well along" said title actually is, but we'll keep our ears perked up for an announcement at E3. An announcement for Guitar Halo. There, we said it, alright? We were all thinking it, and now it's out there.
HP buys Palm: the liveblog
Well, we can't say we were expecting HP to step up and be the one to buy Palm, but here we are, getting ready to liveblog the conference call. The deal is worth some $1.2b, and we've heard that HP is "doubling down" on webOS, so we're eager to find out what's in store -- and, quite frankly, we're excited to repeatedly hear that it's really, really true. It's about to start at 5PM EST, keep it locked right here.
Google buys firm of former Apple employees
Google's purchase of a firm staffed with former Apple employees is surrounded by mystery, according to AppleInsider. Agnilux is a small San Jose startup founded by a few former Apple employees, most of whom left the mothership right around the time of the P.A. Semi acquisition. Other than that, nothing is known about the company. And I mean nothing -- the NYT's Bits blog even tried to do a drive-by of what they were up to, and came up with bupkis. It's probably something processor-related, but whatever it is, Agnilux is guarding it so closely that they won't even talk abstractly about what they're working on, for fear that someone will "take our intellectual property before we're ready." The closest NYT gets is "some kind of server." Google has purchased the company, for a (surprise) undisclosed sum. What do they want with it? We have no idea -- Google already knows their way around server architecture, and it certainly seems like they're a little late to start installing new processors everywhere. Conspiracy money says that they really just wanted a nice chunk of Apple -- if that's the case, then with Agnilux on the payroll, they probably got what they wanted.
iPad tech specs reveal Cortex A8, 256MB Ram, PowerVR SGX 535
Now that the iPad has been out and tested for a few days, developers have a much better idea of what's exactly under that perfectly-formed hood. Turns out the A4 processor is modeled on the Cortex A8, a fact which was not only expected, but gives a little extra credence to the theory that chipmaker Intrinsity (who are behind the A8) was recently purchased by Apple. Elsewhere on the iPad, you can find the same PowerVR SGX 535 GPU and 256MB RAM that can be seen in the iPhone 3GS. But apparently the whole is better than the parts -- our buddy Craig Hockenberry sat down last weekend and did some serious benchmarking, and found that the iPad is actually many times faster than the iPhone 3GS at all sorts of tasks. As Craig said, this is doubly remarkable when you think about it: not only did they get these kinds of speed improvements in just a matter of years, but they've increased the battery life as well. Apple's purchase of PA Semi (and possibly Intrinsity) and their commitment to make their own chips has paid off in spades already. In other words, the hardware tells us what we already knew about the iPad: it's a beautiful and amazing device. And since there is so much shared hardware, it'll be interesting to see what kinds of speeds we get out of the next version of the iPhone. Lots of these changes and updates in the hardware seem directly transferable right back there.
Munster: Apple developing a search engine
The great prognosticator Gene Munster (who spends his days working as an analyst at Piper Jaffray) has another guess at Apple's future for us: a search engine. He says there's a 70% chance that Apple will create its own search engine within the next five years -- right after that HDTV that he predicted a little while back. Obviously, putting together a search engine is a big undertaking, and once again, it seems unlikely that Apple would want to put one little toe into such a crowded pool. However, Munster's got that covered; he says that, instead of building from scratch, Apple might use some of its huge pool of cash to buy an existing database like Cuil. While that seems unlikely as well, it does make a little bit of sense. If Apple and Google really are on the rocks (sit-down between Jobs and Schmidt notwithstanding), Apple is probably looking at strategies to extricate itself from Google's search grip.
Rumor: GameStop being eyed for purchase by private equity group
GameStop might be worth roughly $3.27 billion, but if reports are correct, a group of folks at a private equity firm may be considering an offer of $4.94 billion (a 33 percent raise over the current, rumor-inflated stock prices) to acquire the publicly held game retailer. The Street is reporting that the rumors of a buyout have already raised stock prices by nearly six percent to $19.86 per share since just five days ago, as of this afternoon. And those rumors could be seen as partially substantiated by the company's lackluster performance on Wall Street as a publicly held company. Sterne, Agee & Leech analyst Arvind Bhatia told The Street, "The company generates strong free cash flow and is not getting respect as a public company." A buyout of GameStop by a private equity firm could mean moving the company's public status to private, not to mention a possible management shakeup (among other things). We asked GameStop corporate for comment and were told, "We do not comment on speculation or rumor," so for now we'll just have to wait and see what shakes out.
NBC-Comcast deal comes under Justice Department, FCC scrutiny
We can't say we didn't warn you. Looks like the kids at Comcast have to answer some questions over at the Justice Department -- and the FCC -- before they get their hands on NBC. Both agencies have pledged to "examine the transaction closely," says AP, being ever-vigilant as they are to protect consumers and competition in this free market society of ours. The review could last upwards of a year, but if that means that 2011 could see the debut of NBC-Universal's "Comcastic!" theme parks, it will all have been worth it.
Ngmoco picks up $25 million in funding, buys Freeverse
TechCrunch is reporting that iPhone game company Ngmoco has just picked up $25 million in another round of fundraising, which they used to buy out Freeverse, one of the most storied Mac game developers (and recently, iPhone game developers) on the block. The two companies were already close -- Freeverse went with Ngmoco's Plus+ network for social connections in its games, including Flick Fishing and Moto Thunder -- but this buyout would put Ngmoco in charge of their whole catalog. Ngmoco CEO Neil Young says that he plans to take all of Freeverse's currently paid games and convert them all into the free-to-play model that Ngmoco has grown so comfortable with. It's a pretty bold move -- Ngmoco is seriously investing in this model (even to the extent where they'll cancel planned games unless they can squeeze them into the model), and now Freeverse will have to follow suit. There's no word on what will happen to Freeverse's significant Mac game library as well -- will that part of the company be split off? Will Ngmoco shut it all down and choose to focus on iPhone apps? Unfortunately, the only available information is the post on TechCrunch. We've put out calls to both developers and will get back to you when we know more. Update: Touch Arcade has interviewed Young. He doesn't mention Freeverse's Mac titles, but he does confirm that "freemium" is the way they're going to steer all of Freeverse's titles in the future.
Segway Inc. bought by Segway UK?
This one has been flying under the radar for the past day or so, but talk is starting to heat up on some forums that Segway Inc. has effectively been bought out by one of its own dealerships. That initial word seems to have come from a Segway Inc. shareholder, who says he recently received a stockholder letter informing him that Segway Inc. would be "merging" with JWH Holdings, which is apparently a company formed by Segway UK simply for the purpose of this merger. What's more, while the deal is apparently being called a merger, the letter itself reportedly confirms that it's more of a complete buyout, with current CEO Jim Norrod supposedly set to be replaced by Tricia Laidler, and Segway UK's Wayne Mitchell stepping up to be the new COO. Still nothing in the way of official statements from either party just yet, but we'll let you know as soon as we hear anything one way or the other. [Thanks, Ed J]
Poll: How do you feel about Comcast buying NBC?
Comcast has agreed to take a controlling interest of NBC from GE and whether the company has a can of Raid waiting for Hulu or not, there's a lot of potential reactions to this new deal. Some have the opinion that another team to take on the Disney-ABC-ESPN combination could help keep prices down for everyone, while others can't see how the government should allow so many media and communication outlets to be controlled by one company. So let's have it, what were you thinking when you heard about the buyout? %Poll-37978%
Apple looking to buy Lala, get into streaming music? (Update: sale confirmed)
There's no deal yet, but Bloomberg and All Things Digital are reporting "confirmed" buyouts talks between Apple and music-streaming service Lala. If it goes down, the deal would potentially bring free music streaming to Apple's iTunes empire, but we're assuming Steve's less interested in integrating Lala's current service than he is in its talent, back-end technology, and content licensing deals. We'll see where this all goes -- or if it even happens. Update: The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are now saying this is a done deal.
Comcast takes control of NBC, promises not to crush Hulu
As expected, Comcast announced its buyout of NBC this morning, and we have a few details of interest to Engadget readers and fans of rom-coms alike. Essentially, Comcast now owns 51 percent of NBC-Universal to GE's 49 percent and will manage the entity -- leveraging the newly acquired content with their infrastructure. On an investor call (reported by All Things Digital) a short time ago, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts emphasized that the company bought "a bunch of profitable cable channels" and "some theme parks, too" (we think that last part was a joke). Not so funny, of course, is the film studio that's seen better years and the broadcast network that's been described elsewhere as "faltering." When asked about TV Everywhere and Hulu, Comcast COO Steve Burke notes that "NBC has been careful not to put too much cable content on the Internet. We think that's a smart strategy... We think that going forward, you're going to continue to have free broadcast stuff on Hulu, and cable stuff on TV Everywhere." As for rumors of Hulu Premium? "That's certainly not in the cards." Web-based TV fanatics will be pleased to note that Roberts appears to be in your court: "We love Hulu and have no intent to crush it like a bug." That's all well and good, but as we know nothing's final until the government has its say: the FCC, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Justice Department are all sure to have strongly held opinions on the matter. PR after the break. Update: The "crush it like a bug" comment was actually just some editorializing from Peter Kafka at All Things Digital -- but we're certain Steve Burke has only love in his heart for Hulu.
Comcast deal to buy NBC is done, will be announced Thursday
We told you we had a feeling this thing was happening -- less than a day after GE consolidated ownership of NBC Universal in preparation to spin it off and sell a controlling stake to Comcast, CNBC is reporting that the deal is actually done and will be announced Thursday morning. As rumored from the start, Comcast will now own 51 percent of NBC to GE's 49 percent, and the new company will fold in Comcast's various content assets, which means the new NBC will rival Disney in size. That's a big enchilada, and it should make the future of Comcast initiatives like TV Everywhere extremely interesting. Of course, all this still has to go through the FCC and FTC, and we wouldn't expect anything to be approved and finalized for a year, but none of that takes away from the magnitude of this deal. We'll obviously know more in a couple days, stay tuned.
Comcast inches closer to buying NBC
It's been over a month since we last heard anything about the rumored Comcast takeover of NBC, but things are slowly starting to move forward: Bloomberg says that NBC parent company GE has bought out Vivendi's 20 percent stake in the broadcaster for $5.8b, with up to a $2b refund due back if the Comcast deal isn't done by the end of 2010. That's no small gamble -- Comcast will have to clear a "gauntlet" of federal regulators from the FCC and FTC, who will scrutinize everything from the transfer of TV broadcast licenses in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles to the effects on competitors like Dish Network and Verizon, who will still want access to NBC's huge stable of content and programming. Big challenges, to be sure, but we get the feeling this deal is going down one way or another -- get ready for a rocky 2010.
