Items tagged with Acquisition
If rumors are accurate, or if where there is smoke there is usually fire, we could be soon witnessing a major shakeup in the chip industry. Multiple mainstream business press outlets are reporting this evening that NVIDIA is making a serious run at Arm, which is owned by Japanese mega-corporate holding company, SoftBank. As you might recall from earlier this month, rumors were swirling that SoftBank was looking to offload Arm, which it purchased back in 2016 for $31.4 billion in cash. Arm chip architecture designs and IP are employed across multiple industries, including numerous gadgets and hardware products that consumers take for granted. From your smartwatch to your smartphone, to your tablet...
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Microsoft has expressed interest in purchasing the Warner Bros. gaming unit, which is currently owned by AT&T. News of Microsoft's interest in buying the gaming unit comes from two people who claim to be familiar with its plans. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, also known as WB Games, has been behind some very popular franchises, including the Batman: Arkham series, multiple Lego games, and the extremely popular games Mortal Kombat. WB Games will also be responsible for distributing CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 later this year. WB Games has studios located in the US, Canada, and the UK. AT&T acquired the game studio when it purchased the assets of Time Warner in 2018. The challenge...
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AT&T is working on trimming its budget and this may include the sale of more recent acquisitions. It is rumored that AT&T plans to sell Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment gaming division. The gaming division may sell for as much as $4 billion USD. Several gaming publishers have reportedly expressed interest in acquiring Warner Bros. These companies include Take-Two Interactive Software, Electronic Arts (EA), and Activision-Blizzard. None of these companies have offered a comment about the potential sale. Warner Bros. itself owns several studios such as TT Games, Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions, and Avalanche Software. The gaming division has its finger...
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Zoom is a video conferencing platform that has seen impressive growth during the coronavirus pandemic as it has been widely adopted by schools and businesses to support people working and learning from home. Zoom today announced the acquisition of Keybase, noting that this is part of its 90-day plan to strengthen the security of the video communications platform. Keybase launched in 2014 and is a secure messaging and file-sharing service that uses "deep encryption and security expertise." The Keybase team will be integrated into the Zoom family to help build end-to-end encryption that reaches the scalability needed for the platform. The video conferencing platform says that its goal is to provide...
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A rumor is going around that Apple is set to purchase a virtual reality company called NextVR. NextVR is a company located in Orange County, California that has been working for the last decade on VR experiences in sports and entertainment. Apple is currently working hard to develop its first augmented reality (AR) headset, and the company has made no secret of its AR/VR ambitions (like its current work with ARKit). NextVR currently provides multiple VR experiences for viewing live events via virtual reality headsets from a variety of makers, including PlayStation, Oculus, HTC, Microsoft, and Lenovo. The company also has patents on technology for upscaling video streams. The patented...
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Updated: 6/4/2018 @ 9:22am Microsoft has confirmed its acquisition of GitHub in a company blog post, and the deal is valued at $7.5 billion. “Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world’s most pressing challenges.” Original Story Over the weekend, rumors turned up that claimed software giant Microsoft was set to purchase source code version control and...
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Is GitHub Microsoft’s next acquisition target? Microsoft officials have allegedly held talks to purchase the largest source code host in the world. The companies have spoken to each other before, but these most recent talks are purportedly more serious than past conversations. Microsoft has toyed with the idea of purchasing GitHub before, but appeared unwilling to agree to the hefty price tag. GitHub reportedly has over 20 million users and 57 million repositories. The company was last valued at $2 billion USD in 2015, but could potentially sell for as much as $5 billion today. Microsoft has also become more committed to open source and AI under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella and Raghu...
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Yahoo can't seem to catch a break these days. At least one research firm predicts the company will report a double-digit decline in ad revenue when it reports earnings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Coupled with the negative attention Yahoo has received over a massive security breach and the revelation that it built a sophisticated email scanner for the U.S. government to spy on its users, there's increasing chatter than the Verizon deal might be off. Verizon agreed to purchase Yahoo for $4.8 billion last July, but in the time that's passed since then and now, Yahoo's taken a beating in the press, all self-inflicted. More recently, it was reported that Verizon might be seeking a...
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SwiftKey has been one of the more popular predictive keyboard offerings in the mobile space since it was first released in beta form on the Android market back in 2010. What made SwiftKey so appealing, aside from the myriad of customization options, clean layout, support for numerous languages, an innovative input method, was its intelligent predictive text technology. SwiftKey isn’t a simple keyboard replacement. Rather, the software uses a combination of artificial intelligence technologies and algorithms that give it the ability to learn usage patterns and predict the next word the user most likely intends to type. SwiftKey refines its predictions and learns over time as well, by analyzing...
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Over the past five years, where the bulk of Microsoft's revenue comes from has skewed quite a bit. As the company begins to transition its Windows OS to become a "service" (and not to mention, largely giving it away for free up-front) and deal with other products that are suffering decreased revenue, the company has been putting a lot of effort into its cloud solutions. Today, Microsoft's Azure platform is huge, and feature-rich. To give an idea of just how much cloud matters to Microsoft, there is a lot of Linux that runs throughout its own solutions. The company would of course prefer its customers stick with Windows, but business is business. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Now, we hear of a rumor...
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Lenovo, the world's top supplier of PCs, has completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google, the company announced today. Armed with the Motorola brand and Motorola's portfolio of smartphones such as the Moto X, Moto G, Moto E, and the Droid series, along with upcoming models, Lenovo has positioned itself as the world's third larger maker of smartphones behind Samsung and Apple. It came as a comparative bargain, too. Lenovo's $2.91 billion buyout of Motorola Mobility comes a little over a year since Google acquired the division for $12.5 billion, though Google retains a majority of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio. Under new ownership, Motorola will operate as a wholly owned...
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AT&T last month inked a deal with DirecTV to acquire the satellite TV service provider for around $48.5 million in a cash and stock deal. Now all that waits is regulatory approval, but one thing the suits in charge will have to figure out is what the real cost will be to consumers. One of the concerns is that deal like this could ultimately limit consumer choice. As far as AT&T is concerned, the deal is a good one for consumers because the combined companies would be able to offer lower prices on satellite TV and broadband Internet service bundles, which would then put the pressure on cable companies to cut their pricing structure, too. Image Source: Flickr (Mike Mozart) That might be...
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History may look back at this time period and consider it the era of consolidation, especially in the technology sector. Hence, we're not shocked to learn that Sprint has agreed to buy T-Mobile for roughly $32 billion, though there are some significant hoops and obstacles to maneuver if a deal like this is to go through. The first one is coming to agreement on all of the little details. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the two wireless carriers both feel the price is right -- Sprint would pay about $40 per share for T-Mobile. However, a formal contract hasn't yet been drawn up. Lawyers for both sides are working on one, and assuming they don't run into any issues that can't be...
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The deal that will see Microsoft gobble up Nokia’s Devices and Services business was announced back in September and was expected to be finalized in Q1 2014. That hasn’t happened yet, but both Microsoft and Nokia have put out press releases pledging that the deal will be complete in April. The deal has cleared regulatory hurdles in 15 countries, including the green light from the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice, but there have been some delays in Asia--”The transaction is pending approvals from certain antitrust authorities in Asia which are still conducting their reviews,” reads the Nokia release. Nokia also stated the delay is not related the tax...
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What happens when two giants unite? We're about to find out, as Comcast on Thursday announced that its board of directors approved a definitive agreement to acquire Time Warner Cable in a deal worth approximately $45.2 billion. Comcast describes the agreement as a "friendly, stock-for-stock transaction" in which owners of Time Warner Cable stock will receive 2.875 Comcast shares for each share they own, effectively valuing Time Warner Cable's stock at $158.82 per share. Comcast and Time Warner Cable are the two biggest cable companies in the U.S. By joining forces, Comcast absorbs Time Warner Cable's 11 million subscribers. Given the size of these two firms, anti-competitive concerns are sure...
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It wasn't all that long ago that Amazon was solely an online bookseller. And then, it became an online superstore. And out of nowhere, it plunged into the hardware realm with its famed Kindle brand. The company doesn't seem like it's going to stop branching out anytime soon, hence a full force of rumors surrounding a future Amazon game console. Those rumors gained some backing this week as the company officially acquired Double Helix Games, a gaming studio that was founded in 2007 and employs some 75 people. Those people will now become Amazon employees, with Amazon stating that the acquisition was made "as part of [its] ongoing commitment to build innovative games for customers." Double Helix...
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Google's ongoing efforts to infiltrate your homes with different types of digital gadgets continues with the acquisition of Nest Labs, a maker of modern day digital thermostats and smoke alarms. Not for the faint of wallet, Google agreed to pay $3.2 billion cash for Nest Labs, which was founded by Tony Fadell, the former Apple senior vice president who worked with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in helping to design the iPhone. "Nest’s founders, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, have built a tremendous team that we are excited to welcome into the Google family," Google CEO Larry Page said in a statement. "They’re already delivering amazing products you can buy right now--thermostats that save...
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Following months of back and forth between Michael Dell, Dell's board of directors, and a few outspoken shareholders such as Carl Icahn, the world's third largest PC maker is now back in the hands of the man who started it all. Dell announced today the completion of its acquisition by Michael, the company's founder who was also serving as chairman and chief executive officer, and Sliver Lake Partners, an investment firm. "Today, Dell enters an exciting new chapter as a private enterprise," Michael said in a statement. "Our 110,000 team members worldwide are 100 percent focused on our customers and aggressively executing our long-term strategy for their benefit." Dell stockholders will receive...
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At this rate, Yahoo is apt to acquire a company a week -- or so it seems. Since Marissa Mayer came to town as CEO, she has been on an acquisition rampage. Company after company has been swooped up by Yahoo, reportedly due to Mayer's desire to procure talented developer and engineering resources at an accelerated rate. This week, IQ Engines came out of the woodwork in order to announce that it too has been acquired by Yahoo. The company's primary objective was to "transform the way people search and browse their photos by helping to process them intelligently." So, obviously, this particular move will see this team and this technology integrated into Yahoo's resurging Flickr platform. Earlier...
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It wasn't that long ago when it seemed like Michael Dell was well on his way to acquiring the company he founded. Michael, along with Silver Lake Partners and an investment from Microsoft, put together a $24.4 billion buyout bid that was unanimously approved by Dell's board of directors. The deal would pay shareholders $13.65 per share, and then Michael and his company would ride off into the sunset, going private along the way. Billionaire businessman and Dell shareholder Carl Icahn has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the deal, claiming that Michael's offer severely undervalues the world's third largest PC maker. Icahn offered an alternative deal that was initially shrugged off by...
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If you were the market's leader in maps, what would you do? If you'd seek out one of the hottest GPS mobile apps, then your train of thought would align to Google's. A deal has been rumored for the past week, but it seems certain today: Google has acquired Waze for a cool $1.1 billion, beating out Facebook to the acquisition. Waze is a GPS app first and foremost, but it goes beyond the others by crowdsourcing information to make the information it spits back a lot more useful. With it, you can automatically contribute traffic data to the pool, and manually report accidents and other hazards. You'll of course receive that information as well if another user reports it. It's clear, then, why Google...
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It was revealed earlier this week that Google has a current cash stockpile of $45 billion, and it's led some to wonder what the company might want to do with it. The same questions have surrounded Apple for quite a while as well, and with its hoarding of an enormous $137 billion, it's no wonder. As far as Google is concerned, though, there's no rush. What's important is having the cash on-hand when it's needed. Case in point: Google's acquisition of Motorola, which set it back $12.4 billion. While a far cry from $45 billion, no company wants to be left insufficient funds when a prime acquisition option becomes available. While it's hard to speculate at this point...
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