Twitter has agreed to buy 900 patents from International Business Machines Corp. to gain access to new technology and build a defense against infringement suits.
The deal came about a month after Twitter revealed that IBM had accused it of violating three of its patents related to advertising, “resource locators,” and discovery of contacts. Twitter was willing at that time to handle the situation outside of court, and it appears it went that way.
A cross-licensing agreement will help safeguard Twitter against similar claims in the future. The most high profile exhibit of buying patents to curb future lawsuits would be Google’s purchase of Motorola [...]
Another round of big name organizations are reportedly interested in BlackBerry. According to a report in Reuters today, Cisco Systems, Google and SAP are all ‘in talks’ with BlackBerry and considering purchasing the companies assets, specifically its secure server network and patent portfolio.
In addition, the report also notes that BlackBerry ‘has asked for preliminary expressions of interest from potential strategic buyers, which also include Intel Corp and Asian companies LG and Samsung.’ This is particularly interesting as Samsung has repeatedly declared they have no interest in the Waterloo-based company.
Reports are coming in that HTC is indeed about to sell its stake back to Beats. In 2010, HTC owned 50 percent of Beats, before selling half last year for $150 million. The remaining 25 percent has increased in price considerably since then, as the new deal will close at $265 million.
It seems that Beats has already taken on a new partner in the form of Carlyle Group, which is said to be investing $500 million into Beat’s expansion efforts.
“We are confident that Beats will continue to drive innovation and growth in the premium audio accessory market, particularly as the proliferation of smart phones and tablets stimulate increased consumption of digital [...]
Michael Dell clinched shareholder approval on Thursday for his $25-billion offer to buy and take Dell Inc. private, ending months of conflict with the company’s largest investors and removing the uncertainty surrounding the world’s No. 3 PC maker.
The results of a shareholder vote were just announced moments ago at a special meeting of shareholders in Round Rock, Texas. The final vote tallies haven’t been released yet, but CNBC, citing sources familiar with the result, have pegged the vote in favor at 65 percent to 35 percent. A final tally will be read out a little later, as the meeting is still under way.
Looks like the rumours from last week were true about BlackBerry potentially going up for sale. The company has announced this morning that the Board of Directors have created a ‘Special Committee’ to “explore strategic alternatives” that could include ‘possible joint ventures, strategic partnerships or alliances, a sale of the Company or other possible transactions.”
According to the press release the Special Committee will be chaired by Timothy Dattels, plus include Barbara Stymiest, Thorsten Heins, Richard Lynch and Bert Nordberg. Leading the “Exploration of Strategic Alternatives” process will be JP Morgan [...]
Technology pundits have long speculated that, one day, Microsoft would buy its way into manufacturing of its own mobile phones. Apparently that day came a lot closer to fruition than people had thought.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone business – the deal you probably assumed would happen sooner or later – has been scuppered before talks were even made public, according to a new report.
On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal wrote that Microsoft has been engaged in “advanced talks” to snap up the Finnish mobile maker, but that those discussions [...]
A London teenager has sold a mobile app he first designed in his bedroom for between £20 million and £40 million.
Nick D’Aloisio, 17, said he would probably buy a new computer and trainers after Yahoo bought his Summly software for an undisclosed sum.
Yahoo said today on its blog that Nick D’Aloisio will join Yahoo along with the rest of his team.
The free iPhone app automatically boils down lengthy news stories and features to make them more “user friendly” for a mobile screen.
Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer is focusing Yahoo on providing Web services that are customized for individual users, and aims to add engineers by buying small [...]
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has acquired indoor mobile location positioning firm WiFiSLAM, in a deal worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million.
The Wall Street Journal‘s Jessica Lessin reports:
“Apple has acquired indoor-GPS company WifiSLAM, a sign that the war over indoor mobile location services is heating up. Apple paid around $20 million for the Silicon Valley-based company, according to a person familiar with the matter who said the deal closed recently.
The two-year-old startup has developed ways for mobile apps to detect a phone user’s location in a [...]
RIM is about to release its latest BlackBerry 10 platform by next week. But even with this new development, the Canadian company is not off the hook when it comes to its market predicament. BlackBerry is a platform on the decline, and apart from BB10, RIM is thinking of ways to revitalize its business. Among the possibilities is licensing is operating system or even selling off its hardware division.
Lenovo is reportedly mulling over a purchase of RIM’s traditionally-unprofitable hardware division as it determines how best to move into the international smartphone and tablet [...]
HTC has assured that after a final assessment of the worth of S3 graphics the company will wrap up the buyout some time soon. The 270 patents that come into HTC portfolio will help the company fight off any legal issues that may arise in the future.
The strong Patent portfolio may also scare potential competition and make them think twice before any other patent wars begin
[Focus Taiwan]
The big split is finally, final. Sony and Ericsson have finally spilt up, to name the new company Sony Mobile Communications. Sony has finally taken over Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson’s 50-percent stake in the pair’s former joint venture, reported to have cost €1.05 billion ($1.37 billion). The reports of this split started to appear in the last months of 2011.
PRESS RELESE :
The previously announced divestment of Ericsson’s share of Sony Ericsson to Sony, including the broad IP cross-licensing agreement, completed on February 15, 2012 Ericsson’s gain on the transaction will be approximately SEK 7.5 billion and reported as [...]
