acquisition

Yahoo board approves $1.1B acquisition of Tumblr -- WSJ

Yahoo's board has approved a $1.1 billion acquisition of blogging site Tumblr, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal first reported the news on Sunday via Twitter.

An imminent announcement of the acquisition had been expected. AllThingsD reported Friday that Yahoo's board was meeting this weekend to finalize a deal. Rumors about the possible tie-up first surfaced on Thursday. The deal could be announced on Monday as part of a product announcement event Yahoo is holding in New York tomorrow. According to reports, Tumblr's board of investors, including Sequoia Capital, Union Square Ventures and Spark … Read more

Dish to sell $2.5B in debt to fund Sprint bid

Dish Network plans to sell about $2.5 billion in debt to help fund its proposed takeover of Sprint Nextel, the company said Tuesday.

The proceeds from the offering will be placed in escrow and will then be released to finance part of the funds needed for the $25.5 billion Sprint acquisition. If the proposed merger falls through or doesn't take place before a certain date, Dish plans to redeem the notes.

Dish and Japanese carrier SoftBank have been battling for Sprint for the past couple months. SoftBank in October offered to pay shareholders $12.1 billion and … Read more

Jawbone buys BodyMedia in wearable tech push

Jawbone, the company that made its name on Bluetooth headsets, has made a strategic purchase to expand its wearable technology business.

Jawbone announced Tuesday that it has acquired BodyMedia, a company that specializes in wearable body monitors and sensors. BodyMedia holds 87 patents and makes the Fit product line, which includes a gadget registered with the FDA as a Class II medical device capable of helping users lose weight.

According to All Things Digital, the deal is valued at $100 million. Neither Jawbone nor BodyMedia disclosed the acquisition price.

Jawbone already sells a wrist monitor, known as Up, designed to … Read more

Verizon prepping bid for Vodafone's share of Verizon Wireless, says report

Could Verizon and Vodafone be getting closer to ending their joint ownership of Verizon's wireless business?

Reuters reported Wednesday that Verizon has hired banking and legal advisers to put together a $100 billion bid for Vodafone's share of Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 wireless carrier in the U.S., and that Verizon's board is expected to discuss details of a potential buyout next week, at a meeting prior to its annual shareholder meeting.

Unnamed sources told the news agency that Verizon is confident it can raise about $50 billion from bank financing and that the rest of … Read more

Dish tells FCC its Sprint buyout is 'better for national security'

It appears that when Dish wants something it doesn't give up.

After making a surprise bid of $25.5 billion to acquire Sprint on Monday -- which would snatch the mobile provider from the hands of Japan's SoftBank -- Dish submitted a filing to the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday claiming a SoftBank acquisition of Sprint wouldn't be good for U.S. national security.

According to Reuters, Dish requested that the FCC suspend the review of SoftBank's possible buyout of Sprint. In the filing, Dish claimed that Softbank didn't have the "existing in-market infrastructure&… Read more

Google acquires Android mobile-data firm Behavio

Google has snapped up Behavio, the fledgling company behind Funf, the Android "open sensing" framework that aimed to provide better access to, and use of information from, smartphones using Google's mobile OS.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Behavio's most notable achievement is the Funf framework, which gathers vast amounts of data about people and their location by way of their phone. By using information about people in combination with other data about their surrounding area, Behavio can better predict their future actions -- for example, places they're most likely to visit next … Read more

Facebook boosts mobile with Osmeta acquisition

For Facebook, all signs point to mobile. Hot on the heels of the social network launching its new Android skin, Facebook Home, the company confirmed to CNET that it has acquired mobile software startup Osmeta.

While Facebook is declining to comment further on the acquisition, TechCrunch reports that the buyout happened sometime in the month before last week's launch of Facebook Home.

Not a lot is known about Osmeta because it hadn't yet launched a commercial product, but its Web site says that it was "working on really, really interesting software technology."

Before the acquisition, the … Read more

Microsoft to sell Mediaroom IPTV business to Ericsson

Ericsson plans to buy Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV platform business so that Microsoft can tune in on its Xbox gaming system.

The companies didn't disclose the purchase price, but a person familiar with the deal terms said the price was "just south of $200 million." The deal should close in the second half of the year.

One of the next big battlegrounds among industry players is video. Many companies, such as Amazon and Netflix, already provide content, but others are looking to provide a full package to consumers. Chip maker Intel is building an IPTV service and set-top box, … Read more

Report claims Google in talks to acquire WhatsApp for $1 billion

Google is in talks to acquire cross-platform messaging application WhatsApp, claims a Digital Trend report.

Google and WhatsApp have been talking for "four or five weeks," according to Digital Trends, citing a person who claims to have knowledge of the negotiations. So far, WhatsApp has been able to push the acquisition price to nearly $1 billion by "playing hardball," the source says.

WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging applications available to mobile users. The app allows users on almost any mobile platform -- including Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone -- to send instant … Read more