acquisition

Verizon denies Vodafone buyout

Contradicting a report from earlier today, Verizon said it has no plans to acquire Vodafone, either on its own or with a bidding partner.

Citing "usually reliable people," the Financial Times had reported that Verizon was teaming with AT&T to buy Vodafone, in a deal worth $245 billion.

Under the deal, the FT reported, Verizon would acquire the 45 percent stake Vodafone currently owns in its U.S. operations. The remainder of Vodafone's business outside the U.S. would go to AT&T.

But in a regulatory filing made today in response to media … Read more

Yahoo to buy news-summarizing app Summly for undisclosed sum

Yahoo's acquisition push under new CEO Marissa Mayer continues today, with the company saying it's buying news-reading app Summly.

Yahoo announced the move today in a blog post by Adam Cahan, senior vice president of mobile and emerging products. Summly is an app that uses an algorithm to pull out relevant information from news articles and turns them into neat paragraphs that fit on an iPhone screen, while also linking to the full article. The app, created by teenager Nick D'Aloisio, is a sort of CliffsNotes for the news.

The Summly app will be shut down, but … Read more

Blackstone, Icahn to make offers to buy Dell -- reports

Asset-management firm Blackstone Group has reportedly submitted a tentative offer to buy Dell, rivaling a $24.4 billion offer from founder Michael Dell and investment firm Silver Lake, which was announced last month.

Both Bloomberg and The New York Times are citing unnamed insiders in reporting the preliminary deal proposal, which, Bloomberg said, will commit Blackstone to hold takeover discussions with Dell. The letter was reportedly sent last night, and, Bloomberg said, Dell has till Tuesday to respond.

Details of the proposal were not available, and it's not known if Dell will go along. Bloomberg said Blackstone wouldn't … Read more

Belkin completes acquisition of Linksys from Cisco

Belkin announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Linksys from Cisco.

The privately held networking vendor unveiled its interest in Linsys in late January, and now the deal is complete. This means Linksys' technologies, including its routers and the Smart Wi-Fi portfolio and services, will be managed and maintained by Belkin, but as a separate brand and product portfolio.

This also means that Cisco Connect Cloud, with which users can manage and control control home networks powered by a Smart Wi-Fi router via the Internet, will also be branded without Cisco in its name.

Cisco bought Linksys back … Read more

Google snaps up object recognition startup DNNresearch

Google has acquired a three-person Canadian research company that specializes in voice and image recognition.

DNNresearch, which was founded last year within the the University of Toronto's computer science department, specializes in object recognition and now belongs to Google.

As part of the deal, which was first reported by TechVibes, Google gets the technology and founder university professor Geoffrey Hinton, along with two graduate students -- Alex Krizhevsky and Ilya Sutskever.

"Geoffrey Hinton's research is a magnificent example of disruptive innovation with roots in basic research," University of Toronto President David Naylor said in a statement. &… Read more

HP's Autonomy acquisition probed by U.K. regulators

Hewlett-Packard has a way of quietly announcing its dealings with Autonomy in its annual and quarterly regulatory filings.

In its quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today, the company announced that the U.K. Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into the alleged irregularities of HP's acquisition of Autonomy.

Here's what HP wrote in its filing:

As a result of the findings of an ongoing investigation, HP has provided information to the U.K. Serious Fraud Office, the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC related to the accounting improprieties, disclosure failures … Read more

Opera buying Skyfire for mobile-video technology

Opera Software is acquiring Skyfire Labs and its technology for squeezing video onto congested mobile-phone networks in a deal worth up to $155 million, the Norwegian browser maker said tonight.

Opera, the fifth-ranked browser maker in terms of global usage, gets paid for adapting its browser for mobile network operators and for driving searches to sites like Yandex and Google. It's been gradually expanding its business into domains such as advertising, though, and the Skyfire deal adds a new dimension to its business selling technology to operators.

"Both companies have evolved far beyond their browser roots," said … Read more

Apple CEO: We've looked at a few big companies to buy

Apple had considered a few blockbuster acquisitions in the past, but ultimately stuck with smaller deals.

That's according to CEO Tim Cook, speaking at an investor conference hosted by Goldman Sachs this morning. He said that Apple at points had looked at buying large companies, but in each case, they failed to pass muster.

"It didn't pass our test for various reasons, and we've looked at more than one," Cook said. "Would we look again? I'm sure we will."

Apple's decision to stay away from bigger deals has helped it avoid … Read more

Google to nab e-commerce firm Channel Intelligence for $125M

Google has signed a deal to acquire e-commerce-solutions company Channel Intelligence for $125 million in cash.

Channel's parent company, ICG, announced the deal today.

Channel's technologies are designed to boost the sale of products online. The company offers a Facebook platform, product search engines, and other services created for companies looking to improve product sales. Channel, based near Orlando, Fla., claims that it "drives $2 billion in sales annually in referred sales online in computing products, home improvement products, appliances, consumer electronics, toys and a variety of other consumer packaged goods."

Google is obviously no stranger … Read more

Philips sells audio, video unit to Funai for $202 million

Royal Philips Electronics has signed a deal to sell its consumer-oriented lifestyle entertainment division to Funai Electric.

According to Philips' announcement today, Funai is paying 150 million euros ($202 million) for the division, which includes audio, visual, multimedia, and accessories. Funai will also license the Philips brand for five-and-a-half years.

Philips' lifestyle entertainment division is made up of a wide range of consumer products, including the company's home speakers, DVD players, and headphones. Although those products will still be available with Philips branding, Osaka, Japan-based Funai will be developing them.

According to Philips CEO Frans van Houten, the move … Read more