Entries tagged with “mergers and acquisitions” from WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

AT&T announced the acquisition Plusmo, Inc., a leading provider of cross-platform mobile application solutions.

They claim Plusmo brings to AT&T an open standards technology that will simplify mobile application development, accelerate innovation and deliver a better application experience for consumers.

Plusmo will become a part of AT&T Interactive, and the Plusmo mobile application development platform is expected to be used by multiple AT&T subsidiaries, including AT&T Mobility. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Plusmo's technology will help us build upon the success and momentum we're experiencing in mobile local search, which continues to see strong growth," said David Krantz, president and CEO, AT&T Interactive. "The addition of Plusmo adds a new dimension to our technology prowess through its multi-platform approach. It highlights our commitment to invest in mobile application innovation and search leadership."

"With the increasing demand for mobile services and applications, it's an opportune time for Plusmo to be joining the AT&T family," said Krishna Vedati, CEO of Plusmo. "Plusmo's mobile platform capabilities will help contribute to AT&T's effort to accelerate consumer adoption of mobile applications as well as expand the opportunity for publishers, media brands, service companies and developers to reach a large and coveted audience across a broad range of devices."

Here's how a Valley Girl would report this story, "Like you know, MySpace, like, really, really likes, iLike. Like totally for sure. So like, iLike helps you. like, find music that's like music you like. So MySpace buys like, iLike and then they like work on music likes together."

MySpace announced an agreement to acquire iLike, a leading social music discovery service. The acquisition brings together two companies who share a common vision revolving around social discovery and distribution of quality content.

"The iLike acquisition advances our relentless pursuit of innovation and the need to create new distributed social experiences in music and beyond," said Owen Van Natta, Chief Executive Officer of MySpace. "We are deeply committed to bringing world class talent into all areas of the company and this acquisition demonstrates our focus on this objective."

Microsoft and Yahoo finally got in the search business bed together, Microsoft will power Yahoo search while Yahoo also becomes the sales force for Microsoft's premium properties. Yahoo will continue to provide online destinations and web products.

Micrsoft's Steve Ballmer noted that the deal gives Bing the scale to compete.

The deal must be approved by regulators to go through.

We received a link to news release here are the details:

For Web users and advertisers, this deal will accelerate the pace and breadth of innovation by combining both companies' complementary strengths and search platforms into a market competitor with the scale to fuel sustained development in search and search advertising. Users will find what they care about faster and with more personal relevance. Microsoft's competitive search platforms will lead to more value for advertisers, better results for web publishers, and increased innovation and efficiency across the Internet.

Sprint Nextel is buying Virgin Mobile USA, for a total equity value of approximately $483 million, which includes the value of Sprint's current 13.1% fully diluted ownership interest in Virgin Mobile USA.

They believe that the acquisition will strengthen Sprint's position in the growing prepaid segment by bringing together under one umbrella the iconic Virgin Mobile brand with Sprint's successful Boost Mobile business. These complementary prepaid brands, each with a distinctive offer, style and appeal to different customer demographics, will continue to serve existing and prospective customers following the completion of the transaction.

They listed the Transaction Benefits

• Strengthens Sprint's position in the fast growing prepaid segment.
• Enhances cross selling of full suite of Sprint products and services across a larger target audience.
• Free cash flow accretive for Sprint before synergies.
• Synergies to be derived from general and administrative reductions, operational efficiencies, and streamlined distribution.
• Sprint gains deeper managerial talent with additional expertise in the prepaid segment.

Nokia acquired certain assets of cellity. cellity is a privately owned mobile software company which employs 14 people in Hamburg, Germany. Nokia will acquire the cellity team to strengthen its competencies in the area of social networking. cellity’s current service will not transfer to Nokia and the service will be discontinued. cellity currently offers a solution to collect and securely store users’ contacts in one place. The service is an easy way to connect people on the mobile and the web.cellity AG offers ervices for aggregating address book data and connects all popular communication channels. Its innovative Address book 2.0 tool enables all contact data to be imported from a wide variety of sources (cellphone address books, Outlook, Twitter, social networks) to one place. Users can access the complete feature set from the cellity Communicator 2.0 interface, including conventional telephony, short text messaging, sending emails from their cellphone, free messaging, Twitter updates, communication with social networks and phone conferencing. The cellity Communicator 2.0 can be used on any cellphone or web browser and keeps data dependably secure and synchronized.

Research In Motion Limited (RIM) maker of BlackBerry smartphones and Visto Corporation ("Visto") announced  that they have entered into a definitive agreement to settle all outstanding worldwide patent litigation between the companies.

Visto was the first company to offer push email outside a network in 1996. They previously won a patent settlement with Microsoft in 2008. Visto acquired Good Technology on March 2, 2009 another company it also sued. They then changed the Visto name to Good Technology.

RIM will get a perpetual and fully-paid license on all Visto patents, a transfer of certain Visto intellectual property, a one-time payment by RIM of US $ 267.5 million and the parties executing full and final releases in respect of all outstanding worldwide litigation.

The settlement is expected to be completed during the week of July 20, 2009 and is subject to certain closing conditions.

Nuance Communications acquired of Jott voice-to-text service provider. Jott currently offers a voicemail to text service, note via phone, sales applications, and an API for development.

The combined Nuance and Jott teams plan to focus on several key voice-to-text initiatives:

• Nuance plans to package and offer Jott Assistant to mobile operators as part of its voice services portfolio, including Nuance Voicemail-to-Text.
• Nuance, together with its Enterprise Unified Communications partners, will offer a secure, highly scalable and differentiated Enterprise package including Nuance Voicemail-to-Text, Messaging, and Collaboration.
• Nuance will continue to mainstream and expand the CRM partner program through its existing CRM partnerships, enabling enterprise application providers to better meet the needs of the evolving professional mobile market.

"We've seen dramatically increased demand for our mobile voice solutions, because they offer real business value, are easy to deploy, and are a delight to use," said John Pollard, co-founder, Jott. "Nuance has consistently delivered groundbreaking mobile applications to billions of people worldwide. Our combined expertise will bring innovative and differentiated voice services to a variety of markets with tremendous scale."

MetroPCS Communications, Inc., provider of unlimited wireless communications service, today announced the launch of its flat rate unlimited wireless service in Los Angeles. MetroPCS will provide the people of Los Angeles with unlimited local and long-distance service.

With plans starting as low as $30 a month, MetroPCS offers the lowest unlimited wireless calling choices now available in the market. Already available in Northern California, including the San Francisco and Sacramento markets, the Los Angeles service launch means expanded wireless coverage and an added value for customers throughout California.