Filed under: Cellphones

Unless you’ve been camped out under a Rhode Island-sized boulder for the past few weeks, you know that Verizon has announced its intentions to acquire Alltel. During a recent interview with CEO Scott Ford, Talk Business host Roby Brock was able to get a few talking points out of the exec that didn’t involve the most recent transaction. More specifically, Mr. Ford noted that prior to Alltel becoming a private company, it had “tried to buy Sprint three times, tried to buy AT&T Wireless [and] tried to buy T-Mobile.” He continued by saying that “some of those times it went with partners, [while] some of those times it didn’t.” Essentially, Alltel was “doing everything it could to get to a national platform.” Believe it or not, those quotes really are just the tip of the iceberg, but the full spill is entirely too detailed for this space. If you’re curious to know what might have been, break out the reading glasses and hit the link below.

[Via mocoNews]

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Filed under: Cellphones

Verizon has certainly courted Alltel before, but this time, the two could finally be rounding third base. According to a breaking report at CNBC, Verizon is “in deep in talks to acquire Alltel,” which of course is America’s fifth largest wireless carrier. It’s no secret that Alltel has been riding fairly high of late, and unless your memory is totally shot, you’ll likely recall that it was just recently “taken private by TPG and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners in a $27.5 billion deal.” Not surprisingly, officials at both outfits refused to comment on the rumblings, but if this does indeed go down, analysts are expecting Verizon to pay around 8x Alltel’s current EBITDA, whereas TPG / Goldman Sachs paid 9.2x. We’ll keep you posted on any developments.

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Filed under: Cellphones

So the backstory goes something like this: Swedish publication Elektroniktidningen were looking forward to a meeting with HTC, but the meeting was delayed due to talks of some sort of merger with Sony Ericsson. Everyone panicked: Could HTC be bought by Sony Ericsson? They’ve already worked together on the Xperia X1, so it could be possible, right? Not so much, according to HTC. Word from them is that this whole this is a bunch of hooey. According to HTC’s spokesperson, “This is just a rumor and there is no truth to this statement.” For now we’re moving along.

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

When Rock fell under administration earlier this month, we honestly had no idea if we’d ever see that swank Pegasus 210 hit the market. Today, we still have no clue about the latter, but we do know that the failed company has been caught by the most impeccably named suitor Planet Earth has to offer: Stone. Reportedly, Stone Group will dish out “an undisclosed sum” for Rock, after which the two will meld together and form an all-powerful, completely unstoppable boulder. Watch out Mount Rushmore, you’ve got some serious competition now.

[Via vnunet]

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Filed under: Cellphones

Microsoft’s just announced that its $500M buyout of Sidekick maker Danger is complete, and that it’s rolling the new team into its own unit, the Premium Mobile Experiences division. Ready to follow the chain of corporate command? PMX is under the Mobile Communications Business unit at MS, which itself falls under the Entertainment and Devices Division responsible for the Xbox and Zune. Got all that? Good. Danger’s management team won’t be directly calling the shots at PMX, though — they’ll be reporting to Roz Ho, who you might remember as the former head of the Mac Business Unit. Ho says the goal of PMX is to have people “smile every time they look at their phone,” which hopefully means we’ll be seeing a lot more Danger influence on Windows Mobile than the other way around. Still, “Premium Mobile Experiences” is an interesting choice of name, especially in the same division as the 360 and Zune — dare we dream of a Microsoft-branded consumer phone?

[Via MocoNews]

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Filed under: Cellphones

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

We’re fairly certain we haven’t heard the last of this Microsoft offer to buy Yahoo! — or Google’s plans to intervene — but it looks like round one has Yahoo! saying “no thanks” to Microsoft’s $44.6 billion buyout offer. Apparently some of the number crunchers inside Yahoo! feel like the number is too low of a valuation, while others want to get tied up with Google to improve search revenues — which some seem to think might have some antitrust implications. Pah, “antitrust implications.” At least Microsoft remembers when men were men, and monopolies were monopolies.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Cellphones

No surprises here, but Palm’s “strategic recapitalization” effort has officially been closed. Just months after shareholders gave a collective thumbs-up to the idea (hey, who can say no to Bono?), Elevation Partners has indeed “invested $325 million in Palm, which the company will utilize along with existing cash and $400 million of new debt to finance a $9-per share cash distribution.” Additionally, a number of new faces have been appointed jobs within the outfit, and the “total number of directors on the board has been increased from eight to nine.” Ed Colligan, Palm’s president and CEO, proclaimed that this “transaction has laid the groundwork for the firm to recapture its position as the leading innovator and brand of the mobile-computing revolution.” Now that’s the spirit, Ed.

[Via mocoNews]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: GPS

Just one day after Nokia offered $8 billion for NAVTEQ, TomTom is in the news with a formal offer for Tele Atlas. Of course, TomTom had already announced their intent to offer €21.25 per share (about $2.56 billion) for the map maker back in July — the same amount tendered today. Back then the offer represented a sweet 32% premium over the average Tele Atlas share price. However, Tele Atlas is now trading above the offer price thanks to speculation caused by the Nokia deal. We say hold out for more Tele Atlas. Just hint at discussions with Nokia or Garmin and we’re pretty sure TomTom will up the ante.

[Thanks, SmartDust]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!