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Tag: Deals

  • VMware’s Acquisition Of Zimbra Made Official

    VMware’s Acquisition Of Zimbra Made Official

    The rumors about Yahoo selling Zimbra have finally become fact.  Today, VMware announced that it’s acquired the open source email and collaboration specialist, and although the financial details weren’t disclosed, corporate representatives on all sides of the transaction seem pleased.

    Let’s start with someone who works for the buyer.  Brian Byun, VMware’s Vice President and General Manager of Cloud Services, said in a statement, "[W]e expect more organizations, especially small and medium size businesses, to increasingly buy core IT solutions that deliver cloud-like simplicity in end-user and operational experience.  Zimbra is a great example of the type of scalable ‘cloud era’ solutions that can span smaller, on-premise implementations to the cloud."

    That might not mean Yahoo’s missing out on a lot of fantastic opportunities, however.  It’s important to keep in mind that the sale was voluntary, and not some kind of takeover, of course.

    Also, Jim Morrisroe, Vice President of Sales at Zimbra, wrote on its corporate blog, "Zimbra’s technologies have and will continue to play a role in Yahoo!’s communications services, including Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Calendar.  The Yahoo! team is very happy for us, our customers and our community as we prepare to enter this new era.  We owe Yahoo! a great deal of appreciation for their support."

    So until the companies reveal a purchase price through an SEC filing – or it leaks some other way – it looks like the matter’s about wrapped up.  The deal is supposed to close this quarter.

    Related Articles:

    > Yahoo Sale Of Zimbra To VMware Rumored

    > Yahoo Zimbra Desktop Now Synching

    > Yahoo May Dispose Of Zimbra

     

  • Yahoo Southeast Asia Seals Deal With Friendster

    Late yesterday, Yahoo Southeast Asia got what may be a big leg up in the social networking arena.  Yahoo Southeast Asia established a partnership with Friendster that will see the two entities doing a great deal of cross-promotion in the near future.

    Friendster has over 90 million registered users, and about 90 percent of its daily traffic comes from Southeast Asia, so the arrangement is a rather significant deal.  Yahoo stands to benefit as Friendster is putting ads for Yahoo services all over users’ homepages and profile pages.  Then Yahoo will receive some additional exposure when Friendster incorporates its search results.

    As for what Friendster gets out of the equation, a Friendster application has already been granted a spot on the Yahoo homepages in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.  Plus, Friendster users are supposed to obtain the option to link a Friendster account to a Yahoo account.

    Both sides seem more than pleased about the arrangement.  Ken Mandel, the vice president and managing director of Yahoo Southeast Asia, said in a statement, "Working together with Friendster ensures Yahoo! remains relevant to people by offering the best online content and experiences."

    He then added, "This is a major milestone in the Yahoo! Open Strategy, our combined services will enrich the online environment allowing people to get more done faster and in a single place."

    Related Articles:

    > Yahoo Shopping Partnership With PriceGrabber Arranged

    > Yahoo Partners With Electus On Original Content

    > Yahoo Makes Multiple Strides On Connected TV Front

  • Tim Armstrong Weighing Search Deal With Microsoft

    AOL’s current search deal with Google is set to end in December, and when it expires, there’s no guarantee that AOL will stick with the search giant.  Today, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong implied that he’s weighing his options.

    Tim ArmstrongArmstrong didn’t go about this in a nasty or even slightly negative way.  According to Nicholas Carlson, he just said, "Google’s been a great partner.  They’re obviously going to get first dibs.  Microsoft and other people are very interesting partners as well."

    Armstrong then continued, "I would expect us to be aggressive about the search deal and for us to be in a partnership that we care about for the next 5 to 10 years."

    New AOL LogoGoogle and AOL first sealed a search deal in May of 2002, so such a lengthy arrangement wouldn’t be too odd.  The difference is that the original deal wasn’t scheduled to last through the end of 2010.  Armstrong may be pushing for slightly better terms before he settles in with Google for the long haul, then, which would make sense.

    Or, just maybe, AOL’s CEO is really ready to bet the farm on Bing, given that most people like its performance and Microsoft has deep pockets.

    Related Articles:

    > Rumor: AOL May Be Buying Mashable

    > AOL Might Be Looking To Sell ICQ

    > The New AOL Is Now Live

  • Google Offers On2 An Additional $26.5 Million

    Squeaky wheels may get a little grease, but apparently, it’s better still to be an angry and litigious shareholder.  Following Google’s acquisition offer to On2 in August, On2 shareholders complained, and now, they may receive an extra $26.5 million for their trouble.

    As we reported earlier, Google offered to acquire On2 for 60 cents per share (or $106.5 million in all).  Then On2 gave its best quarterly financial report in more than a year, and shareholders were unable to find any evidence that any company other than Google had been given a chance to bid on it.

    Two lawsuits were filed in an attempt to block the acquisition as a result.

    On2

    So – at least to some degree – Google’s folded.  A press release announced this morning that the search giant is willing to part with an additional 15 cents per share (which equals about $26.5 million and an overall increase of 25 percent).

    Google, which has a market cap of almost $193 billion at the moment, won’t miss the extra money.  The more interesting matter is whether this incident will start any sort of trend, with other companies’ investors also trying to bargain for better deals in the future.

    Related Articles:

    > Schmidt: Google Serious About Acquisitions Again

    > On2 Shareholders File Lawsuits To Stop Google Deal

    > Google To Acquire Video Compression Developer For $106.5 Million

  • Rumor: AOL May (Not) Be Buying Mashable

    Update: According to Business Insider, Pete Cashmore had this to say on the matter: 

    We’re very open to partnerships and always talk with those that get in touch. We’ve certainly spoken to lots of potential partners, some of those conversations more significant than others. But I don’t feel that any of those conversations reached a point at which Mashable is likely to cease being independent.

    Original Article:     In mid-2009, all-things-social-media blog Mashable surpassed TechCrunch as the top tech blog in terms of traffic. Now, Mashable is rumored to be on its way to becoming an AOL property.

    In late 2009, AOL revealed its new strategy away from Time Warner. That strategy is content, content, content, and that is something there is no shortage of from Mashable.

    Gawker’s Valleywag appears to be the source of the rumor after hearing from "a source at the Internet conglomerate" that AOL was interested in buying Mashable. Mashable owner Pete Cashmore has since told the publication:

    "We don’t comment on speculation, but we do hold our writers in high regard and pay a competitive salary for their tireless efforts."

    However, since then, famed tech blogger Robert Scoble has posted the following tweet:

    Scoble Tweets about Mashable

    It’s still only a rumor at this point, but it will be quite interesting to see how this one unfolds. Valleywag thinks the only hold up might be negotiations.

    Mashable certainly fits the profile of what AOL is trying to do these days. They cover a wide spectrum of topics (horizontally, if you will), while staying somewhere within the realm of social media, for the most part. One has to wonder if the writers would stay the same if such a deal were to go through.
     

    Related Articles:

    > TechCrunch Dethroned by Mashable as Top Tech Blog

    > Increase Search Traffic with Horizontal Content

    > The New AOL is Now Live

  • Apple Acquiring AdMob Competitor Quattro Wireless

    Update: The acquisition has been confirmed, and competitor AdMob issued the following statement:

    "We believe that Apple’s proposed acquisition of Quattro serves as yet another validation of the vibrant mobile advertising industry and can help accelerate the pace of innovation and competition in this space."

    Original Article: Apple is reportedly set to acquire Quattro Wireless for $275 million. This is according to the generally reliable Kara Swisher of BoomTown, who claims to have the information confirmed by several sources.

    Quattro Wireless is a mobile ad network similar to AdMob, which is in the process of being acquired by Google. Reports suggest that Apple was in the running for Admob, but was outbid, so the next logical step was to seek a competitor to stay competitive with Google in this market.

    Quattro Wireless

    The $275 million price tag is much smaller than what Google paid for AdMob ($750 million), but Quattro is considerably smaller. However, they both directly deal in advertising on smartphones, a market both Google and Apple are heavily competing in.

    Google’s latest iPhone competitor, the Nexus One is scheduled to be unveiled today. You can read a bit more about that here.

    According to Swisher, the official announcement about Apple’s acquisition of Quattro could come as early as today, but this has not been confirmed. Quattro is based in Waltham, Massachusetts. It counts Ford, Disney, and the NFL among its clients.

    Related Articles:

    > Consumer Groups Ask FTC To Block Google AdMob Deal

    > Google Provides an Update on the AdMob Acquisition

    > Google Buys Mobile Ad Firm For $750 Million In Stock<

  • Yahoo Sale Of Zimbra To VMware Rumored

    Yahoo Sale Of Zimbra To VMware Rumored

    At the moment, the Zimbra homepage bears a "BUY ZIMBRA" button and a stamp reading "a Yahoo division."  But according to a new report, a sale of Zimbra (and not just a Zimbra product) may soon take place, making "a VMware division" a more accurate statement.

    Kara Swisher wrote earlier today, "Yahoo is close to selling its Zimbra unit to VMware, according to several sources close to the situation. . . .  Sources said the deal will be announced soon, but the price for the open-source email unit was still unclear."

    Yahoo bought Zimbra for $350 million towards the end of 2007, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the price has gone up or down since then.  No overly nasty rumors appear to be in circulation now, at least, considering that Yahoo’s stock rose by 1.91 percent today.  (For reference: the Dow and Nasdaq went up 1.50 percent and 1.73 percent, respectively, so this isn’t amazing.)

    Anyway, a development along these lines wasn’t unexpected.  Yahoo’s been unloading properties for a while thanks to Carol Bartz’s get-back-to-basics directive, and in October, Zimbra’s former president and CTO also left the company.

    Related Articles:

    > Yahoo Zimbra Desktop Now Synching

    > Yahoo May Dispose Of Zimbra

    > Yahoo Undergoes Another Exec Shuffle

  • Flixster Buys Film Rating Site

    Flixster Buys Film Rating Site

    Movie social networking site, Flixster, said today it has acquired movie review site Rotten Tomatoes from IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corp.

    News Corp will receive a minority equity stake in Flixster as part of the deal, financial terms were not disclosed.

    Both Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes will continue to be available to Internet users as individual properties. The combination of Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes reaches a global audience of 30 million monthly visitors across a number of platforms, including their websites, social networks and via apps for mobile devices.

    "Rotten Tomatoes has built a fantastically well-known brand that moviegoers trust when making their decisions," said Steve Polsky, Flixster president and COO.
    Steve-Polsky
    "Combined with Flixster’s social networking and word-of-mouth, we’re creating the leading movie destination on the Internet."

    Together the companies will have a database of more than 250,000 movies, 2.3 billion user reviews, 500,000 critic reviews, and more than 20,000 trailers and videos.

    The deal follows a series of moves by IGN Entertainment to refocus its efforts on building out its suite of game-related and men’s-lifestyle offerings.

    "Joining Rotten Tomatoes with Flixster creates a company that can dominate the online movie category," said Roy Bahat, president of IGN Entertainment, who will join Flixster’s board of directors as an observer.

    "This also enables IGN to focus on serving the male 18-to-34 audience – especially videogamers – and the advertisers looking to reach them."
     

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    >MySpace May Be After Flixster

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