Acquisition Archives - Page 2 of 2

Latest Rumor: Mircosoft To Buy RIM?

The interwebs are a buzz today about the latest rumor involving Waterloo Canada based RIM/Blackberry. According to financial website Benzinga.com Microsoft is allegedly about to invest $3.5 billion dollars into the company.

This comes as a surprise and out of left field so of course we take it with a grain of salt. It doesn’t make that much sense either. RIM has been steadily losing market share due to Apple and Android’s stranglehold on the smartphone OS market.

RIM did release a product earlier this month that allows Android, iPhone and RIM to play nice in the next iteration of Blackberry Enterprise Server, which they are calling “Mobile Fusion”. RIM is also expected to release their Blackberry 10 devices which will utilize the QNX platform, the same platform on the Blackberry Playbook.

Microsoft has been desperately trying to gain traction with their Windows Phone 7 products. The first of their Nokia Windows Phone 7 handsets have hit the market however they haven’t made any significant gains in market share.

Perhaps putting the two failing operating systems together would amount to one working, worthwhile system.

Google Acquires TxVia To Help Bring Google Wallet Into The Prepaid Space.

New York based TxVia has been working in the prepaid space since 2008. They reportedly handle over 100 million accounts and have partnerships with some of the biggest brands in the world.

Google announced on their Google Commerce Blog last week that they’ve acquired TxVia. Google didn’t disclose any of the financials behind the deal.

Google’s VP of Wallet & Payments Osama Bedier said on the Google Commerce Blog:

“They’ve partnered with the industry’s best known brands, and their leadership team has played an instrumental role in defining the fast-growing prepaid card segment of emerging payments.”

Google is working relentlessly as of late, on refining the Google Wallet platform and trying to build scale as quick as they can before ISIS rolls out.

While Google has teamed up with the nation’s third largest carrier, Sprint, to roll out Google Wallet the other three carriers have teamed up to form ISIS another virtual wallet and checkout program. ISIS has been successful in partnering with not only three of the for major carriers but some of the largest payment partners as well. For instance, Google’s current POS partner for Google Wallet transactions is Mastercard’s Pay Pass. ISIS on the other hand, has secured Verifone for their POS transactions.

According to Google TxVia has a payment network that is fast and reliable.

It hasn’t been revealed what role TxVia will play in all of this. Gift cards and prepaid cards have always been in the plans for Google Wallet. It appears, that with this transaction, Google Wallet will be closer to rolling out more “funding” options for Google Wallet customers.

Source: Google Commerce Blog

RIP Gowalla, Its Been Nice Knowing You

Three months after being acquired by Facebook and almost three years to the day of launching at SXSW GoWalla has finally closed up shop. Fitting that it finally did during SXSW in which it was launched at.

More after the break… Read More…

Twitter Acquires Summify To Boost Content

Twitter has acquired news aggregator Summify. Summify is a Canadian based start-up that aggregates stories across social media based on the amount of shares. The more a story is shared across Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader the higher it ranks on Summify.

Summify has an iPhone app and began service as an email delivered summary of news.

Twitter’s acquisition will eventually result in the Summify website getting shut down and Summify employees relocating to Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. Twitter hasn’t made a statement on how it will merge Summify into their current technology, but reports around the internet suggest it has something to do with Twitter’s new Discover tab.

More after the break
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The Big Rumor: Google In Talks To Buy Yahoo

Although AOL’s Tim Armstrong has been trying to sway his board and Yahoo’s board for an AOL-Yahoo merger, it seems like another, bigger, company wants to sink their teeth into yahoo.

Reports are running rampant on the internet today stemming from a report from the Wall Street Journal that Google is in talk with private equity firms to merge (or at least attempt) to merge with Yahoo. This wouldn’t be the first time that Google did business with yahoo. Yahoo was one of Google’s biggest clients 10 years ago, providing back end search services to the yahoo internet portal.

As PCMag suggests Google hasn’t entered into any kind of agreement with Yahoo and no one is sure which private equity firms Google is talking to. It’s also important to note that a leak or rumor from the Wall Street Journal doesn’t carry near as much weight as it would have five years ago.

It is apparent though that Yahoo wants a large, stable suitor. It’s been widely reported that Microsoft has been looking at acquiring Yahoo’s assets along with those of AOL.

Although a marriage between Google and Yahoo would spend a long time under regulatory scrutiny, the potential for GoogleAds and Google+ with a merger with Yahoo is endless.

source: WSJ via PCMag