Overnight, Cisco quietly took a knife to the throat of its Flip Video business, killing off a company they paid $US590 million for just two years ago. But Cisco isn’t the first company to spend a lot of money taking over a company only to get rid of it later. Here are our five favourites, including the Flip. More »
Comcast is buying a majority stake in NBC. Obviously, that raises some sticky questions for regulators, mixing up a cable/internet provider with a producer of content, particularly in this age of internet video. So the FCC is considering a bevy of conditions to approve the deal – like “program access” rules to keep Comcast from withholding NBC programming from competitors or net neutrality conditions. [NYT]
Yesterday, iiNet Shareholders voted in favour of the company acquiring AAPT’s consumer division, essentially turning it into the country’s second largest ISP. Which means there’s no excuse for them not offering ADSL2+ at my local exchange now – snap to it, iiNet! [iiNet]
If you dream of a day that spinny, crashy hard drives are fully replaced by cool, quiet flash memory, then you probably know Samsung makes a lot of the chips, and that SanDisk sells a lot of them in stores. According to the WSJ, Samsung wants a piece of the retail action, because it announced it had offered to buy SanDisk for $US5.8 billion, potentially with the aim of absorbing and/or eliminating SanDisk’s brand and distinct products altogether. Even though this was a seriously nice offer given SanDisk’s crappy stock performance of late, the company told Samsung to eff off, calling it an “opportunistic attempt” to pick up SanDisk while it’s down. Samsung says that SanDisk “continues to cling to unrealistic expectations.” Tell me, why does this intended corporate marriage sound so much like my parents’ divorce? [WSJ]
We were excited for the merger talks between Blockbuster Video and Circuit City, as that union could create a probable entertainment behemoth, and we don’t mean like Paula Abdul. Sadly word is coming down that Blockbuster is pulling its offer for Circuit off the table. Apparently it was ultimately decided that the match wasn’t a good fit for Blockbuster’s shareholders, so the plans have been scrapped. What could have been and awesome two-front retailer now means Blockbuster has to find new ways to catch up with Netflix, and Circuit City has to keep its head above water without any help. Bets on what happens next? [Forbes]
Microsoft has retired their bid over Yahoo completely, citing “excessive demands” on Yahoo’s part. They won’t try to do a hostile takeover either, because “Mr Yang would “take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft,” according to Steve Ballmer. The potential nightmare/dream love story is over. Do you think this is bad for the world, given Google’s almost monopolistic position? Or maybe it’s good because Microsoft already has enough power? Tell us your comments after reading the rest of Steve Ballmer’s farewell letter after the jump.
Yahoo! and Microsoft have failed to agree on a takeover deal. The deadline for the deal was last weekend, and Saturday came and went without so much as a peep from either party. This means two things: a hostile takeover, which would mean kicking out the Yahoo! board at the shareholders’ meeting; or Ballmer et al will quietly drop the proposal. So, will we be seeing the launch of Microhoo!, or has the fat lady just sung on the tie-up? [MacWorld]
