Sony buys Gracenote, Interesting buy (moishe thinks)

From MacWorld

Sony Corp. of America will buy Gracenote, which made its name with software that identifies digital music files, for about $260 million.

Sony will keep Gracenote as a wholly owned subsidiary and use its technology in its own digital content, service and device offerings. But Gracenote’s current business will keep operating separately and developing new technologies, and its management will remain, Sony said. It will pay $260 million plus “other contingent consideration,” the company said.

Although it pioneered portable music players with the Walkman cassette player and jointly developed the CD, Sony’s digital and online music efforts have fallen short of competitors such as Apple. The company shut down its Connect music store last August after trying to compete against Apple’s iTunes Store for three years.

Gracenote, formerly CDDB, maintains a database of information about music and uses it in a variety of applications, including identifying tracks, finding similar songs and presenting lyrics and other relevant content. Its customers include iTunes, Yahoo Music Jukebox, and companies in the mobile music business, such as Sony Ericsson, Japanese carrier KDDI and Europe’s Musiwave. Consumer electronics suppliers, including Sony, also use Gracenote technology in their products. The company is based in Emeryville, California.

The companies expect the deal to close in late May.

Google like a spoiled rich kid - they want everything

From GigaOm

Google, according to The Wall Street Journal is thinking about teaming up with Space Data Corp., a company that sends balloons carrying small (micro) base stations about 20 miles up in the air for providing connectivity to truckers and oil companies. The balloons burst almost every 24 hours and need to be sent up again and again. The electronic payload is retrieved by farmers after it drifts back using a small parachute. The farmers do it because they get $100 per payload retrieved, WSJ says.

The Internet giant — which is now pushing into wireless services — has considered contracting with Space Data or even buying the firm, according to one person…Google believes balloons like these could radically change the economics of offering cellphone and Internet services in out-of-the-way areas, according to people familiar with its thinking.

Given that there is only one anonymous source that is linked to Google, I remain highly skeptical of this plan. And if it is true, then it is yet another example of Google having more money than knowing what to spend it on, which in itself is a dangerous sign for its investors.

MSFT to Yahoo - "You're Mine"

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. will authorize a proxy battle for Yahoo Inc. this week to convince the Web company's shareholders to agree on a takeover deal that the Yahoo board so far has rejected, the New York Times' DealBook blog said on Tuesday.

Quoting people briefed on the matter, the Times Web site said that Microsoft, which has been expected to raise its cash-and-stock bid originally worth $44.6 billion, would seek to nominate a slate of directors by March 13, if Yahoo's board did not enter talks.

A Microsoft spokesman said the company had always maintained it reserves the right to exercise all options but declined to comment specifically on the DealBook report.

A person familiar with the matter told Reuters a proxy fight would cost about $20 million to $30 million but was not aware of Microsoft making the decision to pursue the fight.

"Microsoft is doing the smart thing. It's giving both the carrot and the stick," said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran. "The carrot was the big premium on Yahoo stock and now the stick is the threat of a proxy fight."

Proxy fights waged by corporations to facilitate a hostile acquisition are rare and represent less than 5 percent of all proxy fights since 2001, according to data from research firm FactSet SharkWatch.

Chairman Bill Gates told Reuters on Monday that there was "nothing new" in the Yahoo takeover process. "We've sent our letter and we've reinforced that we consider that it's a very fair offer," he said.

The two companies are at a stand-off in Microsoft's unsolicited bid to acquire Yahoo. Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo for $31 a share in cash and stock, a bid which Yahoo's board rejected, saying it undervalued the company.

Microsoft countered by saying that its offer was "full and fair," but did not say what it planned to do next.

The deal is now worth $41.9 billion due to the decline of value in Microsoft's stock.

The fees for paying lawyers and solicitation firms to wage a proxy fight are a fraction of what it would cost Microsoft to raise its offer. For every dollar the offer is increased, it would cost Microsoft an additional $1.4 billion.

If Microsoft decides to launch a proxy fight, it would nominate a slate of directors to take control of Yahoo's board and support the company's proposal. The nominees would be voted on at Yahoo's annual shareholder meeting in June.

A Yahoo-Microsoft proxy fight would be largest corporate proxy fight in the eight years FactSet SharkWatch has been tracking statistics on this, it said.

Microsoft shares rose on the Nasdaq. The stock is down 12 percent since the offer for Yahoo went public.

Shares of Yahoo dropped. The value of Microsoft's cash and stock offer currently stands at $29.18.

More tech m&a - Google buys Plaxo

Google will announce plans to acquire Plaxo, the company that stores online business contact details, by March 15th.

Wired recently reported a rumor to this effect, suggesting that Plaxo may accept an offer from Google in the $200 million range.

Yet more examples of technology M&A, Moishe is telling you keep eye on this (cnet news)

Plaxo, Bebo acquisition rumors run amok on the Web

Posted by Caroline McCarthy | Post a comment

"Who's going to buy Yahoo?" isn't the only big question in mergers and acquisitions this week. Over the past few days, rumors have circulated that social-networking site Bebo and contacts management site Plaxo are either in negotiations or already sold.

Nobody's commenting, obviously.

First, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington wrote on Tuesday that a source told him that a Bebo acquisition was "definitely happening." The company was in the process of negotiating a $1 billion sale, he said, but didn't know who the buyer was. Arrington speculated it could be Google, considering that Bebo's user base has "very little overlap" with that of Google's in-house social network, Orkut--the former has a youth-skewing base and is extremely popular in the U.K., whereas the latter is geared more toward adults and is big in Brazil and India. But with its OpenSocial developer initiative, Google seems like it would rather have influence across the entire social-networking landscape rather than choose one to operate. (Orkut was created by Google engineers, not acquired.)

But Arrington also noted that the Bebo buyer, if there in fact is one, could be just about any big name in media or technology, from CBS to Viacom.

The second rumor is a bit more detailed: tech gossip blog Valleywag reported on Wednesday that Plaxo has been sold to cable conglomerate Comcast for $175 million. Last week, the rumor was that Google had bought Plaxo. But Comcast, Valleywag's Owen Thomas pointed out, already has a deal with Plaxo to handle address book applications for its Internet customers.

All we need now is another Digg acquisition rumor, and then I'm about ready to call it a week.

News corp and Yahoo talking? (wsj)

News Corp. Enters Yahoo Fray

By Jessica E. Vascellaro

Word Count: 388 | Companies Featured in This Article: News Corp., Yahoo, Microsoft

News Corp. and Yahoo Inc. are in discussions about combining MySpace and other News Corp.-owned online properties with Yahoo, according to people familiar with the matter.

The discussions are aimed at helping Yahoo fend off Microsoft Corp's unsolicited takeover offer, which was initially valued at $44.6 billion. Under the deal being discussed, News Corp. would get a stake in Yahoo which could be more than 20%.

The deal under discussion, which would also include a contribution of cash ...

What recession? look at all the tech mergers and acquisitions being announced

Sun Microsystems has acquired Innotek, a Stuttgart, Germany provider of open source desktop virtualization software called VirtualBox, for an undisclosed amount.

VirtualBox is part of a hot group of companies allowing for much more efficient use of computers within large companies. VirtualBox enables desktop or laptop PCs running pretty much any operating system — Windows, Linux, Mac or Solaris — to run multiple, different operating systems side-by-side, switching between them with just a click of the mouse.