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May

GrubHub And Seamless Merge In Hopes Of Expanding Mobile Takeout To New Markets

Posted by Bertel King, Jr. in Applications, News

GrubHub and Seamless are merging into a single company intent on bringing more customers to more restaurants, or more food to more customers, depending on your perspective. For those who have never heard of either company, they both allow mobile shoppers to avoid holding their phones to their ears to order takeout by using mobile apps on their phones instead. It's a popular concept, as evidenced by the roughly $875 million in gross food sales the two companies facilitated last year.

The two competitors currently share the same goal of connecting hungry people with delicious meals, but they maintain separate networks of retailers across the country.

Apr

MetroPCS Ties The Knot, Takes T-Mobile's Name As Shareholders Throw Rice On Merger Deal

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in MetroPCS, News, T-Mobile

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of the FCC and these witnesses to join MetroPCS and T-Mobile in the bonds of holy mergrimony. If any shareholder can show just cause why they may not be joined together, let them speak now or forever shut the hell up.

Today, MetroPCS shareholders approved the merger between the company and T-Mobile USA. As a result of the deal, Deutsche Telekom will own a 74% stake in the new company, while the former MetroPCS shareholders will own 26%. The new company will be called T-Mobile US and, for the first time, be traded publicly on the NYSE under the name TMUS.

Jan

AT&T Is Going Shopping For A European Carrier To Buy Or Merge With, Says WSJ

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in AT&T, News

AT&T has a problem on its hands. It's big, but is it big enough? If you're a CEO of a major corporation the answer to that question is always "no." However, the carrier has difficulty expanding on the home front. An overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens have phones with one carrier or another, so there's very little wiggle room to grab new customers. And gaining in market share when you (and all your competitors!) are dead set on locking people into two-year contracts is very difficult. In short, growth isn't much of an option outside acquisitions, and those haven't gone so well.

Oct

T-Mobile's Acquisition Of MetroPCS Has Been Approved By Both Companies' Boards, Expected To Complete Mid-2013

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in MetroPCS, News, T-Mobile

Previously, we'd heard rumors and whispers that T-Mobile (by way of its parent company Deutsche Telekom) would be acquiring MetroPCS. Today, both companies' boards have approved the merger and, pending regulatory and MetroPCS shareholder approval, the deal should be completed by mid-2013. The two companies will have a combined subscriber base of about 42.5 million customers, which still leaves it in fourth place in the U.S. behind Sprint with 56 million and AT&T/Verizon who each have over 100 million users.

The biggest news is that this will allow T-Mobile the spectrum it needs to rollout a competitive LTE network. In fact, T-Mo's CEO John Legere hopes to some day be able to "taunt" competitors over their LTE coverage.

Oct

[Update: Merger Confirmed] Reuters: T-Mobile Is In Talks To Acquire MetroPCS, Press Conference Tomorrow?

Posted by David Ruddock in MetroPCS, News, Rumors, T-Mobile

Update: Deutsche Telekom has confirmed that this merger will be happening (given regulatory approval), and that DT will run T-Mobile and MetroPCS as one company. The DT board will meet tomorrow to approve the transaction.

According to Reuters, "three sources familiar with the situation" are saying a deal between T-Mobile and MetroPCS is "close," and by close, they mean an announcement is probably happening tomorrow.

This is a bit odd, given that MetroPCS is a CDMA carrier, and that network is largely incompatible with T-Mobile's current spectrum holdings. MetroPCS does have a burgeoning LTE network, though, and this may be the proverbial apple of T-Mobile's eye driving the deal.

Aug

Googorola, Phase 1: Trim Product Lines And 20% Of Workforce, Focus On Making Just A Few High-End Products

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Google, Motorola, News

Just three short months ago, China approved Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility, effectively finalizing the deal. Apparently, neither company is looking to waste any time, as Motorola's new Google-driven leadership has already revealed the basics of the big turnaround plan. The first step: lay off 20% of its employees (including about 1,330 in the US) and close 94 offices around the globe. Given that Moto's phone unit has only made a profit in 6 months of the last 4 years, that's not so surprising.

What is perhaps more interesting is that Googorola will cut the number of devices made to "just a few," including dropping low-end devices from the portfolio entirely.

May

Google And Motorola's Shotgun Wedding Is Final - And It's Definitely Going To Change Things For Android

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Editorials, Google, Legal, Motorola, News

Today, Google announced that its acquisition of Motorola Mobility had officially closed. Make no mistake, this merger is something of a shotgun arrangement - and the offspring conceived out of wedlock is Android. So, how did we get here, two and a half years after the first DROID?

A Brief History Of Motorola And Android

Motorola was once Google's model manufacturer partner. At least in the US, it produced what was the most popular "first generation" Android smartphone, the original Motorola DROID. The OG DROID was responsible for "hooking" many people on the operating system, whether through endlessly modifying and tweaking the device, or simply for its stellar build quality and reliability (those things were little tanks), it was truly the work-horse that first brought Android into the hands of a large number of people here in the US.

Feb

Google Gets The Thumbs-Up From The EU To Acquire Motorola, Still Waiting On US, Chinese Approval

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, Motorola, News

Google just got one step closer to finalizing its acquisition of Motorola Mobility with approval from the 27-member European Union. Google still needs approval from the U.S. and China, as well as a few other key jurisdictions, before it can bring Motorola into the fold, but at the moment things are looking rosy for the Big G.

The EU did express some hesitations about the deal, however. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia had this to say in a statement to the press:

"This merger decision should not and will not mean that we are not concerned by the possibility that, once Google is the owner of this portfolio, Google can abuse these patents, linking some patents with its Android devices.

Jan

Motorola Announces Q4 Earnings: Only 200k Tablets Shipped, $80m Loss

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Motorola, News

Assuming the Google/Motorola merger goes through, Google might want to rethink that whole hands-off approach to managing its new hardware company. According to Motorola's press release, the company saw a net loss of about $80 million, after $3.4 billion in revenue. It's not the worst loss in the world, but shareholders are never happy when they see red.

The tablet sales figures are bad, though. Motorola says in Q4 of 2011, it shipped 200,000 tablets. That is not a typo. Two hundred thousand tablets shipped. "Shipped," by the way, is corporate-speak for "sold to stores." This doesn't necessarily mean that customers bought all of those tablets.

Dec

Official: AT&T Cancels Plans To Purchase T-Mobile, Eats $4 Billion - What Now For T-Mo?

Posted by David Ruddock in AT&T, News, T-Mobile

It's official: AT&T-Mobile will not be happening any time soon. AT&T, the US's second-largest wireless carrier and all-around communications mega-corporation, after months of attempting to convince consumers and federal agencies alike that the deal was going to be good for everyone, has given up its plans to purchase T-Mobile, a division of Deutsche Telekom.

As part of the cancellation, AT&T will pay DT a $4 billion accounting fee to get out of its contract, as well as expand roaming agreements with the company (where, when, and for what purpose was not stated).

One worrisome issue that comes to mind for me is the damage done to T-Mobile's reputation in all of this.