Tatum and Denim blog

Filed under: Cellphones

Another one bites the dust, so to speak. This time around, we’ve got Verizon Wireless doing the acquiring, as it has just announced plans to pay $2.67 billion for “one of the nation’s largest rural carriers,” Rural Cellular. The news comes just over a month after AT&T handed over a staggering amount of its own to pick up Dobson Communications, and this agreement will expand the carrier’s coverage “in parts of the East Coast and the South, as well as in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Kansas, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.” Verizon did note that it planned on deploying CDMA service in Rural Cellular’s existing GSM markets in order to convert customers over, but it also mentioned that the existing GSM networks would remain to “serve the roaming needs of other GSM carrier’s customers.” Look for the deal to be finalized sometime during the first half of next year, and don’t be surprised if we see a few more consolidation efforts go down in the meantime.

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Filed under: Storage

Western Digital has bought Komag, a company that supplies its buyer with thin-film media used to create disk drives, for $1 billion. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of the year, and has been completely approved by both boards, with just regulatory approvals needed to be cleared. The deal is overshadowed somewhat by the statement by one analyst that unusual trading in options ahead of the deal looked “suspicious,” which makes it hard for us to recall an example where stock trading in the time immediately surrounding a merger deal wasn’t suspicious.

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Filed under: Desktops

While this one may seem a tad out of left field, rumors are swirling that either Acer or Elitegroup Computer Systems could be fixing to pick Shuttle up if it decides to sell itself. According to an admittedly brief writeup at DigiTimes, ECS reportedly has a “good relationship with Shuttle,” and is being named “by market sources as one of two potential buyers” with Acer being the second. Interestingly, “sources” at ECS purportedly insinuated that there “was no need to acquire Shuttle” in order to meet its strategic goals, and while spokespeople for Acer were tightlipped, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched for the partnership-happy firm to ink yet another deal.

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Wireless

Apart from a couple snarky ads from the NAB, the XM and Sirius merger hasn’t exactly been a thrill ride, and now it looks like it’s going to get even more boring. The two companies filed their initial merger application with the FCC some 70 days ago, and the agency hasn’t even started the 180-day merger review period yet — making this the longest application-to-review delay in FCC history. Industry insiders are saying this might mean that a final decision won’t be reached until 2008, and that’s not even counting in the time it’ll take the Justice Department to do an antitrust review. No word on what the holdup is, but between that service outage and a loud customer backlash in the past two weeks, XM’s got some housekeeping to do in the downtime before it really has to start pitching the merger to the government.

[Via OrbitCast]

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

We’d say “another one bites the dust,” only that in the case of multi-billion dollar company takeovers, the metaphorical particulate is invariably of the gold form. Yeah, the latest mega-corp takeover is here, as Pentax has been taken over by Japanese company, Hoya. The deal was overshadowed by some rough internal wrangling in Pentax, involving calls from shareholders to reinstate an ex-President in favor of the takeover: the end result being that the current one, Takashi Watanuki, was forced to agree to the merger. We can’t draw much from this deal at the moment, but as Hoya is involved in technology like medical imaging equipment, we’d expect a proportion of the impact to fall outside of our gadgetry remit. We’ve no fear that Pentax will be dropping out of the con / prosumer camera market just yet though, so for now just think of this as a business blip on your gadget radar.

[Via Photography Blog]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio, Transportation

We guess that once your acquisition target has agreed to be purchased, you don’t really have to go around buttering up its board members or executives anymore, but it still seems odd that CEO Mel Karmazin would defend Sirius’ admittedly poor performance on Wall Street by arguing that at least his company “sucks less” than future partner XM. Yet that’s exactly the case presented to shareholders at a Manhattan meeting last week, where the often-outspoken Karmazin admitted that he was “real unhappy” with the satrad firm’s stock price — although compared to the 61% decline in XM share prices since September 2004, Sirius’ 8% gain over that same period was a relative bull run. Still, Mel, don’t you think there are better ways to phrase that sentiment other than attaching the connotation of “suckiness” to your company and one you hope to acquire? Hey, just a thought.

[Via FARK]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Joining the growing array of recent acquisitions is Planar and Runco International, as just today Planar has written a check for $36.7 million to take on the assets of privately-held Runco International, Inc. Planar, while not a household name in the home theater biz, managed to hold its own amongst competitors in the HT market, and while the majority of its products catered to the mid-range consumer, we suspect that picking up Runco was the easiest way to launch into the high-end realm. As expected, it looks like the Planar, Runco, and Vidikron brand names will remain as they are, and just as Planar will continue to sell through its current network of distributors, it sure sounds like Runco will remain a niche offering rather than bleeding over towards the mainstream.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

According to The Journal, the Microsoft / Yahoo merger talks which first took place a year ago (and then again “in recent months”, as was discovered today) turned up nil — that’s right, the deal’s off. Again. Not that it was ever on. Anyway, apparently discussions are in fact no longer active, and it was concluded that competing is apparently marginally more productive than merging for the two mammoth businesses. (Seriously, can you imagine how much product overlap there would have been between the two?) And trust us, the last thing 75k-large Microsoft needs right now is another personnel infusion of over ten thousand people having a hard enough time as it is keeping up with the business. Bottom line: looks like both companies are on their own against the big G. Best of luck to ‘em. [Warning: subscription required for read link]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Wireless, Storage, Networking

Hot on the heels of yet another big time acquisition between Philips and DLO comes news that Netgear will be snapping up the privately-held Infrant Technologies for a cool $60 million in cash. All 34 employees will soon be wearing Netgear badges, and Infrant’s CEO will move over and become Netgear’s Vice President and General Manager for storage products. Essentially, Netgear is hoping that this move will strengthen the firm’s presence in the enterprise and small-business storage realm, as it can now offer up a trusted name in RAID-based NAS products for SMB, SOHO, and the home. More specifically, the ReadyNAS, RAIDiator, and X-RAID portfolios were the targets of Netgear’s desire, and while details on branding and the timeframe for the merge weren’t noted, it sounds like Netgear’s ready to get this party started on the double.

[Thanks, Matt]

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Filed under: Household, Portable Audio

After witnessing the pair of attempts by the National Association of Broadcasters to discredit the Sirius-XM merger as a monopoly or bail-out, the folks at Orbitcast decided that “two can play” at that game, and created this clever “ad” of their own. We’ll let the image do the talking.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Before long, Mitac International just might own every other Taiwanese company currently out there, as the corporation is swallowing up yet another subsidiary by reportedly acquiring Tyan. The merger is slated to hit completion by the third quarter of this year, but the two firms aren’t entirely strangers as it stands. Currently, the Mitac Group holds a 35-percent stake in Tyan, but the deal should allow for Tyan’s products to be “more competitive in the market.” Stockholders were apparently pleased with the announcement, as shares for both firms raised during public trading hours, and you can probably assume the newfound company’s new supercomputer will be even more sensational (and hopefully cheaper) than the existing iteration.

[Via Inquirer]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio

We already know just how “priceless” the XM / Sirius merger will be, that your current radio will probably still function just fine, and that both firms are still facing legal heat in one way or another, but we hadn’t heard just how the newlyweds would handle the pricing of the new service — until now. In a decision sure to make a few people elated while giving a hint of suspicion to most others, the merged company will offer customers a package that includes “less channels” at a monthly price lower than $12.95, one that seems “substantially similar” for exactly $12.95, and finally, a third option that touts even more channels for “a modest premium.” We can only assume that the pricey third alternative will boast a nice mixture of both companies’ existing lineups, but unfortunately, it also leaves open the possibility that the cheaper two options might exemplify the “you only get what you pay for” tagline.

[Thanks, Frankenstein B.]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!