Posted 11/09/09 at 06:48:57 AM by Paul Lilly

Videoconferencing firm Tandberg was all too happy to accept Cisco's $3 billion buyout offer back at the beginning of October, but at least two investment consulting companies say Cisco's bid undervalues the firm.

The only opinions that matter at this point are those of the Tandberg's shareholders, who have yet to approve the deal. Before the agreement can go through, owners of 90 percent of the company's shares have to give it the green light, and do so  by the end of the day today. There's been talk that holders of 24 percent of Tandberg stock don't plan on signing off on the deal, and should that happen, Cisco has hinted it would walk away rather than raise its offer.

"We believe we are paying a fair price for a quality asset, and our offer comes recommended by the Tandberg Board of Directors," Cisco said in a prepared statement. "Further, Cisco's general approach to M&A activities is that no acquisition should be pursued or completed if it runs counter to the broader principles of prudence and financial fairness."

But not everyone agrees with Cisco's assessment. Consultants from Panta Capital and Scott & Associates contend that Tandberg's third quarter financial results beat the consensus estimates of analysts for revenue and profit, and Cisco's offer simply isn't enough.

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Posted 11/04/09 at 08:08:32 AM by Paul Lilly

Dell on Tuesday announced the completion of its tender offer for Perot Systems. Under terms of the deal, Dell will accept Perot's stock at $30 per share, and in return own more than 90 percent of the company.

Completion of the acquisition forms a new business unit called Dell Services, which will provide IT services and business solutions to customers. Integrating Perot Systems also extends Dell's reach into hosting, consulting, applications and business-process outsourcing, and expands Dell's exiting managed and modular services.

"Dell Services will be a powerful organization with the extensive capabilities and global reach to address the needs of organizations of all types. The Dell and Perot Systems integration teams have been extremely productive in their planning, and we are ready to work on behalf of all our customers," Peter Altabel, the former CEO of Perot who will become president of Dell Services, said in a statement.

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Posted 11/04/09 at 08:08:25 AM by Paul Lilly

Oracle knows it's in for a fight with the European Union over the U.S. company's planned $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems, but appears ready to go the rounds, according to a Financial Times report.

The EU is mainly concerned about whay Oracle might end up doing with Sun's MySQL code base, such as killing it off or dropping support in order to push its own non-free database package. And according to FT.com, one person close to the process says the EU is ever-so-close to issuing an official statement of objection, which is step one in blocking the deal.

It's unlikely Oracle will back down, choosing instead to wait and see what the EU decides. Should the Commission object, Oracle could choose to offer concessions or take its fight to court.

The Sun acquisition has already been given the green light by the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Posted 11/02/09 at 03:13:23 PM by Bart Salisbury

Never underestimate the dollar power of shoes and handbags. Amazon, in a move to expand diversity in its product line, last July moved to acquire Zappos, a purveyor of shoes, bags and clothing. Now that the deal is finally closing, and Zappos’s stock has risen on the news of the buyout, Amazon has agreed to make the purchase for $1.2 billion, up from the initial stock price-based estimate of $928 million.

Zappos remains intact after the deal--a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon, with headquarters in Las Vegas. No changes in Zappos’s management team are expected.

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Posted 10/27/09 at 01:10:38 PM by Paul Lilly

Cisco today announced its intent to acquire ScanSafe, a privately held software-as-a-service (SaaS) Web security outfit based in London and San Francisco.

Under terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay $183 million in cash and retention-based incentives for the security firm. ScanSafe's services will be integrated with Cisco AnyConnect VPN client, but that's not all ScanSafe brings to the table. Cisco will also have access to the security firm's global network of carrier-grade data centers and multi-tenant architecture, both of which will help boost Cisco's presence in cloud security products.

"With the acquisition of ScanSafe, Cisco is executing on our vision to build a borderless network security architecture that combines network and cloud-based services for advanced security enforcement," said Tom Gillis, vice president and general manager of Cisco's Security Technology Business Unit (STBU). "Cisco will provide customers the flexibility to choose the deployment model that best suits their organization and deliver anytime, anywhere protection against Web-based threats."

Cisco added that it expects Web security to be a $2.3 billion market by 2012, which would explain the company's aggressive spending as of late. Earlier this month, Cisco bid a whoppng $3 billion for Norwegian video conference company Tandberg and agreed to pony up $2.9 billion to acquire wirless equipment maker Starent Networks.

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Posted 10/18/09 at 10:12:41 AM by Justin Kerr

Google poured some much needed optimism into the markets last week by announcing some stellar third quarter earnings, giving hope that advertising markets around the world might finally be on the mend. Google turned in a Q3 profit of $1.64 billion, with a very respectable earnings per share of $5.13, a 27 percent boost from the same period last year. During the conference call Google CEO Eric Schmidt also declared that the search engine giant would be on the prowl for new acquisition targets, and would consider any company be it large or small.

News like this usually gets analysts all fired up trying to figure out where they will strike first, but Schmidt clarified that Google is primarily interested in search engines that target specific verticals, or could help them refine how search is performed. Google apparently is also on the lookout for companies that can help them improve their display ad business, or with the development of Chrome. "We have historically done an acquisition, perhaps, one a month or so, and those are typically small, they're typically a complete offering, they're typically technology-intensive," said Schmidt on the call. "They're not very expensive in the scheme of things, and they bring some specific technology."

Schmidt also confirmed that Chrome OS is on track for a beta release later this year, claiming that internal demos have proven it to be a superior offering for netbooks, and far beyond anything offered by either the Microsoft, or Linux camps in both “speed and efficiency”.

So who do you think Google should buy?

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Posted 09/23/09 at 08:38:53 AM by Paul Lilly

In a blog post on Monday, Kyril Faenov, a general manager at Microsoft, announced that the software maker has acquired the technology assets of Interactive Supercomputing (ISC), a company whose bread and butter has been porting the power of parallel computing over to the desktop.

"This move represents our ongoing commitment to parallel computing and high performance computing (HPC) and will bring together complimentary technologies that will help simplify the complexity and difficulty of expressing problems that can be parallelized," Faenov wrote.

Faenov added that Bill Blake, the current CEO of ISC, will make the transition to Microsoft and work at the New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge, MA. Blake and others will put into motion Microsoft's plan of integrating ISC technologies into future versions of Microsoft products, although exactly what products have yet to be announced.

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Posted 08/21/09 at 08:55:35 AM by Paul Lilly

Oracle, which makes databases and other software, said the U.S. Department of Jusice has approved its plans to acquire Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion.

The bid to acquire Sun was first announced in April and Sun shareholders approved the acquisition on July 16, but the deal has been in limbo following the DOJ's extended antitrust review. According to a lawyer for Oracle, the DOJ needed more time to review an issue about the way rights to Java are licensed, the Wall Street Journal reports.

With the DOJ no longer a roadblock, Oracle still faces a few more hurdles before the deal can go through. The acquisition is subject to certain conditions and also needs approval from European regulators, which said it will weigh in with an initial opinion in September.

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