Oracle has snapped up third placed server maker Sun Microsystems, its first ever hardware acquisition, for $7.4 billion, after IBM turned down a higher price. Oracle is talking about it as if it was a software buy, the most important it’s ever made, taking control of the Solaris operating system that it has relied upon and Sun’s Java language. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison says Oracle will be the only company that can engineer integrated systems – applications to disk. Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle’s fastest growing business, is built on top of Sun’s Java language and software.
Companies in the US Silicon Valley had just $1.16 billion invested in them in venture capital during the first quarter, which is the lowest amount since 1997, according to the latest MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. That money was spent on just 173 VC deals the lowest total for 13 years.
Roundbox has launched the Roundbox Client SDK for Mobile DTV in the US at the NAB exhibition and conference. The SDK provides device manufacturers protocol stacks, binary applications, and test samples for building devices which support TV on mobile broadcast networks including ATSC M/H, and says it will speed time to market. It will also offer as open source an M/H Announcement Channel Parser, supporting OMA’s BCAST ESG standard.
Private equity firm The Carlyle Group said it has exited its investment in SmartTrust, a developer of Mobile Device Management and SIM management software for MNOs, through a sale to Giesecke & Devrient, suppliers of smart cards in telecommunications, electronic payments, transportation, health care, identity, customer loyalty, pay-TV and Internet security.
Deutsche Telekom said this week that its earnings would fall short by up to €800 million down as low as €18.7 billion for the year, against estimates given just eight weeks ago. The CEO said that it was due to deteriorating economic conditions, tough competition and currency losses leading to disappointing revenue in the US, UK and Poland.
Broadcom said this week it has made an offer of $9.25 a share in cash for Emulex, in order to get into the chip business for storage systems. The deal is a 40% premium on the Emulex current share price valuing the company at $764 million. Broadcom says that leadership in Ethernet networking with the Emulex expertise in Fibre Channel will accelerate new systems for enterprise networks.
The Grass Valley Thomson subsidiary which is currently up for sale said at NAB this week that it would launch an H.264 4:2:2 encoder decoder system for HD contribution, designed for fixed and mobile applications, ideally suited to demanding live broadcasting, such as sports. It says, like Ateme recently said to us, that this would get a superior image down to around 30 Mbps, offering significant bandwidth savings over current systems.
US researcher In-Stat says that both 2Wire and Thomson have had big growth spurts in the wi-fi device market, growing their shipments by nearly 60% annually. Each significantly out-performed the overall market, gaining market share. 2Wire jumped to an 11% share, and Thomson to 8%. Market share among the other leading competitors, Linksys, Netgear, and D-Link was flat or down in 2008.
The LG chairman in Taiwan is quoted in Chinese newspapers saying that the Arena KM 900 phone, the one with the 3D cube on the front, has sold 2 million units since its launch in March ‘ an iPhone class achievement and the fastest selling handset ever for LG. Prior to that the LG Chocolate reached 1 million phones in 3 months, but there were that many pre-orders for the Arena and it has sold another 1 million since launch.
The DISH Network in the US is offering free to customers dramatic live views of Earth 24 hours a day, including passing views of the moon, Venus, and even unidentified flying objects. They just have to turn to channel 212 and the feeds come from a camera mounted on the EchoStar 11 satellite offering a 30 degree x 22.4 degree field-of-view that includes live full-disk views of the planet from a distance of approximately 22,300 miles above Earth.
The NAB National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas recorded 83,842 attendees, down from the 105,000 that showed up last year. It could certainly have been worse.
Philips has said that it will now sell in a private placement to institutional shareholders, the 17% stake it kept in UK set-top maker Pace when Philips sold it its set top operation last year. The deal will see 50.7 million shares placed to yield around €76 million, and a significant gain which became possible when Pace announced it would upgrades its forecasts for the second time this year, taking its shares to a seven-year high.
Time Warner Cable said this week it would withdraw its plan to shift its broadband charges from uncapped to a system where it depends on how much data is used. This is partly because of the hysterical reaction to the proposal, including one Congressman trying to bring in a bill making it illegal. Time Warner said that it still thinks that in the long term it is the way to go, but will shelve if for now.
Netherlands based conditional access firm Irdeto, has launched a software only Conditional Access at NAB with what it calls a Universal Client. It was originally designed for operators that felt they could not afford the more traditional smart card or other hardware based system which is dominant with NDS, Nagravision, Motorola and Scientific Atlanta as well as Irdeto. But Irdeto says that as the transition from analog to digital TV picks up pace, an increasing number of operators will be attracted to the Universal Client approach. It is now integrated into Broadcom’s latest Digital Terminal Adapter system-on-a-chip (SoC) to adapt a digital signal for an analog TV.