Hasta La Gadget!

Dell has finally agreed to let founder Michael Dell take the company private through a partnership with investment firm Silver Lake Partners, in a deal valued $24.9 billion. The transaction, which is still pending regulatory approval, should see stockholders receiving $13.88 per share of common stock (including payment of a special cash dividend) and is expected to close in Q3 of Dell’s 2014 fiscal year. In a statement released to the press, Michael Dell said that the newly private company’s mission will be to “serve our customers with a single-minded purpose and drive the innovations that will help them achieve their goals.”

Update: On the company’s investor call, Michael Dell, who retains 75 percent ownership under this new structure, reaffirmed Dell’s commitment to innovation and customer service — goals he said can now be better achieved “without the scrutiny of operating as a public company.” He also outlined several key areas of focus for the newly private Dell, among which expanding its presence in emerging markets, investing in R&D and acquisitions for enterprise solutions, as well as the PC, tablet and virtual computing space are key pillars.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Dell

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As BlackBerry continues to claw its way back into the smartphone race, a Reuters rumor tonight suggests its next move may be to pull a Dell and go private. Among other possible options including licensing the BlackBerry 10 OS or “other partnerships,” the idea is that this could let it fix problems away from the public eye. The paper’s “sources familiar with the situation” indicated BlackBerry has talked with private equity firm Silver Lake Partners — currently best known for its part in the still-in-limbo Dell buyout — about teaming up on enterprise computing, but that those talks did not include buyout-related discussions. Of course, being open to the idea is hardly actually taking the jump, and many analysts, investors and potential partners have their own ideas about how to repair things in Waterloo. We’ll see if these rumors ever pan out, feel free to leave suggestions for Thorsten & Co. — remember, BBM on iOS and Android is already happening — in the comments below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry

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Source: Reuters

Gaming giant Activision Blizzard announced it’s buying out most of majority shareholder Vivendi’s stake, at a total price of about $8.2 billion. Activision will pay about $5.83 billion in cash to Vivendi for 429 million shares, while an investment group led by CEO Bobby Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly will pick up 172 million shares for $2.34 billion, leaving Vivendi with 83 million shares, or about 12 percent of the company. The publisher of titles like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft (and Guitar Hero before it ran that into the ground), Activision reported $1.05 billion in net revenue for Q2 and raised its full-year revenue outlook slightly, although full results won’t be available until August 1st. As Joystiq mentions, Vivendi has been unsuccessfully trying to sell its part of the company for nearly a year, hopefully this transaction works out the best for everyone. By everyone, we mean people still waiting for StarCraft: Ghost.

Filed under: Gaming, HD

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Via: Joystiq

Source: Activision

Good news for the folks at Spindle came today, as the provider of hyperlocal offers from businesses was acquired by Twitter. Described by the company as, “a tool for tuning into your surroundings,” the service pulls updates from Twitter and Facebook and categorizes offers around themes such as restaurants and shopping. Spindle also includes a social element, with the ability to share check-ins through Facebook and Twitter. The service is currently limited to 11 cities, which includes New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, but according to the company, “By joining forces with Twitter, we can do so much more to help you find interesting, timely, and useful information about what’s happening around you.” As sad news to current users of Spindle, however, the service will shut down effective today, as the team prepares for its transition to the Twitter team in San Francisco. At any rate, it looks like the folks at Lucky Sort won’t be the rookies of Twitter HQ anymore. For a peek at what Spindle entails, just hop the break.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile

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Via: All Things D

Source: Spindle

One of the more persistent acquisition rumors as of late has come true: Google just confirmed that it bought Waze. As many expected, the deal will see Waze largely operate independently of its new parent while supplying Google Maps with traffic update features. The stand-alone Waze app, meanwhile, will receive some of Google’s know-how in search. While the two sides haven’t discussed the much ballyhooed (and reportedly $1 billion-plus) purchase price, we suspect it was just large enough to snub Facebook.

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Tablets, Internet, Mobile, Google

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Source: Google Official Blog