Tag Archives: acquisitions

GoGo to buy Airfone to boost in-flight Wi-Fi

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Airfone has been around for decades as an in-flight telephone service provider and has passed through a long string of corporate ownership, including GTE Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. In 2008, Verizon sold Airfone to LiveTV. Now Gogo will acquire Airfone’s network infrastructure, as well as a 1 MHz spectrum license currently held by LiveTV. Gogo already has a 3 MHz license. The company’s network is air-to-ground, meaning it has cellular towers that beam signals to aircraft. The network covers the contiguous U.S. and portions of Alaska.

via GoGo to buy Airfone to boost in-flight Wi-Fi – chicagotribune.com.

Groupon Buys Ditto

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Groupon has acquired Ditto.me, a startup that has been offering a location-focused mobile app. Terms were not disclosed.

Ditto is a sort of combination check-in service, recommendation engine and chat app. “See what your friends are doing, when they’re looking for a friend to join them for coffee, what movie they’re going to see, and what their evening plans are,” the company explains on its website.

via Groupon Buys Ditto – Forbes.

Dell’s acquisition a Wyse one, analysts say

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Dell’s announcement on Monday that it had finalized an agreement to acquire thin client maker Wyse allows the company to fill a portfolio gap that had been exploited by competitors such as HP, according to industry experts.

via Dell’s acquisition a Wyse one, analysts say.

What’s more, given the positions of Wyse and HP as No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the thin client market, he says the move could put HP under considerable pressure.

ShoreTel Sends A Clear Message To The Competition

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Upon reporting Q2 financial results last week, ShoreTel (SHOR) may have momentary roused some in a sleepy industry. While its overall business performance in the quarter was largely in-line with expectations, it was the announcement of its planned acquisition of M5 Networks, a hosted, business phone service provider that would have caused the awakening. The announced acquisition marks the first, focused entrance into the fast growing but fragmented hosted telecom services business by a major PBX manufacture and may well set the stage for others to follow. In an industry that has long eschewed the hosted-voice platform the way a king might a peasant, the announcement is sure to bring about a polarizing discussion.

via Can You Hear Me Now? ShoreTel Sends A Clear Message To The Competition – Seeking Alpha.

M5 Networks Acquires Geckotech to Expand Hosted VOIP Reach

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Hosted VOIP provider M5 Networks announced on Nov. 3 that it has acquired Chicago-based Geckotech for $8 million.The combined companies will handle what company officials describe as the “exploding demand” for business-grade hosted VOIP services.

via M5 Networks Acquires Geckotech to Expand Hosted VOIP Reach – Enterprise Networking – News & Reviews – eWeek.com – eWeek Mobile.

Dated Nov. 3, 2010

With the poor economic climate and companies slashing IT budgets, demand has grown for hosted VOIP services. Organizations, whether they are large enterprises, midsized or small businesses, looked at hosted telephony to cut costs without giving up critical communications applications.

Geckotech offered customers a Cisco-powered hosted VOIP platform as well as additional services, including phone service installation, system management and in-house customer support. The company offered free maintenance, and unlimited system and feature upgrades.

Geckotech was evaluating ways to overhaul its technology to obtain an enhanced phone experience and robust applications “without the use of licensing arrangements,” said M5 Networks. Geckotech did not specify its reasons for not wanting to license the technology.

Geckotech selected M5 Networks’ Call Conductor platform and rolled it out to some existing customers, M5 Networks said. With the acquisition, the remaining Geckotech customers will be “seamlessly” integrated to M5 Networks’ systems throughout the next year, said M5 Networks.

Groupon scoops up Silicon Valley startup Adku

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Adku was founded in San Francisco a year and a half ago by a group of former Google employees. It specializes in using data to craft personalized shopping experiences on the Web and has financial backing from high-profile venture capital firms such as Greylock Partners and Battery Ventures. The latter firm is also an investor in Groupon.

via Groupon scoops up Silicon Valley startup Adku – chicagotribune.com.

From www.adku.com

Adku started a year and a half ago from our passion for big data and a desire to create products that would instantly and automatically give users a more personalized experience. We had ambitious goals and some of the most rewarding and busy days of our lives. We were also fortunate to assemble an amazing team of engineers and investors and create something special.  

Red Hat raids cloud storage market by acquiring Gluster

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Gluster, which was founded in 2005, has its R&D and engineering facility in Bangalore, India, while its leadership team resides in California. The company’s flagship technology is GlusterFS, which allows an enterprise to cluster large numbers of commodity storage and compute resources into a centrally accessible and managed and storage pool. It names Pandora, Box.net and Samsung among its customers.

via Red Hat raids cloud storage market by acquiring Gluster.