In what looks to be shaping up to be another healthy week for M&A activity, Sprint Nextel is putting more of its focus on the prepaid cell phone service market with a $483 million deal to buy outVirgin Mobile USA.
The acquisition, which was announced earlier this morning, calls for Sprint to pay $5.50 in stock for each Virgin Mobile share, a 31 percent premium to the MVNO’s closing share price Monday of $4.21. The deal is expected to receive approval either in the fall or in early 2010.
Sprint Nextel actually already owned 13.1 percent of Virgin Mobile, which uses the carrier’s network to offer service to some 5.2 million subscribers. The deal cancels out Virgin’s $248 million in outstanding debts and will unite Sprint’s Boost service and Virgin Mobile under the same roof. Sprint says it would keep the Virgin Mobile brand and let Virgin Mobile USA’s CEO Dan Schulman, run Sprint’s entire prepaid business if and when the deal closes late this year or early next.
Sprint and Virgin Mobile sitting in a tree, m-e-r-g-i-n-g. Well, not merging per se. More like Sprint is acquiring Virgin Mobile. Seems as though this whole “pre-paid, no contract” thing is a hit and Sprint, looking to gain some ground in the mobile arms race, wants in on the action.
It may be that we’re entering an era of lozenge-shaped phones with little to distinguish them from one another, but that doesn’t mean phone makers shouldn’t even try. Honestly, if your phone looks and acts like every other phone and its specs are for the most part the same, why did you put it out?
Philips’ V808 is their first Android-based smartphone, so I guess you can’t blame them for sticking to the basics.
Alright, so Samsung wasn’t exactly the first kid on the block to break the mobile gigahertz barrier, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort. It looks like they’re ready to put that behind them, as they and partner Intrinsity have unveiled their first foray into the realm of high performance mobility: the 1 GHz Hummingbird processor.
The Hummingbird itself is based on ARM’s Cortex A8 processor, but what sets it self apart from other A8 processors are modifcations Samsung and Intrinsity’s crew have made to the Cortex arcitecture that allow it to run at such a high clock speed even at low voltage. According to Samsung, the Hummingbird also sports “32KB each of data and instruction caches, an L2 cache, the size of which can be customized, and an ARM® NEON™ multi-media extension.” Read More
As expected, T-Mobile has announced the BlackBerry 8520. The latest BlackBerry Curve features an optical trackpad and not much else that the Curve 8900 already offers T-Mobile customers. I guess the media dedicated keys are cool and it’s certainly a first for the Waterloo-based telecoms granddad. Here’s what else you get for $130: a 2-megapixel camera, 256MB of RAM, 512Mhz processor, BT 2.0, Wi-Fi, and a 1GB microSD card (that’s it?!). BlackBerry Media Sync, which enables iTunes syncing sounds promising, but it still runs on EDGE. *sigh* I guess I’m really done with the BlackBerry on T-Mobile. Viva la Android!
So yesterday we saw the new Android version, Donut, get released to developers. Lots of sweetness inside, as we detailed then, but there are just a couple corrections to be observed. It’s not Android 2.0 — the version numbers aren’t just going to jump up like that. I suspect Google is working on having the whole idea of version numbers be secondary to the pastry names. So Donut it is, and no more.
Secondly, multitouch is still not implemented. While you can hack it in, as we’ve seen in the past, there are hardware limitations and just throwing it out there might break some apps. However, Donut has some “kernel commitments” in it, meaning that it will be made integral to the OS at some point. Just don’t expect any miracles when they roll out Donut for real.
Keep an eye on Cyanogen’s Twitter, it’s been our best source for Donut news.
The internet is all aflutter with stories rolling in concerning the Palm Pre being sold for $99 with a two-year contract at neighborhood Best Buy locations. Although the Pre is nowhere to be found on Best Buy’s website, here’s an in-store photo from PreCentral.net for your enjoyment.
Not a bad deal at all, considering the $99 price is out the door — no rebates or anything like that.
Looks like you’ll have to actually get in the car and go to the store if you want to get in on this deal, though, but maybe grab the wife and kids and make a day of it!
Update – False alarm, everyone. John Bernier is saying via Best Buy’s Twitter help line – Twelp Force – that the price is still $199. Now, you still might be able to get the deal if your local Best Buy hasn’t had the price changed or is feeling rather gracious. YMMV.
This weekend just turned into an early Christmas for Android hackers everywhere. Google just dropped an early alpha version of the upcoming major Android update, “Donut”, into the code repository. User Cyanogen of xda-developers was the first to notice the new code lingering, and is already hard at work getting it up and running currently available hardware.
Just from playing with it in the emulator, a number of new features have been uncovered:
Speaking at Brainstorm: Tech, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse explicitly stated that Sprint would carry at least one Android device by the end of the year. As to why Sprint has taken this long to pick up an Android device, he said that it wasn’t quite ready for prime time. But now that the second version of the OS is out, Hesse says it’s ready.
Wait. What? Second version? What the hell is Ina Fried talking about? Is she referring to Donut? Is she talking about the myTouch 3G and/or the Hero? Did Hesse actually say “second version”?
As for Android, Hesse said his company is a big supporter of the operating system, but is glad the company waited until the second version of the Google-backed operating system.
As we’ve reported, Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones last quarter. Yeah, Cupertino sure doesn’t seem to think much of the recession. Oh, and to top it off, they sold 10.2 million iPods. Assuming at least some of those were iPod touches, there are at least 6 million new iDevices in consumer’s hands. In fact, CNNMoney.com estimates that there are now 45 million App Store-capable devices on the market. No wonder, day after day, we see new developers creating iPhone apps, and old ones decide to dedicate more resources to the charge. This week, in our weekly App Roundup we continue to explore the depths of the App Store and try to help you separate the good apps from the bad.
Motorola really wants you to develop for Android handsets. More specifically, they really want you to develop for Motorola-made Android handsets. That’s why they’ve launched MOTODEV, an Android development resource for crackin’ out apps purposed for Motorola handsets.
It’s a two-part initiative, one seemingly a bit more exclusive than the other. If you can get into Motorola’s “App Accelerator Program”, they’ll set you up with early access to the tools and specs, pre-release handsets (for testing purposes), direct private access to Motorola’s Android crew, and some level of assistance in marketing your app. You’ll presumably have to prove you’re up to snuff – and, unless Moto is feelin’ lucky, sign an NDA.
We’ve gotta admit it: we’re pretty dang excited about Nvidia’s Tegra chipset. 720p video pumped out of our handsets? Yes please. Gorgeous graphics on the go? Hardware accelerated Flash? Android support? Yes, yes, and yes. All of this, and the battery requirements are better than what’s in most phones? Oh, hells yes. If Nvidia manages to meet all their promises, mobile handsets are about to get straight ridiculous.
Of course, the best chipset in the world is nothing without handsets built around it. When we interviewed Nvidia last month, they confirmed that a Tegra phone was on the way by the fourth quarter of 2009. While they did offer up a possible price point ($199), they wouldn’t shine any light on who might be making it. Fortunately, someone else has spoken up.
Earlier today, a Samsung representative confirmed to LAPTOP Magazine that the company was cracking away at a Tegra device. While no one can say for sure that Samsung will be the hands behind the aforementioned $200 Tegra phone, it’s a pretty safe bet. Samsung pushes out an estimated 78 billion different handset models each year – if anyone can work with a new chipset on the cheap, it’s them.
In the weeks after that big ol’ T-Mobile launch list leaked back in April, details and photos emerged of just about every handset mentioned. One, however managed to stay off the radar: the Samsung T659, otherwise known as “Scarlet”. Of course, we’re talking about Samsung here, and Samsung phones just don’t get announced without leaking first, and the Scarlet is no exception.
CellPhoneSignal has unearthed a pair of pictures of this seemingly blasé bit of kit. It’s about as smart as dumpphones get, but don’t expect much outside of the basics (3G, 2MP Camera, microSD, and Bluetooth with EDR).
I’m beginning to think that this game won’t ever come out. I mean, it’s been more than a year since it was first announced. Anyhoots, here are the latest screenshots and trailer for the upcoming iPhone game from Marc Ecko Entertainment. It’s slated for a late summer release with three additional episodes to follow shortly after. Oh, and there’s an official Dexter iPhone case coming from Speck, too. Read More
Two dollars is a princely sum in Kenya. But that’s what people there have to pay to charge their mobile phone at a charging station—sometimes just an old car battery on the side of the road. So, in yet another example of technology actually improving people’s lives (rather than just giving hipsters an opportunity to bump into other hipsters), two students have developed a bicycle-mounted charger. The idea, obviously, is that, as you peddle the bicycle around, your mobile phone’s battery charges.
Here’s a nifty new app from comiXology for all the comic book geeks to try out on their iPhone. The aptly named Comics app is a digital comic book shop, library and reader for your iPhone and iPod Touch. The following publishers along with Robert Kirkman are onboard: Read More
Nokia didn’t actually buy the whole company, only “certain assets” and the team, which is usually code for a fire sale. Cellity had a Series A round of funding in 2007, led by Mangrove Capital Partners.
Do you remember where you were back on January 30th of 2008? CrunchGear was at a Garmin event in New York City watching the GPS company announce its very own smartphone. Fast forward to today, and the device is finally about to ship. Two devices, actually — the Linux-based nuvifone G60 and the nuvifone M20, which runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional.
In what looks to be shaping up to be another healthy week for M&A activity, Sprint Nextel is putting more of its focus on the prepaid cell phone service market with a $483 million deal to buy out Virgin Mobile USA. 
So yesterday we saw the new Android version, Donut, 
The internet is all aflutter with stories rolling in concerning the Palm Pre being sold for $99 with a two-year contract at neighborhood Best Buy locations. Although the Pre is nowhere to be found on Best Buy’s website, here’s an in-store photo from PreCentral.net for your enjoyment.
