Sprint Preparing To Bid On T-Mobile USA

Sprint is working toward a possible bid for rival T-Mobile US people familiar with the matter said, setting the stage for a giant telecom merger that if permitted by regulators would leave the U.S. wireless market dominated by three big companies.

Sprint is studying regulatory concerns and could launch a bid in the first half of next year, the people said. A deal could be worth more than $20 billion, depending on the size of any stake in T-Mobile that Sprint tries to buy.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Verizon Wireless And Vodafone Discuss $100 Billion Plus Buyout

Vodafone owns a 45% stake in Verizon Wireless. This is a fact that rankles Verizon constantly. Verizon has tried a number of times to work out a deal to buy out Vodafone, but it hasn't been able to make the deal yet. According to the Wall Street Journal, Verizon and Vodafone have started up talks again to try to arrange a buyout.

The talks between the two sides had said to have fallen off recently, but apparently have gotten very serious. The report says that Verizon is looking to buy out Vodafone for "well over $100 billion"; word has it that the talks have gotten serious enough that Verizon has even been talking to multiple banks about the loans for around $50 billion it would need in order to complete the deal.

Earlier this year, the two sides were quite far apart with Verizon said to be pushing for a deal closer to $100 billion, while Vodafone was asking for something around $130 billion.


Source: WSJ

RIM Puts SMS 2.0 And BBM On Hold

Many of us rely on BBM to perform our daily tasks. From teenagers to security professionals, RIM’s very famous messaging client has been a very important way of communicating with others. But as RIM’s stock went down a while back with the 3 day outage, some of its users moved to other platforms and so the number of BBM users decreased. Some worry that the popularity of the popular messaging tool will fade away.

For a while now we’ve been hearing rumors about BBM possibly coming to other platforms, we even reported on some leaked screenshots of BBM supposedly running on Android. The project was unofficially called by RIM as “SMS 2.0″. WSJ says:

"Executives came up with a specific BBM strategy that aimed to open up RIM’s proprietary network to other smartphone markers and carriers and license BBM as a service that could be used on a wide variety of devices including iPhones and Android phones, according to these people. The project was unofficially called “SMS 2.0″ within the company, these people said."

While some people within the company said this could be a good idea that would drive more users into BlackBerry and help make the company stay relevant, others thought this might encourage BlackBerry users to move on to another platform. There haven’t been more news on this project since.

We do know that BlackBerry Messenger is still part of their plans since they have already said BBM will be in the upcoming BB10 platform, and the new BlackBerry Curve 9320 and 9220 have their own BBM dedicated key, but we don’t know what RIM holds for BBM’s future. What would you like to see next in BBM?

Let us know in the comments below!

LightSquared Preparing For Bankruptcy Protection Filing Tomorrow

Seemingly destined-to-fail LightSquared just might be out of options. After getting a high-five from Sprint and plenty of attention for its initiatives in bringing yet another wireless option to America, those blasted GPS interference issues or "supposed" issues, depending on who you ask eventually became too much to overcome. According to a breaking report out of The Wall Street Journal, Philip Falcone's venture is seriously teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, as "negotiations with lenders to avoid a potential default faltered," according to the ever-present "people familiar with the matter." Purportedly, the two sides have until 5PM tomorrow to strike a deal that'll keep the firm out of bankruptcy court (if you'll recall, it owes over $1.6 billion dollars to various entities), but given just how far apart these sides remain, its fate seems all but sealed. We'll be keeping an ear to the ground for more, but don't go placing bets on yet another debt-term violation waiver.

Google Considering Selling Motorola Handset Division To Huawei

It has been better part of a year since Google announced its intent to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.  While we're still waiting for various governmental departments to officially approve the purchase, rumors have circulated as to what Google plans to do with the division.  Did Google pick them up just to rope in a ton of patents and protection?  Will they continue to let Motorola operate as a separate entity?  Would they consider selling off to another hardware maker in the end?  The answers to these questions are a little bit of 'yes'on all fronts.

Dennis Berman of the Wall Street Journal recently spent a few weeks working with people inside both Google and Motorola camps trying to figure out what's going to happen in the end.  He finds that Google definitely has their work cut out for themselves as they walk the fine line with partners in the Android space.  Leaning too far in one direction could alienate other hardware makers.