After having already acquired Napster here in the US, Rhapsody has taken its expansion one step further, with the acquisition of Napster International. Under the deal, announced today, Rhapsody will continue to offer Napster-branded services across the UK and Germany, as promised, and will eventually migrate Napster subscribers to its own infrastructure in March, with [...]

It’s been three years and two days since Verizon officially closed its acquisition of Alltel, and it looks like Big Red’s finally putting the sledgehammer down on activating legacy devices from the purchased network… Tweet This Post

@WalmartLabs, the retailer’s digital technology division, has acquired Portland-based mobile agency Small Society. The company helped businesses create, develop and launch iOS applications, and has served a number of high-profile clients, including DoubleTree, Starbucks (the original app), Amazon (the Amazon Deals app),  Whole Foods, the Democratic National Convention, WordPress, ZipCar and others… Tweet This Post

It’s not quite as big as some previous patent transactions between the two companies, but it looks like Google did a fair bit more shopping from IBM’s vast portfolio at the tail-end of 2011. As noted by the SEO by the Sea blog, IBM transferred 188 granted patents and 28 published patent applications to Google [...]

Amazon has bought Quorus, a shopping startup focusing on bringing social interactions and conversations into e-commerce. The deal seems to have been completed last month, November 2011. The acquisition, which may be a talent grab, brings Quorus co-founders Michael Dougherty (pictured) and Sameer Rayachoti into the Amazon fold… Tweet This Post

Christmas has come early to the execs at AT&T, who are likely celebrating the FCC’s 3-1 approval to purchase Qualcomm’s block of the 700MHz spectrum for $1.9 billion. The news comes as a bittersweet victory for Ma Bell, whose efforts to acquire T-Mobile turned sour earlier this year… Tweet This Post

Today, SetJam, a company that describes itself as “building the future of TV,” has announced it has been acquired by Motorola Mobility. The company’s products currently include a customizable TV and movie widgets designed for embedding on websites, plus developer-friendly tools like a REST API and XML download of the SetJam database… Tweet This Post

Apparently, if you can’t (legally) beat them, you buy them. Such is the thinking over at Nuance, who has decided to acquire its competitor and former courtroom dance partner, Vlingo. Should make for some nice additions to the former’s voice recognition tubes — technology which powers everything from Apple’s Siri, Dragon dictation and even various [...]

The rumor mill has been churning on this one for the last few days, but it’s now as official as it’s ever apt to get: Apple has decided to splash out the $500 million to buy Israeli flash-chip outfit Anobit… Tweet This Post

Tomorrow’s headlines: local florist and rural farmer consider purchase of RIM, or at least the “In Motion” part. Hot on the heels of a report suggesting that Amazon was at least considering a purchase of Canada’s famed BlackBerry maker, in flies a separate report suggesting… Tweet This Post

It’s never nice to beat a dead horse when it’s down and the same seems to be true for the litigious mudslinging Ma Bell’s had to endure. Now that the nation’s second largest carrier has been granted a stay in its pending and publicly messy T-Mobile acquisition, vocal opponents like Sprint and C Spire are [...]

Topguest, a San Francisco-based startup focused on loyalty programs and travel, has been acquired by ezRez Software, Inc. As exits go, this one was pretty speedy: The startup was giving sneak peeks of its still-in-beta software just 18 months ago… Tweet This Post