MobileCrunch |  |
- Investor Group Buys Mobile Broadband Solutions Company Tekelec For $780M
- Urban Airship Adds To Its SimpleGeo Acquisition With $15 Million From Verizon, Salesforce
- Ericsson Forecasts 5 Billion Mobile Broadband Subscribers, Data Traffic To Grow Tenfold, By 2016
| Investor Group Buys Mobile Broadband Solutions Company Tekelec For $780M Posted: 07 Nov 2011 03:11 AM PST  Tekelec, a publicly-listed mobile broadband solutions provider, is to be acquired by an investor group in a transaction valued at approximately $780m (or $11 per share) in cash. The investor consortium making the buy is led by PE firm Siris Capital Group and includes affiliates of The ComVest Group, funds and accounts managed by GSO Capital Partners Sankaty Advisors ZelnickMedia and other Siris LPs and affiliates. According to a press statement, the investor group has already secured the funding needed to complete the transaction, consisting of a combination of equity and debt financing. The deal is expected to close during the first quarter of 2012, pending shareholder approval, regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Tekelec’s management team is expected to remain in place, and Merle Gilmore, former President of Motorola’s Communications Enterprise, will serve as Tekelec’s Executive Chairman following the closing of the deal. In related news, Tekelec reported third-quarter earnings today: revenue for the quarter was $106.2 million, down 2 percent year-over-year. On a non-GAAP basis, the company reported net income for Q3 2011 of $13.1 million. To learn more about Tekelec, watch the video below:
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| Urban Airship Adds To Its SimpleGeo Acquisition With $15 Million From Verizon, Salesforce Posted: 07 Nov 2011 02:32 AM PST  Well, it’s been an interesting last few weeks for Urban Airship, the startup that aims to give developers a simple way to build in-app purchases and push notifications into their mobile apps. A week ago, Urban Airship acquired Matt Galligan and Joe Stump’s SimpleGeo (the news was broken by TechCrunch Founder Mike Arrington), and today the startup has announced that it raised $15 million in series C financing from new strategic investors Verizon and Salesforce.com. Existing investors True Ventures and Foundry Group also participated in the cash round, bringing Urban Airship’s total funding to $26.1 million. With the acquisition of SimpleGeo, Portland-based Urban Airship boosts its team to 51 and is now has a presence in the Bay Area. Not only that, but with SimpleGeo once being touted as the “Amazon Web Services” for location-based products, allowing developers to build location into their web and mobile apps and offering the infrastructure to back that up, Urban Airship can now round out its suite of offerings for mobile developers. SimpleGeo’s assets will allow Urban airship to give its customers, which include ESPN, LivingSocial, and Gowalla the ability to more easily target their users with push notifications, as knowing where they are when they’re using their mobile apps is a huge piece to the puzzle. Urban Airship is already facilitating over 1 billion notifications per month to users on 300 million devices, and the company has seen a huge boost thanks to the recent launch of Apple’s iOS 5, which has much-improved push notification functionality. With the launch of iOS 5, Urban Airship has seen calls to its API increase tenfold, according to CEO Scott Kveton. What’s more, the startup has seen its revenue increase 600 percent in 2011, as developers are building its tools and services into tens of thousands of mobile apps and using its back-end platform to power in-app communications with their customers. According to Arrington, while the the $15.1 million series C round Urban Airship raised today was all in cash, the acquisition of SimpleGeo came in the form of stock, as a part of the larger round of financing. As SimpleGeo CEO Jay Adelson told Arrington (Adelson is now an advisor to Urban Airship), while his company considered both selling the company and raising a new round of company, a merger seemed the best way to go. Clearly, SimpleGeo’s investors, and those on the management team at SimpleGeo were excited by Urban Airship’s prospects going forward. And in this case, considering their strengths, this move seems to make a great deal of sense, strategically. Urban Airship provides an easy, affordable way for mobile publishers and developers to deliver real-time push notifications and in-app purchase content to their app users on multiple platforms. Urban Airship provides a scalable infrastructure and easy-to-integrate tools that solve two main problems for app publishers: keeping their apps in use and earning recurring revenue from their apps. Push notifications keep uses engaged, enhance the app brand and connect with mobile devices, even when the app is not open. In-app purchase... SimpleGeo provides a ready-to-use location infrastructure that makes it easy to ad location-aware features to applications. The company was founded in 2009 by Matt Galligan and Joe Stump.
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| Ericsson Forecasts 5 Billion Mobile Broadband Subscribers, Data Traffic To Grow Tenfold, By 2016 Posted: 07 Nov 2011 01:26 AM PST  Ericsson, which provides technology and services to telecom operators around the globe, is forecasting a tenfold increase in mobile data traffic over the next five years, mainly driven by video. By 2016, Ericsson also predicts mobile broadband subscriptions to exceed 5 billion in its latest Traffic and Market Data report (PDF). The company earlier predicted that number to surpass 1 billion in 2011, but now forecasts 900 million subscribers by year’s end. According to the report, mobile data traffic will double this year, mainly due to surging sales of smartphones, tablets and other devices. Total smartphone traffic is expected to triple during 2011. Users living on less than 1 percent of the earth’s land area are expected to generate around 60 percent of mobile traffic by 2016, the company says. The report is based on measurements of mobile voice and data volumes, recorded by Ericsson in more than 180 countries over several years. Also see: The Past, Present And Future Of Connectivity: A Must-See Mini Film Ericsson is the world’s leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company’s portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices....
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