Acquisitions

With its resources being restricted and possibly running low, it was really only a matter of time before Huawei took drastic measures to keep itself afloat. "Drastic measures" often imply layoffs, divestment, and sales, none of which look good no matter which way you look at it. Huawei is, of course, trying to point it in a positive light but it remains to be seen if Honor will survive this acquisition by a new Chinese company representing Honor's own agents and dealers.

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Huawei seems to be in dire straits, enough to need to sell off parts of its business to refocus its resources. While it isn't bowing out of the smartphone business completely, sources claim that it is looking into selling a large part of its Honor smartphone business. While this might not be a shocking move, it could still end up as bad news for both Honor as well as Huawei, especially in the midst of the uncertainty of the company's future.

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It just recently made a major step in unifying its messaging systems but Facebook might soon be facing pressure to break it up again. It is no secret that the US government wants to break up Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp due to the parent company's influence in social as well as political spheres and Facebook's numerous missteps in those same areas. Of course, Facebook won't be taking it sitting down and the bottom line of its defense might boil down to "it's too hard".

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News about business acquisitions often makes it sound like things are over once the ink has dried. Reality is, however, far more complicated, especially when a company from one continent is acquiring a company from another continent with different laws and concerns. That is the situation that Google has found itself in when it announced it would acquiring Fitbit last year, a deal that has yet to be closed, presuming the EU gives its approval before 2020 is over.

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Putting all speculation to rest, NVIDIA has finally announced that it is making an official bid to acquire Arm Limited from SoftBank. While the final say will be with regulators, this would mean that NVIDIA could soon be the owner of the intellectual property that pretty much powers the world's smartphones, cars, and many embedded devices. That does raise concerns about NVIDIA's hold on such IP and the computer graphics tech giant promises it will be business as usual as far as that licensing business goes.

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That the US government under President Trump wants to ban TikTok in the country is no surprise. That it wants TikTok to sell to a US company in order to escape that ban, a deal that includes giving the US Treasury some percentage, is not a shocker either. What was rather unexpected was that Microsoft is apparently so interested in buying up the popular short-video social network that CEO Satya Nadella personally talked with government officials about it. It turns out, Twitter is another prospective buyer and it might actually be a better fit for a TikTok owner. Presuming, of course, it could even buy it.

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Netflix is on the verge of acquiring a new movie from Disney's 20th Century Studios, a report claims, a transaction that would see the thriller debut on Netflix's own platform. Called The Woman in the Window, the movie directed by Joe Wright stars Amy Adams -- and it is, sadly, the last book adaptation from the Fox 2000 division Disney shut down after acquiring Fox.

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Dish, the company is best known for its satellite television service, has announced the acquisition of Ting Mobile, a prepaid carrier that offers a unique pay-per-usage subscription model. Tucows, the previous owner of Ting Mobile, is onboard to serve as Dish's technology partner for its own retail wireless business. What does this mean for existing Ting Mobile customers? Read on to find out.

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It's a bit strange to hear that Arm, whose chip designs and computer instruction set architecture or ISA has been quickly overtaking the computing world, might soon be sold off despite its growing popularity and ubiquity. That is exactly the case, however, for the England-based company who just four years ago was acquired by Japanese conglomerate Softbank. The latter has reportedly been in talks with many potential buyers, including Apple, but one name keeps rising to the top. NVIDIA, however, may be facing an uphill battle if it does make a formal bid for Arm Technologies.

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Just like Google, Microsoft hasn't had any real success with building a social networking network. In fact, it barely even tried beyond the brief research experiment So.cl and the acquisition of an employment-centric LinkedIn. If it weren't for all the focus that TikTok came under due to threats of a US ban, Microsoft's intention of purchasing a large part of the popular video-based network would have never come to light until the deal was sealed. Curiously, Redmond seems really bent on pushing through with those plans to the point of publicly talking about it in the face of US President Trump's threats.

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It has been more than half a year since Google announced its plans to acquire popular wearable brand Fitbit but that deal may be in danger of falling through. That is if privacy advocates have their way and convince the European Commission of the risks that this deal would entail. Although it may not have been legally or technically required to do, Google is pledging to exclude Fitbit data from any advertising purpose in order to get on the Commission's good graces.

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SiriusXM has announced yet another audio-related acquisition, this one involving popular podcasting app Stitcher. As with PocketCasts, Google Podcasts, and many other apps, Stitcher is a popular platform for finding and downloading podcasts...something SiriusXM has heavily set its focus on. The news of its Stitcher acquisition comes only days after the company revealed that it has acquired podcast analytics company Simplecast.

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