The new T-Mobile US board of directors will have 11 members, which will include two board members from MetroPCS. Tim Höttges, the CFO of Deutsche Telekom, will be the board’s chairman.

“The combination of T-Mobile and MetroPCS creates an even stronger disruptive force in the U.S. wireless market,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile US. “Together, as America’s ‘Un-carrier’, we’ll continue our legacy of marketplace innovation by tearing up the old playbook and rewriting the rules of wireless to benefit consumers.”

The newly rebranded carrier is still the fourth-largest carrier in the U.S. but now has 43 million subscribers, putting it closer to Sprint Nextel’s subscriber numbers. T-Mobile estimates that the companies’ combined 2012 financial results would have reflected $24.8 billion in revenue.

“By uniting T-Mobile and MetroPCS, we have created a dynamic new player in the wireless industry that has the right strategy and management team in place to compete successfully in today’s marketplace,” said Höttges. “We look forward to realizing the tremendous potential of the new T-Mobile.”

Today, Sprint announced that SoftBank has given the carrier a waiver that allows Sprint to continue its discussions with Dish. The waiver does away with some provisions of the merger agreement between Sprint and SoftBank. It will allow Sprint to enter non-disclosure agreements with Dish for further discussion of its merger proposal. Sprint is still not allowed to disclose non-public information to Dish, and the two companies cannot enter formal negotiations.

Last week, Sprint released its first quarter 2013 financial results. While the carrier’s net losses dropped from the fourth quarter of 2012, the carrier’s subscriber numbers also dropped by over 500,000 postpaid subscribers. Sprint is currently in the process of shutting down its Nextel platform, which is where many of the subscriber losses originated.

R.R. Donnelley’s services include printing labels and marketing tools, which will adapt EDGAR’s searchable, archived regulatory documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. EDGAR had been offerring its services to R.R. Donnelley since 2008, and the merger seemed likely, with the deal expected to close sometime in the third quarter. Though, regulators and EDGAR shareholders still need to review and approve the merger. Upon news of the acquisition, R.R. Donnelley $ Sons stock was down 14 cents at $10.28, and EDGAR stock was up to $1.07, or 35 cents.

Over the past couple of years, R.R. Donnelley acquired Bowne & Co., San Francisco-based Nimblefish Technologies, Helium.com, as well as Journalism Online. Since its inception, the Chicago-based company has steadily grown via a series of mergers and acquisitions, especially during the 1990′s.

“I was not surprised by that decision given what had happened prior to the time that the application was withdrawn,” said the Congressman.

He went on to explain that the merger would have brought an “improvement that we desperately need.” If you remember, one of the goals of the merger was to bring high-speed broadband connections to 97 percent of the U.S. in 6 years, which would have nearly fulfilled President Obama’s broadband plan. Since the deal fell threw, Congressman Boucher told us that, in order for the President’s goal to still be met, the government would have to step in with an investment.

“In this era of concern about deficit spending, finding those investments is going to be very difficult,” he said.

As for AT&T, Congressman Boucher told us that he thinks the company will still try to meet the goals it set with the merger in mind, but that it would take a lot longer than 6 years to fulfill them. Through T-Mobile, AT&T would have saved significantly in its effort to enable 4G, but now, it needs to come up with the monies on its own.

“My guess is AT&T, at this point, is going to focus on strengthening its network in its core areas building out its 4th generation technology on an incremental basis of market-by-market, as it is an opportunity for that investment to realize the highest rate of return,” the Congressman explains. “Instead of it happening within 6 years on a nationwide basis, undoubtedly without the merger having occurred, that may now take a somewhat longer period of time.”

Some reports have indicated that AT&T has been talking with several owners of 700 MHz licenses and is in the process of acquiring them as part of its backup plan in case the T-Mobile deal fell threw. This may very well be true since the company is in need of more spectrum.

The Congressman is also optimistic about T-Mobile saying it is in a “very strong position to be a viable competitor.” However, he did say that it would have challenges with deploying 4G.

“The challenge that T-Mobile faces is acquiring the capital that is necessary to deploy 4th generation technology across its network,” he pointed out.

While AT&T did have to pay T-Mobile $4 billion ($3 billion in cash and $1 billion in spectrum rights), the Congressman said that T-Mobile would still need considerably more financing. What’s more is that T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, had said, prior to the merger, that it wanted to exit the U.S. market and was not going to invest in it further. If this is still the case, T-Mobile could have a tough road ahead.

Since the future of T-Mobile is still in question, there have been some speculations about whether or not AT&T will make another attempt at buying the company. Congressman Boucher told us that, at this point, it seemed that the companies were headed in two different directions.

Sprint has also been mentioned as a potential buyer of T-Mobile, but the Congressman thinks such a merger would face the same scrutiny that the AT&T/T-Mobile did.

“I think it’s gonna be very difficult for any of the major carriers to purchase T-Mobile, given the position of the Department of Justice and the FCC,” he said.

Speaking of major carriers, he said it would be “impossible” for Verizon to make such a purchase. If a carrier were to purchase it, the Congressman thinks it would have to be smaller than T-Mobile.

Another possibility would be to sell T-Mobile in parts, which is not what Congressman Boucher considers to be a good decision.

“This is a world where business dominates,” he said. “I think Deutsche Telekom will make its decision very carefully based upon the relative value of the business offers that are made.”

In terms of the mobile industry as a whole, Congressman Boucher told us that the merger not going through was negative for mobile, consumers, and the economy.

“The long term impact is that we don’t get the deployment of 4th generation technology to 97 percent of the American public within the next half decade,” he said. “I think that’s the major negative impact.”

“Wireless technology was the answer,” he added. “We were going to bring broadband to the broadband have-nots – I’m not sure what the answer is now.”

What do you think the next steps will be not only for AT&T and T-Mobile, but also the mobile industry? Please share your thoughts.

Starting yesterday, Napster officially began merging with Rhapsody, the largest on-demand music service in the United States. Back in October, Best Buy, the parent company of Napster, agreed to sale to Rhapsody for an undisclosed amount of money.

“This deal will further extend Rhapsody’s lead over our competitors in the growing on-demand music market,” said Jon Irwin, president, Rhapsody. “There’s substantial value in bringing Napster’s subscribers and robust IP portfolio to Rhapsody as we execute on our strategy to expand our business via direct acquisition of members and distribution deals.”

Combining the subscriber bases of the two largest on-demand music services will allow Rhapsody to further enhance it’s offerings, and try their damnedest to stay ahead of Spotify (where Napster co-founder, Sean Parker, is a major investor). According to Adam Parness, the senior director of music licensing for Rhapsody, they’ve seen an increase in subscriptions for the service since Spotify came state side. “We have seen tremendous growth since spotify came onto U.S. soil,” he said. “It validates our model.”

It’s unclear how many subscribers Rhapsody gained, seeing how the merger is now complete.

What are some of your memories of Napster? Will it be remembered fondly? Let us know your thoughts in the comment area below.

The Times Online is reporting Yahoo’s efforts to partner-up with Time Warner and possibly merge with the media company’s AOL unit–a deal worth as much as $10 billion! However, the clock is ticking…

Jerry Yang, co-founder and chief executive of Yahoo! is threatened on two fronts in the short term.

The first is a hostile break-up approach from Microsoft and the second is a boardroom coup by Carl Icahn, Yahoo!’s major shareholder.

Mr Icahn, the billionaire activist investor, has already nominated himself and other executives to replace the existing Yahoo! board.

He is angry that shareholders were not given the opportunity to vote on a $47.5 billion cash and shares offer from Microsoft in May, and wants investors to vote to remove the board when they meet [on August 1st].

In case you missed last week’s news, you may not realize just how complex the situation has become. You see, Microsoft is also in talks with Time Warner–talks that would see the two companies joining forces to buy and dismantle Yahoo.

Is it just me, or does this seem like an act of desperation on both sides. With Microsoft and Yahoo, both seeking the same sugar daddy, the whole situation is in fear of becoming a soap opera. Oh wait, it already is!

Comments

I’ve stayed out of the Microsoft attempted merger of Yahoo so far. But EVERYONE seems to be talking about it from all sorts of angles.

Me? I take the user’s point of view and that’s one I haven’t seen discussed much yet.

Will Yahoo moving to Microsoft be a good thing for users? Let’s take a tour.

Yahoo Messenger users and MSN Messenger users. Wash to bad things for Yahoo’s messenger. They already work together and I doubt that having two huge teams with two huge user bases of hundreds of millions of people trying to work together will bring much new. At worst case the Yahoo team will leave and so Yahoo’s Messenger will stop seeing new features.

Yahoo Mail and Hotmail users. Wash to bad things for Yahoo’s Mail. Same as with the messenger side of things. Eventually I can see Yahoo’s Mail get frozen and so bugs and things won’t get fixed on Yahoo’s side and I can see pressure (advertising, etc) to pull people off of Yahoo and put them on Hotmail or whatever they are calling it now (Microsoft Windows Live Mail).

Flickr. The users of Flickr are very scared of what a Microsoft purchase might mean. But here Microsoft has no significant player, so they’ll probably try to keep the development team intact. Plus, there are a lot of smart people at Microsoft who are into photography (Ansel Adams’ son Michael was at Microsoft Researcher Curtis Wong’s wedding, for instance) So, good things could happen here for Flickr’s users.

Delicious? No real Microsoft competitor and tons of Microsofties love Delicious, so good things ahead, just like Flickr.

Yahoo Maps and Live Maps? I like Microsoft’s Maps better, but there’s some tricks that Yahoo does better. So, if these teams get along we’d probably see an improved version of both services, although I doubt they’d remain separate code bases.

Yahoo Search and Microsoft Live Search? Microsoft is already gaining on relevancy, so that tells me there are still a few smart people at Microsoft working on search. They just don’t have a brand name worth s**t. So, Yahoo’s brand name on top of Microsoft’s search will help Microsoft out a lot. I doubt that we’ll see a Google killer out of the joining of these two companies, though. The sales teams will be joined and will prove profitable for Microsoft. For users, though? I doubt we’ll see anything for years in terms of dramatically better search.

Developer tools and such? Microsoft isn’t threatened by anything Yahoo is doing, although the Pipes and Fire Eagle and other Yahoo teams will probably love working at Microsoft. For users? Join those tools into Ray Ozzie’s new Mesh and we could see some cool new stuff.

Portals? Yahoo’s has more users, more respect, and more features. I don’t see anything major for users either way there.

Finance and Personals sites? I doubt users will see much change there.

So, for users, there’s some negatives, and some positives.

How do you see the Yahoo/Microsoft merger affecting users?

As to Microsoft employee morale? That’ll end up a positive in this deal. After all, Microsoft employees will see their stock go up, not down. That drives morale more than anything.

For board members? Marc Andreessen covers that.

Comments

Upon review of the testimony by David Drummond of Google, and Brad Smith of Microsoft, Google thinks its proposed purchase of DoubleClick represents a routine business development, one that isn’t worthy of all the kerfuffle raised by privacy advocates and antitrust regulators.

Microsoft sees it as an anti-competitive move that would be akin to arming polar bears with invisibility cloaks and Desert Eagle .50AE handguns. Competitors, and normal people with privacy concerns, would be the equivalent of newborns left out on the frozen tundra.

"If Google is allowed to proceed with this merger, it will also obtain a dominant gateway position over the other main type of online advertising – non-search ads. Today Google and DoubleClick are the two largest competitors in this area. Combined, Google will account for nearly 80 percent of all spending on non-search ads," Smith said in his remarks about the merger during the hearing.

"We are confident – and numerous independent analysts have agreed – that our purchase of DoubleClick does not raise antitrust issues because of one simple fact: Google and DoubleClick are complementary businesses, and do not compete with each other. DoubleClick does not buy ads, sell ads, or buy or sell advertising space," Drummond remarked in his merger testimony.

As an AP report from the hearing noted, the Senators in attendance cannot block Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick. They can make their views known to antitrust regulators, who do have the power to do so.

Subcommittee chair Senator Herb Kohl thinks the deal "warrants close examination" and wondered if "advertisers and Internet publishers (will) have no choice but to deal with Google, giving Google a stranglehold over Internet advertising and the power to raise ad rates."

A study on the Google-DoubleClick deal released only hours ahead of the hearing suggested Google would be able to effectively raise DoubleClick prices, as DoubleClick advertisers view Google as the next best thing to participating in DoubleClick’s programs.

Study: Google Would Raise DoubleClick Prices

A Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the Google and DoubleClick merger takes place later today. SSRN fanned the flames of antitrust controversy by publishing its study ahead of the hearing.

Robert W. Hahn, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, and Hal Singer, Criterion Economics, found the arguments in favor of the merger don’t hold up under scrutiny. One part of their paper considered the impact of all the consumer behavior data Google would receive from DoubleClick in the acquisition (spacing added for clarity):

If consumer data generates increasing returns to scale, as some academics have asserted, Google would extend their lead in search ads and possibly also their new position in graphic ads.

Google

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/study-google-would-raise-doubleclick-prices-2007-09/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/google-doubleclick-deal-cast-as-net-neutrality-fight-2007-07 http://www.webpronews.com/google-doubleclick-deal-cast-as-net-neutrality-fight-2007-07#comments Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:53:01 +0000 WebProNews Staff http://www.webpronews.com/?p=39203 Sparks fly as Scott Cleland, president of Precursor Group and chairman of anti-net neutrality organization Netcompetition.org, receives the criticism he fully expected in assessing the likelihood of the Google offer for DoubleClick being blocked.

]]> Sparks fly as Scott Cleland, president of Precursor Group and chairman of anti-net neutrality organization Netcompetition.org, receives the criticism he fully expected in assessing the likelihood of the Google offer for DoubleClick being blocked.

Google, DoubleClick Cast As Net Neutrality Fight

Cleland’s assessment of the merger, freely available from his Googleopoly website, contends the Federal Trade Commission likely has enough reasons to block Google’s DoubleClick purchase.

Citing his experience criticizing a proposed Worldcom/Sprint merger, Cleland said he expected pushback from those in favor of a deal that in his analysis won’t pass an evidence-driven antitrust test.

To illustrate, Cleland showed what a potential Google/DoubleClick rival would need to own in order to compete effectively:

To equal Google-DoubleClick’s level of market concentration in the intermediary online advertising market, one single financial services company would have to own:

•  The top 15 Wall Street banks/asset managers;

•  ~60% of the hedge fund and private equity industries;

•  The New York and London Stock Exchanges;

•  The two leading providers of financial analytical tools: Bloomberg and Factset;

•  Two of the three national providers of credit profiles: Experian and Equifax; and

•  ~60% of the Federal Reserve’s and U.S. Census Bureau’s raw market and consumer data.

The overall impact of the deal lessens competition in the online advertising market, Cleland said in the white paper. His position found little favor with the Computer and Communications Industry Association, whose CEO, Ed Black, penned a press release slamming the Googleopoly report.

Black and CCIA painted Cleland’s analysis as coming from "a coalition of incumbent telecom and cable companies that want to smear Google and its vigorous support for neutral broadband access."

CCIA’s comparison of the Google review by the FTC to past antitrust cases involving IBM, AT&T, and Microsoft differs from the DoubleClick deal, Cleland said in response. "The flaw in their logic is that IBM, AT&T and Microsoft were not merger review cases like Google-DoubleClick," he said.

All three of those companies were attacked for their established monopolies, as those who have followed the tech industry will recall. Google isn’t being hauled before the FTC on those grounds, but the potential for the DoubleClick merger to put the search company into a monopoly position.

Google is on the path to becoming an "enduring monopoly" today, Cleland said in his report. No startup can possibly match the resources required to compete. Google’s closest competitors, Yahoo and Microsoft, can’t offer the same return to a third-party website when it comes to making a search and advertising deal:

Why this matters is that Google’s economics (and market power) directly derive from its overwhelming relative audience size. When Google/Yahoo/Microsoft approach a third party content provider to be the wholesale provider of search and ad-serving services for a high traffic website, they bid on how much revenue they will provide to the third party.

Because Google has 2-3 times the size audience as Yahoo it can afford to bid a dollar amount 2-3 times more than Yahoo can.

Because Google has 5-6 times the size audience as Microsoft, it can afford to bid 5-6 times higher than Microsoft to win that third-party search/ad-serving business.

It’s going to be easy for net neutrality proponents to dismiss Cleland’s message because he is the messenger. But the report merits reading by anyone with an interest in the online advertising market.

His assessment of Yahoo’s failures to make inroads against Google in search – Yahoo is a retailer of content, Google is a wholesaler of technology – said Yahoo’s Panama search ad system will continue to disappoint the marketplace.

Evidence of that came from Yahoo, where profits dropped despite revenue rising. In Cleland’s analysis, Panama’s struggles will be "an excellent case study for antitrust authorities" in weighing the Google/DoubleClick merger.

Indirectly, Yahoo could have a bigger impact on Google in antitrust than it does in search advertising, simply by operating normally. Antitrust considerations just aren’t a net neutrality fight.

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