Verizon Wireless gets its Alltel love

Verizon Wireless announced today that it will buy all of Alltel’s assets for an aggregate value of $28.1 billion. At the time of the agreement the bulk of that amount — $22.2 billion — will pay off Alltel debit and the remaining $5.9 billion is the value of Alltel’s equity.

Verizon Wireless said in a press release that it expects the deal to be completed by the end of 2008, but it points out that the deal is subject to regulatory approvals. Alltel and Verizon’s networks operate on common network technology making the transfer of Alltel customers to Verizon networks seamless.

Verizon points out that the purchase of Alltel will give it access to 57 new and primarily rural markets that Verizon Wireless doesn’t currently serve. Alltel currently has more than 13 million customers in markets across 34 states.

Verizon CEO and board chairman Ivan Seidenberg said in a statement, “This is a perfect fit, with Alltel’s high-value post-paid customer base, its solid financials, our common network technology, and significant, readily attainable synergies. Verizon Wireless’ acquisition of Alltel clearly provides opportunities for enhanced value for Verizon shareholders.”

Verizon Wireless says that the acquisition will offer Alltel customers a much larger IN Network calling community and will allow Alltel customers access to a downloadable library of 3 million songs. Alltel customers will also get Verizon Wireless consumer policies like Test Drive and Worry Free Guarantee.

Verizon and Alltel aren’t the first big names to merge in the cellular services market. AT&T and Cingular merged in a deal costing AT&T $86 billion in 2007.

Dell and MSI talk of their upcoming mini-notes

ASUS may have created the low-cost, mini-note category with its Eee PC 701 4G, but more and more companies are looking to jump in with their own entries. Over the past week, Dell confirmed the existence of its “Inspiron Mini” and MSI officially announced the Wind which will be available June 16.

Dell recently gave some in the media a chance to look at a pre-production Inspiron Mini that was decked out with a glossy black lid instead of the glossy red lid featured in the original press photos. The pre-production unit also had some minor difference in the keyboard lettering and Function modifiers.

Speaking of the keyboard, Dell Consumer Group Senior VP Alex Gruzen went on to discuss the missing feature that had many potential customers up in arms when the firsts images were revealed online: the lack of a top row of Function keys.

“This was a trade off so the rest of the keys could be bigger,” said Gruzen. “The reason we were later to the market is we’ve been working on getting the right keyboard.”

The keypad design accommodates as best as possible the best user experience for this class of products.”

Maybe Dell knows something that the rest of us don’t, but the lack of a top row of function keys could be a deal-breaker for some people in what looks to be an otherwise attractive machine. In its current iteration, the Function keys are eliminated due to the intrusion of the battery.

In other mini-note news, MSI is already talking about the next generation Wind. The current model, which was officially announced earlier this week, has seen rave reviews from around the web.

The 10″ notebook is already quite small, weighing only 2.2 pounds in its base configuration. MSI is not content, however, and wants to launch a thinner, lighter version during the first quarter of 2009. The new version would be targeted at business customers and will use the same processor/chipset as the current Wind.

MSI is also looking at yet another variant that would be even smaller and more in line with Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). The device is expected to have a screen of 7″ or smaller along with a slide-out keyboard.

Concerned over privacy incursions, citizens strike back

Fed up Germans took to the streets last Saturday (English), speaking out against the German government’s data retention policies at protests and rallies in over 30 different cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, and Hamburg.

The protest, the first in 2008 in a growing series of “Freedom Not Fear” rallies, reflects a rising pro-privacy and anti-surveillance sentiment stretching across Europe as citizens realize the extent of government monitoring in their personal lives. The rallies’ organizer, Stoppt Die Vorratsdatenspeicherung (German Working Group on Data Retention), says it is specifically targeting recent German legislation, passed January 2008, that allows government officials to store and recall detailed information on all phone and e-mail conversations for a period of six months.

Germany’s Telecoms Data Retention Act is the manifestation of a larger European Union directive dating back to 2006, which forced member countries to enact data retention legislation laws in order to enhance crime-fighting and terrorism investigations. The directive has met heavy resistance thus far, writes the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and rights groups in Ireland and Germany are slowing the process further with a handful of constitutional challenges against the directive’s many forms. Digital Rights Ireland’s challenge is set to be heard today, and the Working Group says it has another challenge pending.

While attendance figures are currently unknown, a similar rally taking place last September drew in over 25,000 people. Current reports indicate that over 2,500 showed up for the rally in Munich alone, and the Working Group said it has plans to “expand across Europe” for “an even larger protest on September 20th of this year.”

“Until 2007, telecommunications providers were permitted to retain only data required for billing purposes,” reads a Working Group summary, which goes on to point out that retention policies place heavy financial strains on businesses, violate basic privacy rights, and disrupts professional activities that rely on discretion, such as those in the fields of medicine, law, or journalism.

Curiously, German government officials are investigating private companies’ storage and use of private data. Criminal investigations are currently underway against the actions of Deutsche Telekom, for example, which recently rocked the country last month after the company admitted to spying on prominent company executives and journalists in order to root out leaks.

Resisting the Microsoft takeover may effectively have ended the Yahoo careers of not only a number of board members, but also CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang

Icahn is stepping up his campaign to takeover Yahoo’s board and shake up the company’s leadership with tough talk. DailyTech has closely followed the ongoing drama between Icahn and board, which have significant ramifications on the possibility of a possible Microsoft merger.

This week Icahn delivered his hardest-hitting comments yet. In them he says that if his takeover is successful, he will seek to depose Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang, whom he sees a roadblock to a merger. While Icahn was delivering his comments, Yahoo’s board was busily meeting to discuss possible limited partnerships with Microsoft or the possibility of outsourcing its search functions to Google Inc.

In an interview Icahn laid on the criticism thickly for what he believes are disingenuous actions on the part of the board and Yang in their willingness to consider an offer. He also accuses them of intentionally setting of an artificially costly employee-retention plant to deter a potential deal. Icahn comments, “I am amazed at the lengths that Jerry Yang and the board went to entrench themselves in this situation.”

He will seek to oust the current board at the annual shareholder meeting. He seeks to replace it with a Microsoft-merger-friendly dissident board, which includes billionaire buddy Mark Cuban. The meeting was originally set to be held on July 3, but it got pushed back August 1 by a nervous board. The board blasted back at Icahn in a statement, saying, “Yahoo’s board of directors, including Jerry Yang, has been crystal clear that it would consider any proposal by Microsoft that was in the best interests of its shareholders.”

A new Yahoo shareholder lawsuit just unsealed provides details which cast a surprising new light on the Microsoft-Yahoo saga. The suit refers to a refusal of an informal $40 a share offer from Microsoft in January 2007 when shares were trading between $26 and $29.

However, Yahoo and the board publicly stated that they would consider favorably offers of $37 a share or more. Microsoft had publicly stated that it was only willing to offer $34 or $35 a share, but it is entirely possible that it offered more behind closed doors. Unsurprisingly, a Yahoo spokesman said that the board was “not aware” of a $40 a share offer.

Along with the surprising revelation of possible deceit on the board’s part, the suit also provides details on the employee-retention program, which Icahn says was constructed as an artificial roadblock to a merger. The plan would apply to Yahoo employees who were fired without “cause” or had “good reason” to quit in case of a merger. Such employees would be awarded exceptional severance packages — as much as $15,000 in additional reimbursement, full pay for as much as two years, and medical and dental coverage for some months.

Based on his own calculations Icahn says the package would have cost Microsoft around $2.5 billion, which Microsoft was well aware of. This, Icahn said, helped to kill the deal. Yahoo contends the package would only cost between $462 million and $2.1 billion depending on the number of departing employees. Icahn points out that the plan contained seeming outlandishly flexible provisions, such as full severance (including full pay at their former salary) to any employees who saw their job descriptions change. Thus in the case of shuffling of responsibilities, some employees could be taking home two paychecks for one job, for over a year.

Icahn comments, “It’s no longer a mystery to me why Microsoft’s offer isn’t around. How can Yahoo keep saying they’re willing to negotiate and sell the company on the one hand, while at the same time they’re completely sabotaging the process without telling anyone?”

He states that trust between Microsoft and Yang has been completely lost and while Yang heads the company a merger is impossible. Indeed, Microsoft today is lukewarm about any potential deal.

The shareholder lawsuit brought against Yahoo has raised some startling accusations. If they hold true, the picture of the Yahoo-Microsoft saga may change from one that seemed to be a dueling battle of egos, to that of a faltering company trying to jealously and deceptively hold on to its independence at the expense of its shareholders. If this proves true, it will surely aid Icahn in his efforts to oust the board and Yang.