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Taminco Corp, the chemical maker owned by Apollo Global Management, said it would sell about 15.8 million shares for $18 to $20 each in an initial public offering. At the midpoint of the range, the IPO would raise about $300 million. The company said it intends to use the proceeds of the offering to repay debt. U.S. private equity firm Apollo bought Taminco for about 1.1 billion euros ($1.41 billion) from CVC Capital Partners at the end of 2011.

(Reuters) – Taminco Corp, the chemical maker owned by Apollo Global Management, said it would sell about 15.8 million shares for $18 to $20 each in an initial public offering.

At the midpoint of the range, the IPO would raise about $300 million. The company said it intends to use the proceeds of the offering to repay debt.

U.S. private equity firm Apollo bought Taminco for about 1.1 billion euros ($1.41 billion) from CVC Capital Partners at the end of 2011.

The Belgian company had tried to list its shares in Brussels in 2010. It blamed difficult market conditions for the failure of the IPO, which would have been Belgium’s biggest since 2007.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, the company listed Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, J.P.Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley and UBS as its lead underwriters.

There are 14 banks underwriting the offering.

Taminco said it would list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ‘TAM’.

The post Chemical Maker Taminco Prices IPO appeared first on peHUB.

Zerto, a disaster recovery company focused on virtualized data centers, has raised $13 million in Series C financing. The round was led by RTP Ventures, an affiliate of ru-Net Holdings, with support from existing investors Battery Ventures, Greylock and U.S. Venture Partners. Murat Bicer, managing director of RTP Ventures, will join the company’s board of directors.

PRESS RELEASE
Zerto, rapidly becoming the disaster recovery standard in virtualized data centers for both enterprises and cloud service providers, today announced it has closed a $13 million round of Series C financing. The round was led by RTP Ventures, an affiliate of ru-Net Holdings, with strong support from existing investors Battery Ventures, Greylock IL and U.S. Venture Partners. Murat Bicer, managing director of RTP Ventures, will join the company’s board of directors.

Zerto’s award-winning solution provides enterprises with data replication and recovery designed specifically for virtualized infrastructures and the cloud. The financing caps an exceptional 2012, during which Zerto reached several significant milestones, including:

Continued growth in the number of enterprise customers using Zerto – and the addition of many finance, healthcare and large retail customers including Univita Health, University of Louisville Physicians, SGS, Kingfisher IT Services and many others listed at http://www.zerto.com/customers.
The expansion of the Zerto Cloud Disaster Recovery Ecosystem (ZCE). Zerto has expanded the ZCE from 33 to more than 100 cloud providers who are revolutionizing disaster recovery (DR) by using Zerto Virtual Replication to power their cloud DR offerings, enabling businesses of all sizes to cost-effectively protect production applications both to the cloud and in the cloud.
A doubling of Zerto’s workforce, with increases in sales, operations and support, to serve its customers worldwide.
The recent announcement of Zerto Virtual Replication (ZVR) 3.0 brings the company’s hypervisor-based replication and disaster recovery solution to all virtualized workloads at the VM-level, extending the Software Defined Data Center vision to business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR). ZVR 3.0 widens the company’s technological lead in simple, automated BC/DR for both enterprise customers and cloud service providers (CSPs).

With this additional investment, Zerto will further accelerate its go-to-market strategy for its award-winning hypervisor-based replication solution for enterprises and cloud service providers. Zerto will also continue to expand its development and cloud product teams, as well as its sales and marketing operations, to serve its rapidly growing enterprise customer base. Founded in 2009, Zerto had raised $21.2 million in previous rounds.

“As global businesses increasingly adopt cloud and virtualized data centers to deploy critical applications, their number-one priority is ‘no-compromises’ data protection,” said Murat Bicer, managing director, RTP Ventures. “Zerto recently emerged as a game changer by pioneering the market for BC/DR solutions in virtualized and cloud environments. After successfully completing numerous milestones, Zerto is the de facto standard for virtualized disaster recovery, and is well positioned to expand its global customer and partner footprint.”

“The timing of this financing reflects the significant market adoption of virtualization and cloud solutions by companies of all sizes, as well as the current wave of momentum behind Zerto,” said Ziv Kedem, founder and CEO, Zerto. “With this additional capital and support of our investors – which shows confidence in our continued growth and success – Zerto is poised to aggressively push for even greater market adoption.”

About Battery Ventures
Since 1983, Battery has been investing in category-defining ideas and high potential companies and management teams worldwide. The firm views its investment as a true partnership, and works hard to help its companies carve out unique positions, dominate markets and reach business goals. Battery funds companies in technology and related markets at the Seed, Early, Growth and Buyout stage. For a full list of Battery’s companies go to: http://www.battery.com/our-companies/list/

The firm has offices in Boston, Silicon Valley and Israel, and has raised more than $4.5B since inception. For more information, visit www.battery.com and follow @batteryventures.

About Greylock IL
Greylock IL is an affiliate fund of Greylock Partners with offices in Herzlya, Israel and London. Some of the fund investments include: Wonga, Celeno, JustEat, iZettle, Aeroscout, Payoneer and Wanova. For more information visit: www.greylockil.com. For information on Greylock Partners visit: www.greylock.com.

About RTP Ventures
Ru-net Technology Partners (RTP), an affiliate of ru-Net Holdings, is an early stage venture capital firm. Investing globally out of offices in New York, Boston and Moscow, we support entrepreneurs building innovative technologies with a focus on cloud computing, software as a service, and enterprise infrastructure. For more information, please visit our website at www.rtp.vc.

About USVP
U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) has helped build great companies for nearly three decades. Since its inception in 1981, USVP has invested more than $2.4 billion in over 420 companies. Throughout, USVP’s partners have worked diligently and consistently with early-stage companies, many of which have become industry leaders. More information on USVP can be found here: www.usvp.com

About Zerto
Zerto has developed the first hypervisor-based, disaster recovery and replication software for virtualized environments, offering simplicity and greatly reduced operational and maintenance costs. Developed exclusively for virtualized and cloud environments, Zerto’s award-winning solution, Zerto Virtual Replication (ZVR) is rapidly becoming the standard for disaster recovery and business continuity in the modern data center. ZVR received ‘Best of Show’ at VMworld 2011, as well as 2012 and 2011 ‘Product of the Year’ Gold Awards.

The post Zerto Seals $13M Series C appeared first on peHUB.

NetSocket, a provider of network service assurance technology, has raised $9.2 million in Series B funding. The round was led by new investor Venture Investors, with participation by existing investors Sevin Rosen Funds, Silver Creek Ventures and Trailblazer Capital.

PRESS RELEASE
NetSocket, a leading provider of network service assurance solutions for unified communications (UC), announced today that the company has secured $9.2 million in Series B funding. The round was led by new investor Venture Investors, with participation by existing investors Sevin Rosen Funds, Silver Creek Ventures and Trailblazer Capital.

“I’m very excited about how the new solution will apply the power of NetSocket’s service assurance, routing and policy control software into virtualized networks in an SDN architecture.”

The new capital will be used to accelerate the launch of a new solution, aimed at the dynamic and growing Software Defined Networking (SDN) market. The product announcement and launch are planned for this summer. “NetSocket has been innovating in the Unified Communications (UC) service assurance solutions space, as evidenced by the traction generated from our recently announced expanded collaboration with Microsoft. NetSocket’s Cloud Experience Manager (CEM) now optimizes Microsoft Lync UC service management and user’s experience,” said John White, president and CEO of NetSocket. “We plan to apply that same innovation and focused vision to the SDN market which we expect to experience explosive growth this year.”

Joining the Board of Directors at NetSocket will be Jim Adox, managing partner at Venture Investors. “NetSocket has the right mix to become a major market force; a proven leadership team experienced in service assurance and networking technologies, an incredible portfolio of intellectual property and patents, along with a strong communications-focused syndicate of investors,” commented Jim. “I’m very excited about how the new solution will apply the power of NetSocket’s service assurance, routing and policy control software into virtualized networks in an SDN architecture.”

About NetSocket

NetSocket is a leading innovator of network service assurance solutions, providing a trouble-free unified communications experience in enterprise and service provider environments.

The post NetSocket Scores $9.2M Series B appeared first on peHUB.

EveryMove, a Seattle-based company developing a health-based rewards program, has raised a Series A-1 funding of $3.5-million from BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, Sandbox Industries, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska. The company’s app offers consumers the equivalent of a mileage rewards program for their health.

PRESS RELEASE
EveryMove, the Seattle-based company that offers consumers the equivalent of a mileage rewards program for their health, today announced that it has received a Series A-1 funding of $3.5-million from BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, Sandbox Industries, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska.

The company also announced that it has launched the Android version of its popular EveryMove application on the Android Play Store. The Android version has the same benefits and features to the iPhone version of the app and enables users to track their physical activity, connect to other popular fitness apps and devices to earn points and convert that information into rewards from brands, their employer and their health insurance provider.

“This is a big day in the growth and evolution of our company,” EveryMove CEO Russell Benaroya said. “We are aggressively moving forward towards our vision of giving consumers more power to demonstrate the value of their healthy choices.
“The EveryMove vision focuses on meeting customers where they are at in their lives and Android represents a huge portion of the population that can now benefit from easier access. Not surprisingly, we had thousands of users requesting an Android App, and we are delighted to deliver on their requests.”

Benaroya said the company will use the new funding to expand its market presence nationally and increase its marketing activities. Previously, EveryMove had raised $2.6 million from Sandbox Industries, BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, Premera Blue Cross, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska, and several prominent angel investors.

“We are excited about EveryMove’s traction and are thrilled to continue supporting its growth and strategy,” said Anna Haghgooie, Managing Director at Sandbox Industries. “EveryMove is different from other companies we have seen. It is creating a whole new category where consumers can connect to their existing or prospective health plans as individuals.”

“Companies are beginning to hold employees accountable for their personal health in order to manage corporate healthcare costs,” Benaroya said. “Programs like EveryMove actually engage people to achieve better health by rewarding them for their healthy activities but letting them do it on their terms, not something dictated by an employer, a health plan or the government.”

EveryMove has pursued an aggressive partnership strategy over the past six months with many of the market’s most popular health and fitness apps in order to make it easier to capture lifestyle activity on EveryMove. In March, EveryMove announced partnerships with MyFitnessPal and Endomondo, two of the most requested apps for people eager to track their health, nutrition and physical activity.

Additionally, EveryMove recently announced an exclusive partnership with Precor® and its Preva® networked fitness solution, which enables users to seamlessly earn points on their EveryMove accounts while working out at any health facility that uses Preva-powered machines from Precor.

EveryMove also has added a number of new rewards partners, including well-known brands such as Blue Nile, Cabela’s, Hotel Monaco and ESPN.

About EveryMove
EveryMove is the nation’s first lifestyle-based rewards program that enables consumers to connect devices and applications that capture their healthy activities and convert that information into rewards from brands, their employer and their health care provider. EveryMove rewards consumers for their healthy lifestyle –‐ the more healthy choices a user makes, the more rewards they earn. Based in Seattle, EveryMove is funded by Premera Blue Cross, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska, Sandbox Industries and BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners.

The post EveryMove Inks $3.5M appeared first on peHUB.

Private equity group Cerberus is mulling listing its German retail property holdings as a real estate investment trust , in a move that could help it avoid paying corporate tax, Reuters wrote. Alternatively, the U.S.-based investor could list the buildings, which are valued at roughly 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion), as a normal real estate company, two people familiar with the transaction said on Thursday. International investors are flocking to the German property market as yields on safe assets such as German bonds vanish and as property is considered the next low-risk asset class.

(Reuters) – Private equity group Cerberus is mulling listing its German retail property holdings as a real estate investment trust (REIT), in a move that could help it avoid paying corporate tax, two sources said.

Alternatively, the U.S.-based investor could list the buildings, which are valued at roughly 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion), as a normal real estate company, two people familiar with the transaction said on Thursday.

International investors are flocking to the German property market as yields on safe assets such as German bonds vanish and as property is considered the next low-risk asset class.

A decision will be taken later this year when the preparations for the initial public offering (IPO) are gaining pace, said the sources, adding the listing may take place as early as the second half of 2013.

Cerberus declined to comment.

As a REIT, the group could avoid paying corporate level taxes if it distributes at least 90 percent of its taxable income to shareholders in the form of dividend payments.

Germany has not seen REITs being launched since the listing of Prime Office REIT AG in 2011.

Until now, Cerberus’ retail properties – comprising mainly Metro wholesale markets and Woolworth retail outlets – have not been grouped together but held in different areas of Cerberus’ company structure.

Berlin-based Acrest Property Group, which is not owned by Cerberus, is managing the buildings, which have a combined rentable space of about 900,000 square metres.

Cerberus has hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to organise the listing of the German retail properties, the sources said. The banks declined to comment.

German property has been showing a steady rise in value in the last couple of years, contrasting with the boom-and-bust of Spanish and Irish real estate markets.

In January residential property company LEG Immobilien listed on the German Stock Exchange while peer Deutsche Annington, owned by private equity firm Terra Firma , is set to become the next listing later in the second quarter, sources have said.

In the German real estate market, investors can expect yields of about 4.5 percent for the best housing and 6 percent in secondary locations.

The post Reuters – Cerberus Mulls Listing for German Holding appeared first on peHUB.

High-end grocery store chain Fairway Market priced its initial public offering of 13.7 million Class A shares at $10 to $12 per share as it looked to raise as much as $164 million, Reuters reported. The company, which traces its origins to a fruit and vegetable stand in New York City in the 1930s, operates in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. At the high end of the price range, the company will be valued at about $495 million. The company, majority-owned by private equity firm Sterling Investment Partners, said in August that it had confidentially filed for an IPO.

(Reuters) – High-end grocery store chain Fairway Market priced its initial public offering of 13.7 million Class A shares at $10 to $12 per share as it looked to raise as much as $164 million.

The company, which traces its origins to a fruit and vegetable stand in New York City in the 1930s, operates in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.

At the high end of the price range, the company will be valued at about $495 million.

The company, majority-owned by private equity firm Sterling Investment Partners, said in August that it had confidentially filed for an IPO.

While the company is offering 13.3 million share, its selling shareholders are offering the rest.

Fairway follows in the footsteps of successful public debuts of grocery chains such as Whole Foods Market Inc and Fresh Market Inc, last year.

The company posted a loss of $56.1 million up from a loss of $10 million from the year ago.

Private equity-backed companies queued up to list shares as U.S. stock markets reached record highs, helping boost U.S. IPO volumes by about 65 percent in the first quarter.

Fairway intends to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq under the symbol “FWM”.

The New York-based company told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that Credit Suisse, BofA Merrill Lynch, Jefferies and William Blair will underwrite its IPO.

The post Reuters – Fairway Grocery Chain Prices IPO appeared first on peHUB.

As someone who switched from Hotmail to Gmail in 2004 and then never looked back, moving to Outlook.com has been quite a weird experience (setting it up was fun in its own right). Some people hate Gmail’s interface, but if you’re used to it, using anything else seems odd.

That said, I’ve adapted to Outlook.com pretty quickly. It feels a bit like going back in time, using an interface similar to the ones I used in the past, but it doesn’t feel dated — quite the opposite actually — and I’ve grown to really like it in the short period of time I’ve been using it as my email service.

There are some elements I miss about Gmail. Message previews for example. When a message arrives in Gmail, I can instantly tell if it’s worth opening or not because I can see the first lines of text. Some messages just say “OK” for example and I can get everything I need from the preview.

I’m a big Labs user, so I make good use of features like Undo Send which lets me cancel sending when I realize I’ve made a mistake — failed to attach something or missed off a CC — but equally there are some elements of Outlook.com I really appreciate.

The Quick Views in particular are really handy. I like that I can quickly view emails that have documents or photos attached, that I can see just view unread messages (as I can in Gmail) and that I can trawl through newsletters. Adding additional emails/senders to categories takes seconds via a drop down menu.

I’ve got used to the message pane in Outlook.com. I couldn’t decide initially if I wanted to turn it on or not, but now it’s active I find it very handy. I can have the pane at the bottom or on the right — and as I have dual widescreen monitors, it makes sense to use the spare real estate and go for the latter option.

In Gmail I can send exceptionally large files through Google Drive. Outlook.com lets me do the same using SkyDrive.

The lack of IMAP support in Outlook.com is an annoyance, but there are ways around this and I rarely delete emails anyway (which is why my primary Gmail account is 82 percent full). Outlook.com offers unlimited space, which is great.

Spam, Spam, Spam

So far, so good. But now we get to the problem I have with Outlook.com, and it’s a problem I’ve had since I signed up for an account — spam. I get a lot of junk mail. In Gmail I never see it. It goes straight into my Spam folder and I never have to worry about it. Occasionally, and it’s very, very occasionally, some spam slips into my inbox, but it’s quickly dispatched and I never see it again. Sometimes, even less occasionally, real messages make it through into spam. I often miss these because Gmail is so good at filtering junk I rarely bother to look in my Spam folder.

Despite the fact that Gmail removes any spam before forwarding on clean messages to Microsoft’s webmail service, I continue to get spam in my Outlook.com inbox that’s linked to either my Outlook.com address or the Hotmail account I had previously.

I use the Sweep option to delete and block all future messages from the spam senders, but while this has had a huge impact on the amount of junk mail I receive, it hasn’t stopped it entirely. I know I can switch to the Exclusive junk email filter and optionally block content from unknown senders, but that all seems a bit extreme to me.

On a related note, I went into my Junk folder after having previously just ignored it, as I do with Gmail, and found 20 or so messages — blatantly not spam — sitting there. Messages that Gmail knew were clean, but which Outlook.com had tagged as undesirable.

It’s become clear in the couple of weeks that I’ve been using Outlook.com that I can’t trust the service to just handle spam, as I do with Gmail. I have to get much more hands on (managing safe and blocked senders myself, for example). It’s not a problem — and over time I think the issue will diminish to the point that I no longer even think about it — but at the moment it’s still slightly annoying to me.

But I like how easy managing messages is in Outlook.com. The bar at the top makes it easy to do everything I need to with an email. I prefer the way Gmail lets me search for messages but that might be partially down to conditioning.

On the mobile side of things, accessing Outlook.com through iOS is fine, the mobile version of the site is decent, and there’s a passable Android app too, so I’m fairly well covered. I have niggles about all of them, but I have niggles about Gmail on mobile too.

The question I’ve asked myself a lot, and which I’ve yet to fully answer, is whether at the end of my trial period if I’m going to stick with Outlook.com or switch back to Gmail. I’ve settled into Outlook.com nicely and I don’t actually miss anything major about Gmail, with the exception of the message previews (I hadn’t realized how much I used to them to visually locate messages I was looking for until the preview lines were no longer available to me). Right now at least, I’m leaning towards making my switch to Outlook.com permanent…

Provided I can just stop that last annoying bit of spam reaching my inbox.

Anyone else here made the switch from Gmail to Outlook.com and what was your reason for doing so?

Photo Credit: 3Dstock/Shutterstock

Patch Tuesday is almost upon us yet again. As is its custom, Microsoft has released a monthly Advance Security Bulletin to let customers know what to expect next week. There are nine bulletins headed our way on April 9, with two of them being considered critical.

Per standard procedures, Microsoft does not release details of the patches until the updates are actually live. This is done in an effort to prevent the bad guys from knowing the vulnerabilities and attempting to take advantage of them  between now and the update release. There is, however, nothing to protect those users who fail to install Windows updates in a timely fashion.

This time around fixes are coming for all versions of Internet Explorer going back to IE 6 (please tell me you are not still running that). The updates will also cover Infopath 2010, Sharepoint Server 2010, Sharepoint Server 2013, Sharepoint Foundation 2010, Office Web Apps, Windows Defender, Windows operating system versions XP, 7, 8 and RT and Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012.

This pretty much covers everything except Windows Home Server, so all of you can expect an update and reboot to be coming your way next week.

Photo Credit: zimmytws/Shutterstock

It was a busy week in the tech world, and the GigaOM Podcast is here to help you make sense of it all. Eliza Kern and Kevin Tofel invite us over to Facebook’s new “Home” on Android. Then Katie Fehrenbacher gives us a ride through Tesla’s new lease deal. And finally, Janko Roettgers opens our eyes to Rdio’s new video service, Vdio.

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This episode of the GigaOM Podcast is brought to you by Squarespace – the best way create a modern and professional website, with all the features you need integrated into one platform. Every Squarespace website is mobile ready, and includes e-commerce, 24/7 customer support, and a free domain name.

It’s no Facebook Phone: Home looks nice but could have limited impact

Tesla to offer leasing option for Model S

Four years in the making, Vdio finally opens up to Rdio subscribers in the US and UK

And big thanks to the good folks at Stitcher Smart Radio for letting us use their studio.

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So… you’ve been hearing all of this talk about the new BlackBerry Z10, and even though it’s designed to deliver the best touchscreen typing experience, you’re a physical keyboard enthusiast at heart. You’ve been holding out, waiting to get your hands on a shiny new BlackBerry 10 smartphone – and you know the BlackBerry Q10 is just right for you.

You’re not alone! The anticipation is mounting around the world for this highly-anticipated smartphone, and we’re getting one step closer to getting it in your hands.

Today, Carphone Warehouse customers in the United Kingdom will be able to pre-order the BlackBerry Q10 on O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Three, EE and TalkMobile. Plus, the handset will be available for purchase in Carphone Warehouse stores from the end of April. For those of you in other markets, we’ll have details on availability to follow soon. In the mean time head by our global availability tracker for BlackBerry 10 to see where you can pick up a BlackBerry Z10 today!

We showed it off originally on January 30th when we officially launched the BlackBerry 10 platform. There, we showed you some of the amazing capabilities built in to BlackBerry 10, like messaging in the BlackBerry Hub, BlackBerry Balance and BlackBerry Remember. In case you need a refresher – watch this video and prepare to start drooling.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Are you a BlackBerry physical keyboard fanatic? Is this the BlackBerry 10 device you’ve been waiting for – let us know in the comments below.

Software development kit (SDK) installers for the Sailfish smartphone operating system are now out, Jolla has announced on Twitter. The SDK was previously trailed at Mobile World Congress in February.

Jolla, which is led by ex-Nokians, has taken the abandoned MeeGo OS and wrangled it into a new, slicker version called Sailfish. The Linux-based OS will in theory be available for a number of device types, but the first commercially-available version will be on a smartphone sold through the Chinese distributor D.Phone and the Finnish carrier DNA.

According to a separate tweet a few days ago, the timescale for that release is looking a bit fuzzy:

@jpetrise @nmshenoy @ashnazir Product shipping in 2nd half of year, announcement will happen closer to shipping.

— Jolla (@JollaHQ) April 1, 2013

One significant partnership announced at Helsinki’s Slush Festival last November will already be in trouble, namely that with ST-Ericsson – a chipmaker that is in the process of being broken up by parent companies STMicro and Ericsson.

Sailfish will certainly find itself in choppy waters this year. There are a range of factors that threaten the iOS-Android duopoly, from Windows Phone and BlackBerry to newer players such as Firefox OS — and let’s not forget Nokia’s low-end Asha platform, which will likely compete in the same market as Sailfish and Firefox OS, and Facebook Home, whose effect on the smartphone scene is yet to be felt.

Jolla will have a tough time establishing itself, but at least developers can really sink their teeth into its native app potential (they can also submit Android, HTML5 and Qt apps) now that they have the SDK.

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Blackstone Group will visit Dell Inc‘s headquarters on Monday to begin an in-depth analysis of the company, sources said, a strong sign the buyout firm is proceeding with an offer that could upset founder Michael Dell’s $24.4 billion buyout bid, Reuters reported. Blackstone and billionaire investor Carl Icahn separately made preliminary proposals in late March that, if finalized, could be superior to the offer on the table from Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners LP. The outcome of the auction would determine the future of Dell as well as Chief Executive Michael Dell, who founded the company in a dorm room in 1984 and turned it into the world’s No.3 personal computer maker.

(Reuters) – Blackstone Group will visit Dell Inc’s headquarters on Monday to begin an in-depth analysis of the company, sources said, a strong sign the buyout firm is proceeding with an offer that could upset founder Michael Dell’s $24.4 billion buyout bid.

Blackstone and billionaire investor Carl Icahn separately made preliminary proposals in late March that, if finalized, could be superior to the offer on the table from Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners LP.

The outcome of the auction would determine the future of Dell as well as Chief Executive Michael Dell, who founded the company in a dorm room in 1984 and turned it into the world’s No.3 personal computer maker.

In its first step toward firming up a bid, Blackstone is working closely with Michael Dell in putting together a new business plan and actively talking to him about staying on in his current role as CEO, two people familiar with the matter said.

If Michael Dell gets on board with Blackstone’s still-developing strategy for Dell, he would be Blackstone’s preferred choice running the new company, the sources said. But the buyout firm also is putting an alternative executive plan in place.

Blackstone has hired an executive consulting firm that has reached out to about half a dozen high profile industry executives to help evaluate Dell’s businesses and provide advice around strategy, the sources said.

The New York-based private equity firm and its consultant are also talking to a few of the executives for potentially running Dell, while some others are being considered for board positions, the sources said.

The executives that have been contacted by the executive reference firm include Cisco Systems Inc director Michael Capellas, former IBM Corp services head Michael Daniels, Oracle Corp President Mark Hurd and Hewlett-Packard Co’s PC boss Todd Bradley, the sources said.

Hurd, who sources previously have said was being pursued for a CEO job, has said he is happy at Oracle. Representatives for Capellas and Daniels did not return calls seeking comment. Bradley said in an email he was not contacted for a CEO position.

The leading external candidate for the Dell CEO job is Capellas, who has been in extensive discussions with Blackstone in recent weeks brainstorming on strategy for Dell and evaluating the industry, the sources said.

Capellas, best known as CEO and Chairman of PC maker Compaq, that he sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2002 for $25 billion, has been spotted entering and leaving Blackstone’s Park Avenue headquarters several times over the past few weeks.

In recent years, Capellas served as Chairman and CEO of VCE, a collaboration between EMC Corp, Cisco and VMware Inc . He still remains chairman.

“No one knows who will ultimately sign on yet,” one of the sources said. “(Blackstone) is exploring options with those people.”

Executives from the private equity firm and its consultants will head to the Round Rock, Texas, Dell’s headquarters on Monday, to kick off the due diligence that is expected to last about four weeks, people close to the matter said.

“What Blackstone is trying to do is develop a smarter structure that provides more options than what Michael Dell and Silver Lake seem to be doing,” another said, adding that the firm is trying to figure out a different way for Dell going forward.

All the sources asked not to be named because the discussions are confidential. Spokesmen for Blackstone and Silver Lake declined to comment. A spokesman for Michael Dell was not available for comment.

STRATEGY FOR DELL

Blackstone’s team leaders for the bid include Dell’s former head of strategy, Dave Johnson, currently a senior managing director at Blackstone. In the past, Johnson and Michael Dell have not seen eye-to-eye over a strategy that would take Dell forward, the sources said.

Johnson is working with Chinh Chu, one of Blackstone’s most experienced partners, who has been carrying out transactions for the firm since 1990.

Michael Dell and Silver Lake envision Dell as an integrated company, with the No. 3 PC-maker continuing to focus on a diverse offering that includes enterprise software, servers, PCs and financial services.

Johnson’s strategy, if Blackstone acquires Dell, would be to focus the company on enterprise software and accelerate the effort to bring together all the acquisitions made in this space, a source close to Johnson said.

In addition, under Johnson’s plan, the company would exit its finance business, the source said, adding that Johnson also wants to make the company less Texas-centric and more global to attract more talented employees.

During Johnson’s three years at Dell, he oversaw an aggressive acquisition strategy with some 18 to 20 deals, including the 2009 purchase of Perot Systems Corp, which catapulted Dell into the technology services market alongside IBM and HP.

But one of the sources cautioned that the due diligence process is still in the early stages, and that Blackstone is just starting to put together a business plan.

The post Reuters – Blackstone Will Visit Dell Headquarters appeared first on peHUB.

On Tuesday, Vonage introduced free video calling into its mobile app for iPhone and Android, rounding out a suite which already offers features like free app-to-app calls, texts, photo and location sharing, as well as international calling.

I chatted to Nick Lazzaro, Vonage’s SVP Product Development, Information Technology and Managing Director Mobile Services, about the new addition, the company’s plans for the future, and what he thinks is next for the mobile industry.

BN: Tell me more about the new video capability in Vonage Mobile.

NL: We’ve launched Vonage Mobile with video calling as part of the ongoing expansion of our mobile platform. Vonage Mobile lets users make video calls to other app users with terrific image quality and high-definition voice. Video is available now for Android and iPhone devices and allows users to make free video calls over Wi-Fi and 3G/4G. The Vonage Mobile app is a free download from Google Play and the iTunes app store, and it’s easy to register, invite friends and start making free video calls immediately. To use the feature, users simply tap the “Video” button from within the app to connect their video call to another app user. If the person being called is not available, the caller is able to send a free text message letting them know they were trying to call.

BN: Why add video calling to Vonage Mobile now?

NL: Our goal is to continue to make Vonage Mobile the most comprehensive communication solution for voice, messaging and now video — and improve upon the user experiences already provided by other apps. Our first order of business was to deliver free app-to-app calling and messaging and, true to Vonage’s heritage, ultra-low international long-distance calling. With this foundation, video was our most logical next goal.

BN: What are the features of video calling with Vonage Mobile?

NL: We’ve worked to make Vonage Mobile video calling as seamless and flexible as possible, so while making video calls on 3G/4G or Wi-Fi, users can toggle between front and back cameras, switch between voice and video mid-call, mute the line and use the app with Bluetooth.

BN: Skype has similar offerings. What are the difference between Vonage Mobile and Skype?

There are several significant features that differentiate Vonage Mobile. First, Vonage Mobile allows you to access your existing contacts to build a global personal free calling and texting network. Users can invite multiple contacts via SMS to join their free calling and texting community, and for each friend who downloads and registers for Vonage Mobile, users will earn $1 of credit (up to $10) as part of the app’s Referral Program. The app also mirrors your mobile phone experience — and uses your existing mobile identity — to make a phone call or send a text message. Vonage Mobile also offers international long distance calling with per-minute rates that are, on average, 30 percent less than Skype and 70 percent less than major carriers.

BN: Vonage became well known for home phone service via VoIP. What motivated the addition of mobile, and what are the company’s plans for the future?

NL: Our Vonage home service continues to be very popular — especially with the unlimited international long distance calling offered by our flagship Vonage World plan. But with the explosion of mobile, our customers were asking for greater mobility and we’ve delivered that through Vonage Extensions and Vonage Mobile.

Vonage Extensions lets our subscriber customers extend their home plan for free to a second phone line, including a mobile phone. Our Vonage Extensions app for iPhone and Android enables one-touch international calling anytime, anywhere over 3G/4G or Wi-Fi. Today, 28 percent of our customers have signed up for Vonage Extensions and one out of four Vonage international long-distance calls is originated from a mobile.

Vonage Mobile gives any Android or iOS user the opportunity to tap Vonage’s global network to make ultra-low cost international calls, plus make free app-to-app voice calls, texts and now video calls. Our plan is to continue to deliver new innovations that solve today’s consumer calling problems — whether those are mobility, convenience, cost, flexibility or network.

BN: This would seem to transform how Vonage defines itself to consumers, right?

NL: We’ve been defined as a telco company or a VoIP provider, but we see ourselves today as a technology company. We apply our innovations in technology and software to solving communications problems for consumers, and that’s where we believe we provide the greatest value for consumers and the business marketplace as the communications world continues to converge and compress across the globe.

BN: With the number of OTT (Over-The-Top) apps on the market, do you believe major carriers are beginning to see a need to integrate more OTT communications apps to stay competitive?

NL: We’ve seen an increasing innovation in communications and it’s creating a compression in the pricing and a migration of communications to the lowest-cost networks. It’s great for consumers and I think carriers are taking notice of this trend. Some are developing their own OTT apps and many may look to partner with OTT providers who can help them more quickly participate in this growing global communications trend.

BN: It seems the mobile industry is constantly evolving and pushing for the next best thing. What do you think is next for mobile? Where do you see the industry headed?

NL: There is a great convergence in communications as more communications networks and devices proliferate in the consumer marketplace. Simplifying this experience for consumers and helping them manage their communications and their growing social graphs is going to drive a certain amount of innovation.

There is also a great compression in international communications pricing for voice, messaging and roaming, which is fostering the migration of communications and data traffic to the lowest cost solutions.

Consumers will play a role by demanding solutions that have superior user experiences and are easy to access and incorporate into their everyday lives.

Companies like Vonage will continue to develop new innovations and solutions that simplify user experiences and facilitate the migration of traffic to cost-savings channels — for our subscriber customers and any consumer looking for easy, low cost solutions to communications. We believe communication should be like email — wherever and whenever you want it — and in a way that is easy, convenient and affordable.

Understanding these key trends and how they play in mobility and the way people interact with mobile technology will continue to drive innovation in the industry.

Photo Credit: Bevan Goldswain/Shutterstock

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