Vodafone AirTouch, locked in an acrimonious struggle to acquire its German rival, squeezed the pips a little tighter Tuesday, threatening to drop its bid altogether unless 50 percent of Mannesmann AG shareholders vote to support the deal.
"We do expect to win this bid," said Vodafone's chief exec Chris Gent, "...[but] we will absolutely step away if we do not reach 50 percent."
Vodafone, which is offering a record 124 billion euros (US$128.5 billion) in its hostile takeover attempt, is feeling pressure to end the imbroglio. The cost of swallowing the German telecom giant and then redeploy promises to be steep.
A Vodafone spokesman said company estimates put the cost of developing a common global Internet platform "in the range of $150 million in 24 countries over the next year or two."
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So, what else is new?: For the seventh consecutive year, IBM was awarded the most US patents in a year.
In 1999, Big Blue received 2,756 patents, beating its closest rival by more than 900 patents. During the 1990s, IBM was awarded more than 15,000 patents, tripling its output of the previous decade.
In case you were keeping score, Canon finished second in the '90s, trailing IBM by 2,300.
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Spinoff: Silicon Graphics said Tuesday that it has launched SGI Mediabase, its media server software unit, as an Internet startup.
SGI will be a significant minority shareholder in the new company, called Kesenna Inc. SGI spun off Mediabase after securing sufficient venture capital funding.
The SGI announcement described Kesenna as "a pre-IPO startup that offers products and services to providers and distributors of high-quality media."
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Pegasus spreads its wings: Pegasus Communications Corp., a provider of direct broadcast satellite television, said it will acquire Golden Sky Holdings for about $1 billion in stock and debt.
The combined operation will serve approximately 1.1 million subscribers in 41 states and reach around 7.2 million rural households, making Pegasus the eighth-largest multichannel provider in the United States.
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New king in the playpen: John Eyler, FAO Schwarz's top executive, will become president and CEO of Toys R Us, the world's largest specialty toy retailer.
Eyler, who replaces interim chief Michael Goldstein, takes control of a struggling company. Toys R Us is feeling the competitive heat from discount retailers and also needs to reestablish its online presence after a holiday season shopping fiasco.
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Narrowing its focus: McKesson HBOC Inc., a distributor of drugs and health and beauty aids, will sell its McKesson Water Products Co. to a French food maker for $1.1 billion.
McKesson decided to sell the unit, the third-largest processor and distributor of bottled water in the United States, to Groups Danone because it is not a core business, the company said.
