The Short Names

Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) is considering acquiring Sprint (NYSE: S), the third-largest U.S. carrier in a bid to fix T-Mobile USA, its ailing U.S. wireless business. Sources told the UK’s Telegraph that Deutsche Telekom may submit a bid within the next few weeks.

The company has apparently hired an investment bank to consider the offer, which closely follows the decision to merge with its struggling T-Mobile UK business with Orange to create Britain’s biggest mobile phone firm. DT’s two ailing wireless units have been a top priority of CEO René Obermann, who blames them for contributing to the company’s €1.1bn first-quarter loss. Currently, Sprint is valued at about $10.6 billion (£6.3 billion), and DT has a value of £36.3 billion ($60.5 billion).

Together, T-Mobile USA and Sprint would roughly make the second-largest U.S. carrier, but would be a disjointed hodgepodge of at least three different network technologies (not to mention Sprint’s minority stake in Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR), which has chosen WiMax as its 4G technology, rather than LTE, which DT has picked). Additionally, both are struggling to compete with AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) on the high-end and discount carriers on the low-end. The deal would also likely face scrutiny from regulators since it would be narrowing the field from four competitors to three at a time when the U.S. is investigating the telecom industry’s best practices.

Steve Balmer’s plans went really wrong with recent Linux patent auction. Instead of patents ending up with patent trolls, as Microsoft wished, AST acquired the patents, which was later sold to OIN, Open Invention Network. 
Up your Bolder
“Allied Security Trust is pleased that Open Invention Network had interest in acquiring the Open Source patent portfolio. OIN’s purchase ensures that these important patents will not be used by patent trolls or others seeking to disrupt Linux and the many companies and individuals advancing this important technology,” said Dan McCurdy, Chief Executive Officer of Allied Security Trust.
Following is the complete press release by OIN;

Durham, NC (September 8, 2009) – Open Invention Network (OIN), a collaborative enterprise that enables innovation in open source, today announced the acquisition of 22 Linux-focused patents that were marketed and sold by Microsoft. The patents were recently purchased by Allied Security Trust (AST) from Microsoft to ensure the patents did not fall into the hands of non-practicing entities (more information on non-practicing entities is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll, among other sites) that could seek to assert the patents against Linux products. OIN subsequently acquired the Microsoft patents from AST.

“Today’s announcement evidences OIN’s continued commitment to acquire patents that may be relevant to Linux,” said Keith Bergelt, Chief Executive Officer of Open Invention Network. “We are pleased to have purchased these patents and view this as a model of successful collaboration among defensive patent organizations that share a common goal of creating freedom of action for practicing entities across Linux and the broader technology sector. The prospect of these patents being placed in the hands of non-practicing entities was a threat that has been averted with these purchases, irrespective of patent quality and whether or not the patents truly read on Linux.
“Allied Security Trust is pleased that Open Invention Network had interest in acquiring the Open Source patent portfolio. OIN’s purchase ensures that these important patents will not be used by patent trolls or others seeking to disrupt Linux and the many companies and individuals advancing this important technology,” said Dan McCurdy, Chief Executive Officer of Allied Security Trust.
About Allied Security Trust
AST is a Delaware statutory trust currently with 15 member companies headquartered in North America, Europe and Asia. The Trust provides opportunities to enhance companies freedom to sell products by sharing the cost of patent licenses. To date, the Trust has invested $40 million in patent purchases over its 30 months of operations. Through such purchases, the Trust provides an excellent opportunity for patent holders of all sizes to generate a return on their rights by selling patents to the Trust.
AST is not an investment vehicle. Its purpose is freedom of operation and cost reduction. It generates no profits and does not engage in patent assertions against other companies. AST maintains a catch-and-releas; commitment that returns to the market in a timely manner patents acquired on behalf of Trust members after licenses are secured. The Trust also addresses the increasing need for innovative companies to defend against costly patent law suits. For more information, visit www.alliedsecuritytrust.com.
About Open Invention Network
Open Invention Network is a collaborative enterprise that enables innovation in open source and an increasingly vibrant ecosystem around Linux by acquiring and licensing patents, influencing behaviors and policy, and protecting the integrity of the ecosystem through strategic programs such as Linux Defenders. It enables the growth and continuation of open source software by fostering a healthy Linux ecosystem of investors, vendors, developers and users.
Open Invention Network has considerable industry backing. It was launched in 2005, and has received investments from IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony. For more information, visit www.openinventionnetwork.com.
Media-Only Contact:
Ed Schauweker
Ketchum for Open Invention Network
ed.schauweker@ketchum.com
(703) 963-5238

Motorola’s biggest success to date was when it released the thinnest and sexiest device the world had seen. Since then, the handset-maker has struggled to produce anything like it.

Yesterday, everyone was prepared to see Motorola’s latest form factor that would bring it back from the brink. Instead, what we got was an announcement about an innovative new user interface, or skin, that runs on top of the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android operating system. In fact, the big unveiling had little to do with the hardware, and in many ways, the upcoming CLIQ phone looks like any smartphone with a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. The interesting stuff is the Blur technology running under the hood.

This marks a huge cultural shift for the company, which in the past has always been driven by hardware design. While we didn’t get the entire story, the picture we gleaned during yesterday’s announcement and during a hands-on demo showed that much of transformation had to do with new Motorola (NYSE: MOT) management—and leveraging assets the company already had.

When Sanjay Jha was appointed CEO of mobile devices, he fast tracked a project being worked on by former employees from Good Technology, an enterprise email service that Motorola acquired, and then sold off in February. So, while other divisions back in Illinois were slashing staff, the Sunnyvale office was quietly picking up employees from Apple and Google in what has become a long two and a half year process to get to market. Rick Osterloh, Motorola’s VP of Product Development for Android Products, couldn’t help but talk about the project, which had been kept under tight wraps for the past year so well. He said it originated with Jha, who was interested in what the former Good employees were working on. “He liked what he saw and he gave it resources.”

Jha explained the importance of BLUR to GigaOm’s Om Malik at Mobilize and how it compares to Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry. He said the platform melds Apple’s idea of having access to tons of applications with BlackBerry’s niche of integrating the apps—like email—deeply into the phone. Together, they have the apps and the integration: “The iPhone has one, BlackBerry has the other, but we have combined them in a meaningful way for social networking.”

Essentially, the BLUR technology enables users to get all of their messages, status updates and other social networking components pushed to them. Motorola’s director of product marketing Dan Rudolph told me during a demo at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art that in order to accomplish this, there’s a lot of server-side technologies playing a role. All of the messages are compressed and then sent to the device. The process should help save on bandwidth and battery life, while the consumer will have all the information without having to go out and retrieve it.

Osterloh said the original idea stretches back as far as 2007 when Facebook and MySpace were just taking off. “We had all these people from Good…we thought we could really solve something.” He said the two keys were that messaging services on devices had gotten complicated. (Users had multiple email addresses and also SMS and MMS.) The other thing they looked at was making a consumer-friendly service that would be used by people who didn’t have support from an IT staff at work. “We redid everything. It was focused on business and this is 100 percent focused on the consumer.”

Some of the key services include an online portal, where users could log in and manage their device. If it’s lost, they can ping it and see where it’s located on a map. If it’s been stolen, they can wipe off all of their information and data. Likewise, if you get a new phone, all you would have to do is re-enter a BLUR user name and password and all of the consumer’s settings and preferences would be restored from the wallpaper to which widgets it has on the home screen—a significant time saver. Osterloh: “There was a big hole between what was happening with applications and what was happening with services on the BlackBerry. We see that there’s a need for both…The strategic part is the BLUR part.”

Motorola’s strong software platform may have increased its chances of making a comeback. But form factor is important, too. And, so far, it’s something that’s been neglected on the Google Android platform. To date, most of the devices are bulky, and while some have gotten sleeker, nothing still compares to the iPhone. Motorola’s new CLIQ also falls into this category. While solid and full of the latest hardware, it too is large and strays from Moto’s design background. INQ Mobile’s CEO Frank Meehan announced yesterday that his company was going to start building phones on Google Android’s OS, but pointed to one of the challenges with the platform: “Currently, Android phones on networks that are selling against the iPhone have not performed well. You need to get the experience better.”

So far, Motorola has announced that its first handsets will be sold via T-Mobile in the U.S. and also Orange, Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) and America Movil. How will it do? We’ll have to wait and see.

Outdoor apparel brand Timberland is trying to skew younger and hipper with a new ad campaign that includes everything from iPhone and BlackBerry apps, to branded content for Hulu, and custom Pandora playlists. The goal is to get city dwellers to use their technology to find “outdoor adventures” that are close to home—while enticing them to buy Timberland gear along the way. The new marketing push follows Timberland’s first foray into online video, via a sponsored MySpace vlog, last November.

—Mobile: Timberland worked with IPG’s Mullen MediaHub and Ansible for the “Expedition Timberland” mobile apps. The apps highlight hiking trails, spots for panoramic city views and other outdoor activities in six major cities, including N.Y., L.A. and Denver. The apps will also feature specific apparel each week, with links back to a WAP site with a full product list and store locators. iPhone users also get a game and an outdoor-themed playlist that updates each week. The company plans to expand the app to ten additional markets later this year.

—Digital: Timberland is making full use of Hulu, with custom show sponsorships and standard commercials; it’s also launching a number of branded Pandora stations. The campaign includes banner ads and blogger outreach, as well as interactive billboards in select markets.

Related

• Broadband Content Bits: AOL’s New Show; NBA’s Stream; WhereverTV; Timberland’s Vlog; Air Force/Xbox | paidContent

Japan-based NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) has offered to buy net mobile, a Germany-based mobile content distribution company. DoCoMo said it will offer EUR 6.35 ($9.28) a share in cash for all outstanding shares, which represents a 53.9 percent premium over the three-month average share. Based on the 6.55 million shares issued as of March 31, the offer is worth about 41.6 million euros ($60.80 million), Reuters reports.

In a release, Masatoshi Suzuki, a senior executive and DoCoMo board member said they are attracted to net mobile because it is steadily expanding its business in Europe. Suzuki: “Net mobile’s technology and European presence are major plus points for DOCOMO, which is strengthening the foundation of its mobile platform business overseas.”

Earlier this week, DoCoMo Capital invested in Evernote, and in June, DoCoMo bought a 35 percent stake in PacketVideo, the San Diego-based mobile video and software company.