Blackberry goes private in $4.7bn deal with Fairfax Financial
Blackberry has agreed in principle to be bought by a consortium led by Fairfax Financial for $4.7bn (£3bn).
Fairfax Financial, a Canadian firm that already owns 10% of Blackberry, has agreed to join forces with other buyers to acquire the company for $9 a share. This would make Blackberry private, removing it from a public listing on Nasdaq, where their stocks have fallen from $148 in June 2008, to now only about $8 a share.
After the announcement, Blackberry stock rose only 2% to $8.85 a share, which gave the company a market value of $4.65bn.
However Blackberry has insisted that it may take a better offer if another buyer appears.
Last week Blackberry announced 4,500 job cuts, in an effort to decrease costs.
Tesco announces launch of affordable tablet, Hudl
Tesco has launched its first tablet, the Hudl, retailing at £119.
The Android device has been launched in a bid to make tablets more accessible to the masses.
The tablet can be bought for less than £100 using Tesco’s Clubcard vouchers and comes pre-loaded with access to Tesco’s shopping website and digital services such as music and video streaming. As many as 600,000 book titles will also be available via the company’s Blinkbox ebook service, which is expected to launch before Christmas.
The Hudl tablet comes with a range of built-in appls including YouTube and Google Chrome. Users are able to download new apps via Google play.
Valve announces free SteamOS platform
Valve, the video game developer and publisher, has announced SteamOS, a free operating system that is aiming to bring PC gaming into the living room.
This is the first of three expected announcements about Valve’s latest venture.
It is anticipated that Valve will also launch its own device to run SteamOS, which is believed to be called the Steam Box. The console would be a direct competitor to the likes of Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox.
SteamOS will be made freely available for manufacturers who want to launch their own gaming hardware. Valve outlined its plans for the Linux-based operating system that will be available for download soon.
