acquire

“Udacity Joins Forces with Accenture to Create Cutting-Edge AI Learning Platform”

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Accenture announced today that it would acquire the learning platform Udacity as part of an effort to build a learning platform focused on the growing interest in AI. While the company didn’t specify how much it paid for Udacity, it also announced a $1 billion investment in building a technology learning platform it’s calling LearnVantage. While it could also offer more general technology training, the company made clear that it is particularly interested in offering training to get workers up to speed on AI. As for Udacity, which was founded in 2011, it gave the usual kinds of statements a company makes when it gets acquired by a much larger organization like Accenture. That is, it believes that it can reach more people and help them acquire skills at part of the larger entity.

Negotiations underway for Dailyhunt to purchase burgeoning social media platform Koo

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Media startup Dailyhunt is in advanced stages of talks to acquire the Bengaluru-headquartered social network Koo, two sources familiar with the matter told me. The potential deal under discussion involves a share-swap agreement and could be finalized within weeks, the sources added, requesting anonymity as the matter is private. The deliberation follows Koo, which has sought to become a Twitter rival, aggressively hunting for new capital throughout last year. The social network, available in India and Brazil, is betting on the idea that its approach of supporting multiple local languages will help the eponymous app resonate broadly with the larger masses. Dailyhunt, which was last valued at $5 billion, and Koo declined to comment.

KKR Snags VMware’s End User Computing Business from Broadcom at $4B Price Tag

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Today, KKR added to that growing total when it announced it was going to acquire Broadcom’s end user computing business for $4 billion. These pieces include VMware Workspace One and VMware Horizon, two remote desktop applications that had been part of the VMware family of products. Almost immediately, Broadcom began slashing costs, starting with laying off over 2000 VMware employees, just a week after the deal was official. KKR managing director Bradley Brown still sees a lot of room for growth moving forward to build out the EUC (end user computing) division into a vibrant stand-alone business. One interesting aspect of this deal is that KKR intends to implement an employee ownership program, giving employees a chance to own equity in the new company alongside KKR.

“Cityscoot Acquired by Cooltra: A Step Forward in Micromobility Consolidation”

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Paris’ commercial court has accepted Cooltra’s offer to acquire Cityscoot. These two companies provide shared electric mopeds that you can unlock and ride to go from one place to another. At the same time, foreign micromobility companies also started to look at Paris as a potentially interesting market, including Cooltra and Yego. Cityscoot, Cooltra and Yego won a tender process organized by the city of Paris to limit mopeds to three operating licenses. Cooltra’s mopeds will also get new stickers to show that Cityscoot and Cooltra are now the same service to ease the transition.

Isovalent: The newly sought-after startup acquired by Cisco for its cloud-hosting capabilities and innovative security measures

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Cisco announced this morning that it intends to acquire Isovalent, a cloud-native security and networking startup that should fit well with the company’s core networking and security strategy. Tetragon is the company’s open source security visibility component. Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of security and collaboration at Cisco said that it is essential for companies to work together where security is concerned. And we need to make sure that we stay open in this market and co-innovate, and I think open source is probably one of the best models to co-innovate with,” Patel said. Cisco has been extremely acquisitive this year with this representing the 11th acquisition by the company, the fifth related to security.

“IBM Acquires StreamSets and WebMethods from Software AG in $2.3B Deal”

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IBM is doling out €2.13 billion ($2.3 billion) to acquire a duo of data integration assets from Germany-based enterprise software company Software AG. The all-cash deal will see IBM take ownership of StreamSets, a data integration platform that Software AG had acquired just last year, and WebMethods, which Software AG bought for more than $500 million back in 2007. Today, news emerged that Silver Lake has now bought 93 percent of Software AG, with plans to delist the company from the public markets imminently. And this is where data integration systems enter the fray, allowing companies to build pipelines that can pool their data regardless of where it resides and in whatever format. And that, effectively, is what IBM is buying in StreamSets and WebMethods, technologies that span the various layers that constitute application and data integration, including API management which is what WebMethods specifically brings to the table.