by Thom Forbes on Apr 30, 7:46 AM
After years of dalliance - with barbs and darts thrown in between - Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile US and SoftBank Group's Sprint have announced a definitive agreement to wed if federal regulators agree to forever hold their peace. The combined company will be called T-Mobile and will be led by its CEO, John Legere, out of its current headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. There will be a second HQ in Overland Park, Kan., where Sprint has nearly 6,000 employees biting their nails after 500 people were let go last month.
by Thom Forbes on Apr 27, 7:53 AM
Amazon isn't letting much-better-than-well-enough alone. As it announced yesterday that sales were up 43% and its profit had more than doubled to $1.6 billion during the quarter ending March 31, it also disclosed that it would raise the membership to its Prime free-shipping - and, more recently - original-content, video-streaming service to $119 a year.
by Thom Forbes on Apr 26, 7:35 AM
Ford has seen the future - electric and hybrid vehicles - and the near future - trucks, SUVs and sport cars. What is doesn't see much of in coming years is that relic of 20th Century suburbia, the sedan.
by Thom Forbes on Apr 25, 7:48 AM
The Food and Drug Administration yesterday announced a crackdown on the sale of Juul e-cigarettes and similar products to minors, including what it says is has been "large-scale, undercover nationwide blitz" of both online and brick-and-mortar retailers who sell them.
by Thom Forbes on Apr 24, 7:48 AM
If you do a search for Sears this morning, you'll get back two categories of results. The first is a collection of local media accounts about the impending shuttering of its stores in the Maplewood Mall in St. Paul, Minn., the Countryside Mall in Clearwater, Fla., the Columbia Mall in Columbia, Mo., the Mall at Greece Ridge in Rochester N.Y., the Oaks Mall in Gainesville, Fla., and dozens of other locations once patrolled by shoppers in mid-America. The second result tells the tale of the latest way that chairman and CEO Edward S. Lampert and his ESL Investments intend to …
by Thom Forbes on Apr 23, 7:35 AM
The Department of Justice is investigation whether AT&T and Verizon, the cousins who share monopolistic Ma Bell as an ancestor, have colluded with GSMA, the mobile operators trade group, to make it more difficult for consumers to be successfully enticed by, say, T-Mobile come-ons to switch carriers.
by Thom Forbes on Apr 20, 7:48 AM
After barely more than a year heading up troubled Mattel, tech executive Margo Georgiadis is taking the helm at Ancestry, the genealogy company. Entertainment executive Ynon Kreiz, a board member who was already tapped to become chairman of the company next month when former CEO Christopher Sinclair steps down, was named to replace her as news of Georgiadis' impending departure broke in the "Wall Street Journal" yesterday.
by Thom Forbes on Apr 19, 8:32 AM
Procter & Gamble is shelling out $4.2 billion for vitamin and supplement brands such as Femibion, Neurobion, Seven Seas and Bion3 in order to expand its consumer health care business. The acquisition of the consumer health business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany - which is active in 44 countries and includes more than 900 products - was announced this morning. The company is the former parent company of Kenilworth, N.J.-based Merck & Co., which is now independent.
by Thom Forbes on Apr 18, 7:50 AM
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in South Dakota v. Wayfair, et al, No. 17-494, a bland-sounding case name for litigation that could have major repercussions for retailers, state treasuries and consumers' wallets - if not the President's vendetta against Jeff Bezos.
by Thom Forbes on Apr 17, 7:51 AM
There was a time, not so very long ago, when some observers wondered if Netflix' customer relations gaffes - founder and CEO Reed Hastings later accused himself of "arrogance" - were so severe that the company might go the way of the mailed DVDs that had been its original product. Yesterday, it disclosed that its revenue grew 43% year-over-year in the first quarter and it added 7.41 million subscribers worldwide - up 50% year-over-year and trouncing analysts' - and its own - expectations.