geekosystem

When most people think "EA," they think "challenge everything" or "it's in the game;" but EA might be playing a very different kind of game. There have been a number of rumors floating around about an alleged buyout of Electronic Arts, Inc. The story first appeared this morning in the New York Post, which reported, based on unnamed inside sources, that EA is in the early stages of negotiation with private equity firms KKR and Providence Equity Partners regarding a potential buyout. Could this really be happening? Could EA really be sold to an equity firm? Although nothing is certain as of yet, these rumors are certainly making a splash.

After a ten year partnership that started in 2001, Sony has announced that it will buy out Ericsson's share of Sony-Ericsson mobile for 1.47 billion dollars. The purchase mainly consists of “five essential patent families” that Ericsson held. Now that Sony has full control of those patent families, it opens up the opportunity to use them in other, non-mobile devices, of which Sony makes a couple. This isn't exactly coming out of left field considering rumors of the buy out have been floating around for a while now. Apparently, Sony sees this as an opportunity to catch up with its rivals, who are a little bit ahead at the moment. Ericsson sees this as an opportunity as well. In a release, Ericsson President Hans Vestberg said that they would use this opportunity to "enhance [their] focus on enabling connectivity for all devices, using [their] R&D and industry leading patent portfolio to realize a truly connected world."