Blog Archives

Motorola’s Three Big Mistakes

Getting in on an industry’s ground floor isn’t enough.

Just ask AOL, Netscape and now Motorola (MOT).

The company recently announced it might sell off its cell phone division, dropping the very products that made the company a worldwide name.

It’s a sobering move.

Motorola, after all, developed the world’s first commercial portable cell phone, way back in 1983. It produced iconic, influential designs, including the first flip phone. Just a few years ago, Motorola’s Razr was the world’s top-selling handset.

Read More

No Comments / Category: RCBG Archive

RCBG Announced as Finalist for the Middle-Market M&A Awards

CHICAGO, IL – The M&A Advisor, a leading information publisher for middle-market mergers and acquisitions and finance, announced the 2008 finalists for the 7th Annual Middle-Market M&A Awards Gala. RCBG’s support of the Ceon-Convergys transaction was named a finalist in both the sub-$100 million “Media, Entertainment and Telecom” and “Strategic Acquisition of the Year” categories.

The Middle-Market M&A Awards Gala honors the deal-teams and deal-makers that have closed M&A transactions and firms whose activities set the standard for the industry. 220 finalists representing 66 firms were chosen in 35 categories. Like the Academy Awards, winners will be revealed at the gala, which is being held on Monday, December 15th at the historic Hudson Theatre in New York City.

“It is an honor to recognize the achievements and accomplishments of RCBG in its guideance over Ceon’s acquisition by Convergys,” said Roger Aguinaldo, CEO and Publisher of the M&A Advisor. “RCBG has set an industry standard for their influential deals in the middle-market industry.”

Read More

No Comments / Category: Press Releases

RCBG Client Ceon Acquired by Convergys

CHICAGO, IL – RCBG, a mid-market advisory services firm specialized in TMT transactions [telecom, media, technology], announced the completion of the acquisition of its client, Ceon Corporation, a leader in product lifecycle fulfillment software for communication service providers, by Convergys Corporation, (NYSE: CVG), a global leader in relationship management software. The acquisition will enable service providers to more effectively manage their products’ lifecycles across all network domains, fixed and mobile, and shorten time-to-market for new offers. This emerging field is of growing importance as the potential combinations of voice, data and video content and services continue to multiply.

“We are very pleased to have led and structured this transaction,” said Richard Summer, executive vice president and managing director of RCBG. “Ceon is a terrific company with sophisticated products and world-class management. Paired with Convergys’ extensive platforms and penetration, and exciting strategic direction, this is the package that service providers need to bring order and potential to their product catalogs.”

Read More

No Comments / Category: Press Releases

Rick Fumo Joins RCBG Advisory Board

CHICAGO, IL – RCBG today announced that Rick Fumo will join its advisory board, effective immediately.

“I am very pleased to welcome Rick formally to the firm’s advisory board, after many years of personal and professional support for myself and RCBG”, said William Markey, President of the firm. “Rick’s significant experience in both finance and consulting has been a perfect fit for RCBG’s advisory services and business strategy practices. I look forward to working together in this exciting new capacity.”

Rick Fumo has been both a practitioner and member of management in the financial and consulting businesses for over 35 years. He is presently the CEO of Round Table Group Advisory Board Services LLC, which provides strategic direction and oversight of the Round Table Group’s operations and growth.

Read More

No Comments / Category: Press Releases

A New Blueprint for Cisco

Cordell Ratzlaff wants to expand the tech giant’s reach by designing products customers can love

Cordell Ratzlaff knows firsthand how top-notch product design comes to be. After all, he once worked for Apple (AAPL) and Steve Jobs, heading up the group that created the look and feel of the Macintosh operating system. But when Ratzlaff arrived at Cisco Systems (CSCO) a year ago, he found that instead of a design czar, the company had product-requirement specs. These dreary documents, crafted by engineers and marketers, tend to get crammed with countless features, with little attention paid to how the product will get used. Only at the last minute are industrial designers brought in to make an item user-friendly. Complains Ratzlaff: “It’s a 200-page document that nobody reads, but everyone spends four months arguing about. It’s like hiring the architect while the cement truck is idling outside.”

Read More

No Comments / Category: RCBG Archive

Cisco’s Bold New TV Bet

Until three years ago, Cisco Systems (CSCO) steered clear of cutthroat markets for high-tech consumer gear. It stuck happily to its business of selling high-margin networking equipment to corporations and communications providers.

But Cisco changed tack and in 2003 began a slow, steady march into homes with the purchase of Linksys Group, a maker of routers for consumers. Cisco reckoned it could compensate for lower gross margins on consumer products by keeping operating costs low while cranking up sales. The experiment worked, so Cisco quietly began looking for more deals. In July it went from home offices to the living room by buying tiny KiSS Technology, a maker of networked DVD players (see BW Online, 08/05/05, “Cisco’s Link to Your Living Room”).

Read More

No Comments / Category: RCBG Archive

AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre: Lord of the Rings

Edward E. Whitacre Jr. has a thing for airplane hangars. The chief executive of AT&T (T) has cut numerous acquisitions in these cavernous confines, including his $61 billion purchase of Ameritech. So when Whitacre and BellSouth (BLS) CEO F. Duane Ackerman were getting close to finalizing terms for AT&T’s proposed $67 billion acquisition of BellSouth, the two boarded their corporate jets and flew to a nondescript hangar in Memphis.

No deal lieutenants were there. No lawyers or bankers. Just Ed and Duane. Together, they worked the deal out on notepads and shook hands. “We hammered out most of the details right there,” Whitacre said in an interview. “We had a feeling that now was the time to do this.”

Read More

No Comments / Category: RCBG Archive

Vonage: Spending As Fast As It Can

Enticing customers to switch from their tried-and-true phone service to a newfangled brand costs loads of money, and Jeffrey A. Citron is on one heck of a spending spree. Citron, the 34-year-old chief executive of telecom startup Vonage Holdings Corp., has been burning millions in venture funding to market Vonage’s Net-based phone service. His message is simple: Users with broadband connections can save on their bills by hitching their phone to the Net — through a Vonage hookup. It’s called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, and customers like the economics. Vonage subscriptions have jumped 63% this year, to 700,000. Some 15,000 more jump on board every week.

Read More

No Comments / Category: RCBG Archive

How Motorola Got Its Groove Back

It’s a muggy Friday morning in mid-July and a group of Motorola Inc. (MOT) designers are gathered on the 26th floor in the company’s downtown Chicago design center. They’re looking over prototypes for a new mobile phone when CEO Edward J. Zander pokes his head in the door: “Can I come in?” Dressed casually, in jeans and a polo shirt, he quickly gets down to business. The models on the table are for the Q, a phone with a full QWERTY keyboard designed to compete with the wildly popular BlackBerry, from Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM) (RIM).

Read More

No Comments / Category: RCBG Archive

Commentary: Can The SBC-AT&T Combo Make Money?

To listen to execs at SBC Communications Inc. (SBC) tell it, the company’s $16 billion acquisition of AT&T is an obvious coup. The San Antonio local-phone giant gets AT&T Corp., the nation’s preeminent long-distance network. Along with it comes a who’s who of business clients, not to mention enough savings — $15 billion — to virtually pay for the deal. No wonder SBC CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr. calls the deal “a great opportunity.”

Read More

No Comments / Category: RCBG Archive