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Engadget: Mergers and acquisitions can sometimes take some unexpected turns, but that’s not the case with Garmin’s purchase of former rival Navigon. The company said last month that the acquisition would be complete by “late July” and now, on July 26th, it’s announced that the deal is in fact done. There’s still no financial details being disclosed, but execs from both companies are expectedly tossing around words like “excited” and “pleased,” and they’re promising plenty of integration and new opportunities going forward. Obviously, they’re betting they’ll be better as partners than rivals in the face of mounting challenges.

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Engadget: News of Garmin’s plans to acquire Navigon leaked out earlier this month, but we now have official word that the GPS giant will bring the smaller German company under its wing beginning in late July. Pending regulatory approval, the deal would have Navigon, one of the largest GPS brands in Europe, functioning as a subsidiary of Garmin, which has a much stronger presence in North America. The companies were unable to reveal any financial information, though previous estimates priced the deal in the “mid-double-digit million” Euro range. Navigon says it’s not ready to share any details concerning the acquisition, but we’re unlikely to see major effects in the US, where the company has smartphone apps but hasn’t sold dedicated GPS devices in several years.

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TG Daily: Is the venerable Steve Jobs and his trusty band of acolytes plotting a hostile takeover or acquisition of Sony with Club Cupertino’s $51 billion war chest?

Although many analysts doubt that such a deal would ever take place, reports of a potential acquisition sent Sony stocks up nearly three percent at one point.

Unsurprisingly, Sony has declined to comment on the rumors, which were kickstarted by a recent Barron’s report endorsing the plausibility of an acquisition engineered and executed by Apple.

As AppleInsider’s Sam Oliver notes, another possible source for the frenetic rumors may be a recent Bloomberg interview with former Apple CEO John Sculley.

“I remember (Sony co-founder) Akio Morita gave us one of the first Sony Walkmans. None of us had ever seen anything like that before, because there had never been a product like that,” Sculley told Bloomberg.

“This was 25 years ago and Steve was fascinated by it. The first thing he did was take it apart, and he looked at every single part. How the fit and finish was done, how it was built.”

However, despite Steve’s obvious admiration for Sony, Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw, remains convinced that Apple has absolutely no intention of buying the Japanese-based company.

“We [really] don’t see any acquisitions of any size,” Kumar told Reuters.

“[Firstly], Apple is happy to keep its cash under the pillow. [And secondly], it would [obviously] be a [clear] cultural miss.”

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VNUNet: Digital map provider Tele Atlas wants TomTom to match Wednesday’s takeover offer by Garmin.

Garmin and TomTom are the world largest and second largest developers of personal navigation devices. TomTom launched a €2bn bid in July to acquire Tele Atlas, but was outbid on 31 October by a €2.3bn offer from Garmin.

Contractually, Tele Atlas is allowed to cancel the July agreement if it receives a better offer, but only after allowing TomTom to match the offer.

If TomTom does match the offer, Tele Atlas intends to recommend its share holders to accept the bid over Garmin’s.

TomTom did not respond to a request for comment. The Dutch firm has until 8 November to raise its offer.

TomTom and Garmin consider Tele Atlas a crucial asset. Tele Atlas is the world’s second largest provider of digital maps after Navteq, which was acquired by Nokia in October for €5.4bn.

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Wall Street Journal: Finnish mobile-phone giant Nokia last night was deep in discussions to purchase navigation-software maker Navteq, people familiar with the matter said, marking what would be one of its largest-ever corporate acquisitions.

Chicago-based Navteq is one of the world’s leaders in electronic mapping, which enables in-vehicle navigation devices and a new generation of mobile-phone applications used for shopping, emergency services and advertising.

The two sides have been in deep discussions over the past few weeks, said the people familiar with the matter. It was still possible those discussions could crumble over a series of last-minute issues. A Navteq spokesman didn’t return a request for comment. Nokia representatives were unavailable for comment.

Nokia’s interest in Navteq represents a vigorous move into the mobile-services arena, where Nokia has already been building a suite of products around games and music. These types of services have been in development for years by mobile-phone makers like Nokia, as well as by telecom service providers. Around the telecommunications world, there is a growing sense that these services are finally ready for wide-scale consumer adoption.

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InfoSyncWorld: Nokia has acquired a company called Twango that provides a media sharing solution for organizing and sharing photos, videos and other personal media. Nokia aims to offer its customers an easier way to share multimedia content through their desktop and mobile devices, thus taking a stab at offering social media services.

According to Nokia, the Twango acquisition is a concrete step towards the company’s rather offensive vision of providing seamless access to information, entertainment and social networks – at anytime, anywhere, from any connected device, in any way that you choose. 

Twango supports multiple media types and offers an array of options for people to manage, share and repurpose their personal media content. Their solution also offers a platform that allows developers to create companion applications, connect with mobile devices and integrate with other Web services. The latter may be crucial for Nokia’s acquisition to be successful though, as building a popular social media service aren’t as straightforward as selling ringtones and wallpapers.

Whether Twango will be seamlessly integrated in phones outside of Nokia’s own portfolio, is not known at the time of writing. However, that’s not likely, as manufacturers such as Apple and LG seems to be placing its bets on Google’s YouTube for video sharing at least.

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TMCnet: Communications semiconductor company Broadcom has agreed to acquire Global Locate, a provider of industry-leading GPS technology to the global mobile wireless industry.

Broadcom expects to leverage Global Locate’s products and services, particularly GPS, as those products and location based services are becoming more popular to mobile owners worldwide.

“With the acquisition of Global Locate, Broadcom will be the only semiconductor supplier in the world with top-tier customers in Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, FM radio and GPS, four of the key wireless technologies now being added to next generation mobile phones,” said Robert A. Rango, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom’s Wireless Connectivity Group, in a statement.

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