Xero Really About To Be Bought? But, Why?

from the what-value-does-it-have? dept

You may recall the bizarre tale of Xero Mobile, a company that was formed out of the ashes of Gizmondo, the UK gaming handheld provider whose spectacular failure revealed all sorts of sketchy details involving executives taking ridiculous salaries and buying themselves luxury cars (which one former Gizmondo exec famously crashed last year). There were all sorts of questions about whether or not Xero was simply an attempt to repeat Gizmondo, which lost investors an awful lot of money with stories of potential riches from a handheld gaming device that would make money through ads. Xero's plan was almost identical, though it would support mobile phone service via ads, rather than a gaming device. Xero followed Gizmondo's strategy, raising a lot of money, and even doing a reverse merger to get its shares publicly traded. Of course, the company never seemed to get very far, other than the occasional highly promotional press release. The latest news, however, is that the company may get bought by UK mobile content provider Rok. This comes after another rumored acquisition a year ago. Of course, it's still not clear why anyone would want to buy the company. It doesn't appear that it ever launched a service -- so there's no clear benefit at all to buying it. As with Gizmondo, you have to wonder if there's really more to this story than what's coming out in the press.

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