Tech Business Roundup: Netflix Alone at the Dance, Youku’s Big Merger

Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) can’t seem to find a suitor. The online movie provider has reportedly had talks with prominent pay-TV providers, in its quest to add itself to their line-ups, but Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), DirecTV (NASDAQ:DTV) and Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH) say they aren’t into it.

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A new name, Youku Tudou Inc., will emerge from the merger of Youku.com (NYSE:YOKU) and Tudou Holdings (NASDAQ:TUDO), and it will be a major online provider of videos. The deal will be all in stocks, with Youko holders receiving 71.5 percent and their Toudo counterparts getting the balance.

Barry Randall says that “LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) is only a carefully-worded Facebook (FB) press release away from being Monster (NYSE:MWW)”, citing the number of persons who have been hired via Facebook. Or, if buyers want a “high-growth, high volatility, high private equity name”, they might look at Zillow (NASDAQ:Z), which also posesses LinkedIn’s benefits, without its risks.

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In an interview, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) design chief Jony Ive says “Most of our competitors are interested in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals. A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline…” This was said to be aimed at Apple’s rivals who ‘obsess over spec sheets’.

Quest Software (NASDAQ:QSFT) agrees to a $23 a share buyout price with Venture Partners, but its shares are considerably above that price Monday. JPMorgan speculates that higher offers for Quest could appear (BMC Software, Dell, Oracle, IBM, and EMC), and that its maintenance revenue stream is worth $5 per share more than the agreement price, by itself.

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To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Lawson at staff.writers@wallstcheatsheet.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Damien Hoffman at editors@wallstcheatsheet.com