Technology - Google News

Preview: The Fitbit Versa Smartwatch
Walmart to Offer Home Delivery of Groceries to 100 US Cities
Trump's sudden Broadcom-Qualcomm ruling could put a serious chill on cross-border M&A

Posted: 13 Mar 2018 09:52 AM PDT

On Tuesday, Fitbit announced the latest addition to its fleet of wearable fitness trackers: the $199 Versa. The Versa appears to be Fitbit's attempt at a quiver-of-one smartwatch—the sort of device that tracks both your workouts and your overall health, looks fashionable enough to wear everywhere, and does it all at a pretty affordable price.

The Versa has many of the same core functions as Fitbit's first full-featured smartwatch, the Ionic: fitness tracking, wrist-based heart-rate detection, guided on-screen workouts, and an automatic recognition system that knows when you've begun exercising without the need to press Start. It maintains fan-favorite lifestyle features like sleep tracking, breathing exercises, resting heart rate, music, and text, call, and e-mail integration (the latter is available for Android only). Like the Ionic, it's also waterproof down to 164 feet.

But the Versa will retail for $100 less. Why the price difference? Where the Ionic has built-in GPS, the Versa has "connected GPS," which means that it tracks distance only when paired with a smartphone. However, the Versa does offer a few things the Ionic does not, including a new dashboard, called Fitness Today, that collects activity stats, workout history, and health information, then uses that data to give you daily advice and inspiration. (I have yet to get my hands on a working model of the Versa, but one is on the way. We'll post a full review of the new features after further testing.)

Product Render — The Versa is the first fitness watch to offer women-specific health-tracking. (Courtesy Fitbit)

Arguably, the Versa's most interesting capability is what Fitbit calls female health tracking. This cluster of functions allows users to record menstrual cycles and symptoms, among other, more health-oriented stats, and to keep tabs on fertility windows. Fitbit claims that its new app will allow wearers to see how their weight and sleep patterns change throughout their menstrual cycle. The Versa isn't the first to include this kind of functionality—Bellabeat makes a jewelry-inspired women's health tracker that logs menstrual cycles, among other things. But Fitbit's is the first fitness watch to offer a broad menu of women-specific health tracking.

I'm not sure yet how I feel about taking training and reproductive advice from a watch. I'm much more inclined to trust a human—say, a running coach or gynecologist. But I'm intrigued by how tracked data could inform the advice I'm already getting from the good old-fashioned people in my life.

Fitbit is also launching its first kid-specific product, Fitbit Ace. The device will count steps, activity time, and sleep stats, provide reminders to move, and reward users with merit badges for goals met and challenges won. A family-account option in the app will allow parents to track their kids' activity patterns and will give kids their own app interface, which displays only certain types of data. (They won't see calories or body fat, for instance, just activity time, number of steps, and badges earned.)

The new launches seem to indicate an attempt by Fitbit to do what the Apple Watch does—integrate sport and lifestyle tracking into a device you never have to take off—at a more affordable price and in a family-friendly package. I look forward to getting my hands on the Versa to see how it fits in with my daily life, both athletically and otherwise.

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Walmart to Offer Home Delivery of Groceries to 100 US Cities

Posted: 14 Mar 2018 06:12 AM PDT

Walmart said on Wednesday that it planned to offer home delivery of groceries bought online in 100 cities in the United States, as it seeks to compete with rival retailers, led by Amazon, amid an accelerating campaign for control of America's kitchen cupboards.

Walmart has invested heavily in its online offerings in hopes of keeping pace with changing consumer tastes, but stumbled in last year's fourth quarter when it experienced a 23 percent slowdown in online sales-growth — less than half the growth rate in each of the three previous quarters.

Walmart currently provides home delivery of groceries bought online in six markets. In its announcement on Wednesday, the company said the service would be available to more than 40 percent of households in the United States by the end of 2018.

"We're saving customers time by leveraging new technology, and connecting all the parts of our business into a single seamless shopping experience: great stores, easy pickup, fast delivery, and apps and websites that are simple to use," Greg Foran, the chief executive of Walmart U.S., said in a news release.

Walmart charges a $9.95 fee for its grocery delivery service, and requires a minimum order of $30.

In another effort to bolster online sales, Walmart said earlier this year that it planned to accelerate its web-based grocery business by increasing the number of stores where customers can order food online and pick it up at stores. That service, available at 1,200 stores, will expand to 1,000 more stores later this year.

The announcement that Walmart was expanding its home delivery service came less than a year after Amazon acquired the upscale grocery chain Whole Foods for $13.4 billion.

That deal has prompted other players in the grocery industry to expand their home-delivery offerings.

In December, Target said it would acquire the online same-day delivery service Shipt for $550 million in cash. On Monday, Kroger said that it would increase the number of cities where it offers home delivery of groceries through Instacart, a same-day service.

Amazon said this month that it would increase to six the number of cities where it offers same-day delivery of groceries.

Elsewhere in the grocery sector, the supermarket operator Albertsons said last month that it would buy the remnants of the Rite Aid drugstore chain, in hopes the in-store pharmacies would increase foot traffic and encourage customers to buy other items.

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Trump's sudden Broadcom-Qualcomm ruling could put a serious chill on cross-border M&A

Posted: 14 Mar 2018 06:41 AM PDT

President Donald Trump's unprecedented decision to block Broadcom's attempt to acquire Qualcomm — even before a deal had been reached — will deter companies from looking for growth beyond national borders, experts say.

Broadcom officially withdrew its bid Wednesday.

Trump said he had "credible evidence" that the deal had the potential to threaten the national security of the United States. Broadcom is based in Singapore and in California and has ties with China. Qualcomm is based in San Diego.

Trump's decision to block Broadcom's $117 billion bid could change how all companies, in all sectors, view cross-border deals, said Frank Aquila, M&A partner at Sullivan & Cromwell.

"This is going to make cross-border transactions much less likely to happen in certain sensitive sectors," said Aquila.

"But beyond that, it could very well have a chilling effect on a range of transactions in any number of sectors. We know that certain countries have staked out claims to certain companies that have no national security risks, just because they're national champions or culture carriers. The United States has always considered this to be antithetical to free trade and open markets. We've never thought of blocking those sort of deals. Now that is not entirely clear."

Pre-emptively stopping a deal of this magnitude before a deal agreement marks a turning point — at least while Trump is president — in how the U.S. views foreign deals, Aquila said.

Other countries have been more openly political in their reactions toward recent acquisitions.

Members of the French government opposed General Electric's 2014 bid for Alstom before revisions to the $17 billion deal. U.S. paints and coatings maker PPG Industries walked away from its unsolicited attempt to acquire rival Amsterdam-based Akzo Nobel for $30 billion last year after hostility from Dutch politicians. Toshiba's 2017 sale process of its memory chip business was heavily influenced by Japanese government forces that didn't want to lose control of a national jewel — particularly not to a Chinese-based company such as Foxconn.

But the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and other U.S. antitrust bodies have previously attempted to make rulings based on legal precedent instead of politics.

"To have a pre-emptive decision of this sort is inconsistent with how transactions have always been evaluated in the U.S.," said Aquila. "That is very disconcerting. It is a populist approach to what should be an economic and regulatory determination."

AT&T and others have also accused the Trump administration of using politics as part of its rationale to block another megadeal, AT&T's $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. AT&T said last week it no longer plans to accuse the government of political bias, tied to Trump's contempt for CNN, as a motivation for blocking the deal.

AT&T plans to argue that its takeover should be allowed in a trial versus the U.S. government that begins March 19.

In a break with precedent, Qualcomm asked for CFIUS review on its own. Previously, both companies in a transaction would approach the regulatory board together.

That means more CEOs and boards will be prepared to deal with the regulatory body if they want to attempt cross-border deals, said Bill Curtin, global head of M&A at Hogan Lovells.

Whereas companies may have shied away from "poking the bear" of CFIUS before, they may come to the conclusion that CFIUS could be a sticking point in their deal no matter what, he said.

"Broadcom didn't have a voice in this process," Curtin added.

"They're not a Chinese company, but CFIUS felt like Qualcomm's role in the development of 5G wireless was so important that it wasn't comfortable with Broadcom affecting its R&D, and having it filled by the Chinese. That is such a multifaceted mandate of what CFIUS can look at. There's too much here to pigeonhole this deal in the convenient confines of saying this is an isolated hostile transaction."

The U.S. government may also search for methods to encourage investment in areas including 5G as future CFIUS mitigations, said John Carlin, a Morrison & Foerster national security lawyer.

"It's hard to force a company to innovate," Carlin said. "It's particularly tricky because a company can argue that blocking a deal is preventing that company from innovating."

Cross-border software, communications and semiconductor deals will immediately come under heavier scrutiny, Aquila said.

Other chip deals in progress, such as Marvell's bid for Cavium, could also draw CFIUS questions, notes Benchmark analyst Gary Mobley. Marvell is domiciled in Hamilton, Bermuda.

But even industries like entertainment, which harbor no national security issues, could become untouchable to foreign buyers if M&A becomes trade war territory, Aquila said.

U.S. companies may also have a harder time finding targets in other countries if the Trump administration is seen as promoting and protecting American interests.

A telling response will be whether China's Ministry of Commerce agrees to allow Qualcomm's pending deal for Dutch chipmaker NXP.

In an ironic twist, after the U.S. blocked Broadcom's attempt to buy Qualcomm for national security risks tied to China, China's regulatory agency MOFCOM could scupper Qualcomm's attempt to consolidate NXP — a deal Qualcomm used to fend off Broadcom's advances. Qualcomm is still awaiting MOFCOM's decision after obtaining approval from all other international regulatory agencies.

"The question now is what happens with NXP?" Curtin said. "If MOFCOM does block it, it probably won't be so courteous as to explain the reasons why they're nixing it."

If China hits back, the White House could respond in turn, Curtin said.

There is so much momentum for M&A that the overall pace should continue to be strong, even if some cross-border deals are abandoned, Curtin said.

The next big focal point should be the court's ruling on AT&T-Time Warner, which may help clear up what's become a confusing regulatory picture.

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