Clearwire Gets $900 Million, Cancels IPO
Wi-Fi Planet's Eric Griffith looks at today's announcement by Clearwire that it's acquired $900 million in venture capital funding from Intel and Motorola, leading to the cancellation of a planned IPO.
Why the canceled IPO? Simple: they don't need any more money.
"This is Intel's second investment in Clearwire," Griffith writes. "The chip giant is betting on WiMAX in a way that far outstrips the support it gave Wi-Fi, which was an established technology at the time Intel Centrino started to arrive in laptops (the company bet on HomeRF early on). By putting even more money in Clearwire, it increases the chances of mobile WiMAX becoming a market reality that will sell Intel's WiMax chips in the future."
Intel's Sean Maloney says, "Wi-Fi has become an essential part of people's lives. WiMAX is next. It is rapidly moving from a technology initiative to real deployments."