finance

Earlier this month, Sprint Nextel's leadership team sat dumbfounded on stage as an increasingly contentious audience of investors questioned the company's strategy of pursuing its own 4G network alone.

The investor presentation, which came mere days after the unveiling of the iPhone 4S, was among the most raucous in recent memory. The agitation only grew when the executives refused to talk about the financial impact of the carrying the iPhone, which came at a hefty price. The meeting ended with the team, led by Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, making a beeline for the exit.

"What we regret … Read more

PageOnce is taking on Intuit (both Mint and Quicken) with an upgrade to its finance service that allows bill payment from your smartphone. Few other personal finance services offer bill pay, and none offer the detail that PageOnce does.

PageOnce dives into the detail on your bills to show you not just what you own on a bill, but for what: How many minutes on your smartphone bill; All your credit card charges. And this is without signing up for electronic billing at your bank or service provider, so you'll still get your paper bills in the mail as … Read more

Home security company Vivint is entering the solar panel installation business with financing model that avoids the upfront cost.

The company, which used to be called APX Alarms, said today it is offering financing for solar through a plan in which the panels are installed for free and consumers purchase the electricity they produce at a 20 percent discount from the retail electricity rate.

Vivint Solar has secured $75 million in financing from US Bancorp that it will use for about 2,400 installations, as a complement to its home security and home automation services. Vivint has started in New … Read more

Every year, Intuit releases a new version of Quicken. Most years, I interview some honcho at Intuit who's running the personal finance division and we talk about where the category is going. The meetings got a lot more interesting a few years ago, when Mint threw a monkey wrench into the personal finance software market, which led to Intuit acquiring Mint and bringing in its CEO, Aaron Patzer, to re-light the Quicken product line. (You can download Quicken Premier, Quicken Home Business, and Quicken Deluxe from CNET Download.com.)

Patzer came in with grand visions and ideas to make … Read more

Google has created a $75 million fund with Clean Power Finance, a company that offers financing for residential solar panel installations.

The investment will enable 10,000 homeowners to install solar panels on their homes.

The upfront cost is the largest obstacle to installing residential solar panels, and solar installation companies don't always have the means to offer financing. Clean Power Finance seeks to overcome that hurdle by offering installers a way to provide financing to potential customers, while also giving companies without ties to the solar community a way to invest in the industry.

Google, the investor in … Read more

OneRoof Solar is offering a new twist on the solar lease: when you replace your roof, you can get integrated solar panels with no incremental cost.

The company today announced it raised a $50 million series A round led by the solar arm of Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group. The company also said it has secured the funding to finance solar installations at residential customers.

Solar leases, which are available in about 20 states now, have quickly become a popular way to have solar photovoltaic panels installed. Instead of purchasing the panels, homeowners pay a monthly fee and the solar installer … Read more

Microblogging provider Tumblr has raised $85 million in a new round of financing.

Greylock Partners and Insight Venture Partners led the financing round, according to a statement sent to CNET today. Virgin Group chief Richard Branson, along with Spark Capital and Sequoia Capital, also contributed to the round. Tumblr did not disclose its valuation, but the company said that it plans to use the cash to "continue to scale our business and give real focus to the further development of Tumblr."

The New York Times earlier reported on the story.

Tumblr's $85 million in new cash is … Read more

SolarCity said today that the Department of Energy has not been able to finalize a loan guarantee for a project to install rooftop solar panels on military bases, blaming the political furor caused by bankrupt solar company Solyndra.

Earlier this month, the Department of Energy announced a $344 million conditional loan guarantee agreement with SolarCity to install solar photovoltaic panels at Department of Defense bases in 33 states. The distributed solar project, called SolarStrong, would have doubled the number of residential solar installations in the U.S. and would have been the largest rooftop solar project.

The DOE told SolarCity … Read more

Clearwire is in talks with a number of carriers, including AT&T and Verizon Wireless, about eventually providing wireless capacity with its planned 4G LTE network.

"We're talking to everybody," Clearwire Chief Executive Eric Prusch said in an interview with CNET today.

Prusch didn't specifically name the two, but only said the company was talking to multiple companies when asked about AT&T and Verizon. The company's decision to move to LTE, a more widely accepted standard of 4G used by other U.S. carriers, has helped spur new discussions.

"The level … Read more