Logo for ZEE5, an over-the-top platform of Zee Entertainment Enterprises.
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Indian media conglomerate Zee Entertainment on Wednesday said it urged Sony to revive their blockbuster merger and has sued the Japanese tech giant over the deal’s termination.
Sony earlier this week called of the transaction with Zee Entertainment, which is reported to be worth $10 billion.
A major media presence in India, Zee owns several TV channels, a movie studio and a streaming service locally.
Sony is seeking a $90 million breakup fee from Zee over the collapsed merger, according to Zee, which said the company is pursuing this sum due to “alleged breaches by ZEEL [Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited] of the terms of [merger cooperation agreement], invoking arbitration and seeking interim reliefs against ZEEL.”
In a filing, Zee said it denies that Sony is entitled to call off the merger agreement and that its claim for a termination fee is “legally untenable and has no basis whatsoever.”
Sony is “in default of their obligations to give effect to and implement the Scheme,” Zee said, adding that it calls on Sony to withdraw its termination and to confirm that it will respect its obligations by coming back to complete the deal.
Sony’s European representatives were not immediately available for a comment when contacted by CNBC on Wednesday.
Zee was reportedly unable to seek a penalty fee over the deal termination, because of the time point when Sony called off the transaction.
On Wednesday, the Indian media firm said that it “categorically refutes all claims and assertions made by Culver Max and BEPL regarding alleged breaches of the MCA by the Company, including their claims for the termination fee, and reserves all its rights in this matter.”
The company said it is “evaluating all available options and basis the guidance received from the Board and will take all necessary steps to safeguard the long-term interests of its stakeholders, including by taking appropriate legal action.”
Zee has initiated legal action to contest Sony’s claims in arbitration proceedings to be held before the Singapore International Arbitration Center, the company said.
A merger of Zee with Sony’s India subsidiary, Culver Max Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., and its entity Bangla Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. (BEPL), would have created a potential content and entertainment powerhouse in the South Asian country.
Sony would have gained access to Zee’s local content, giving it a bigger footing in the lucrative Indian entertainment market. Zee, which faces intense competition at home from players like Disney and Reliance Industries, would have benefited from the backing of Sony.
Zee said its terms during the negotiations included the stepdown of CEO Punit Goenka and the appointment of a board director of the merged company.
— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.
Correction: India is a South Asian country. An earlier version misidentified it.
A general view of the Microsoft office building is seen in Cologne, Germany, on November 18, 2025.
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Microsoft said Thursday that it will increase the prices of Office productivity software subscriptions for commercial and government clients on July 1.
The company’s Office applications, which include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, have been facing increased competition in recent years from Google.
“We are continuously investing and innovating our platform for the future,” Nicole Herskowitz, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365 and Copilot, wrote in a blog post. “In the last year, we released more than 1,100 features across Microsoft 365, Security, Copilot, and SharePoint.” The new features have added value to the suites, she wrote.
Price hikes for commercial Office subscriptions have been infrequent. In 2022, Microsoft raised prices of its productivity bundles for the first time since launching the original Office 365 subscriptions in 2011. Microsoft changed the name of Office 365 to Microsoft 365 in 2020. In January, Microsoft announced a price hike for consumer Office bundles.
Microsoft offers Office 365 subscriptions for commercial use that include access to its productivity applications, along with higher-priced Microsoft 365 subscriptions that also include Windows operating system updates.
Here’s a breakdown of the commercial price changes:
For small and medium-sized businesses, Microsoft 365 Business Basic will cost $7 per person per month, up from $6.
Microsoft 365 Business Standard will be available for $14, up from $12.50.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium will continue to cost $22.
The entry-level Office 365 E1 offering for enterprises will still be sold for $10.
Office 365 E3 will jump 13% to $26 from $23.
The Microsoft 365 E3 package including Windows for enterprises will rise 8% to $39 from $36.
The full-featured Microsoft 365 E5 will increase to $60 from $57.
For front-line workers such as cashiers, Microsoft 365 F1 subscriptions will cost $3, up from $2.25.
Microsoft 365 F3 will be available for $10, up from $8.
The U.S. Defense Department and other government clients will face similar percentage price increases.
The various subscriptions all exclude access to the $30 Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on that draws on generative artificial intelligence models. Some companies have started widely rolling out Copilot, while others have held off on expanding their deployments, CNBC reported last week.
In many cases, organizations receive discounts off of list prices, but Microsoft has cut back on direct volume deals for some types of customers.
Almost 43% of Microsoft’s $77.7 billion in fiscal first-quarter revenue came from its Productivity and Businesses Processes segment, which includes Office. In October, the company said revenue from Microsoft 365 commercial cloud services jumped 17%, while seats increased 6%, mainly from products targeting small and medium-sized businesses and front-line workers.
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a “Morning Meeting” livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here’s a recap of Thursday’s key moments. 1. Stocks were little changed Thursday as Wall Street overlooked mixed labor market data. U.S. layoff announcements in November pushed the year’s total above 1.1 million, the highest level since 2020, according to job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Initial jobless claims, however, came in lower than expected for the week ending Nov. 29. Despite the muted session, Jim Cramer says the market’s still overbought. That means we’re not looking to put new money to work right now. Meta Platforms was an outperformer in the portfolio. Shares jumped 4% after Bloomberg reported that the Facebook parent plans to make deep cuts to its metaverse unit. 2. Costco reported U.S. sales for November that were slightly weaker than the month before, sending shares down 3%. Company-wide same-store sales, however, accelerated last month, up 6.9% from October’s 6.6% gain. The stock’s weakness Thursday doesn’t present a buying opportunity just yet, according to Jim, because its multiple is still too high. “There are periods of underperformance in Costco, but if you look at the longer term, it’s one of the greatest performers of all time,” he added. 3. Salesforce stock was up after management posted a huge quarterly earnings beat and raised guidance Wednesday evening. The company missed slightly on revenue. We liked all the paid deals Agentforce, Salesforce’s AI-powered platform, pulled in this quarter. Still, generative AI adoption continues to pose a risk to Salesforce’s seat-based business model. CEO Marc Benioff will be on “Mad Money” on Thursday. 4. Stocks covered in Thursday’s rapid fire at the end of the video were: Snowflake , Five Below , Hormel Foods , PayPal , and Kroger. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long META, CRM, COST. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
People walk next to the Google Cloud logo, during the 2025 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, March 4, 2025.
Albert Gea | Reuters
Google Cloud announced Thursday a multi-year partnership with artificial intelligence coding startup Replit, giving the search giant fresh firepower against the coding products of rivals, including Anthropic and Cursor.
Under the partnership, Replit will expand usage of Google Cloud services, add more of Google’s models onto its platform, and support AI coding use cases for enterprise customers.
Google will continue to be Replit’s primary cloud provider.
Replit, founded nearly a decade ago, is a leader in the fast-growing AI vibe-coding space.
In September, the startup closed a $250 million funding round that almost tripled its valuation to $3 billion, and said it grew annualized revenue from $2.8 million to $150 million in less than a year.
And new data from Ramp, a fintech company that also tracks enterprise spending on its platform, found that Replit had the fastest new customer growth among software vendors. Google, meanwhile, is adding new customers and spending faster than any other company on Ramp’s platform.
Put those together, and you get a clearer picture of why both companies see opportunity.
Read more CNBC tech news
Vibe-coding emerged as a phenomenon earlier this year after AI models became more adept at generating code using only natural language prompts, allowing users with little experience in programming to use AI to create functioning code and potentially full applications.
Anthropic announced on Tuesday that its product Claude Code hit $1 billion in run-rate revenue. The coding startup Cursor, in November, closed a funding round that valued it at $29.3 billion, while also announcing it reached $1 billion in annualized revenue.
Replit, which bills itself as an easy-to-use product for non-developers, could help drive Google Cloud adoption among enterprises, and expand the reach of its AI efforts beyond traditional engineers.
Google is riding on the momentum of its new top-scoring model, Gemini 3. Shares of Alphabet have risen more than 12% since its debut.