It’s finally official. After months and months of ongoing rumors, SKT/Helio and Virgin have finally come to a conclusion of what they are going to do. Virgin Mobile USA will be entering into the postpaid (contractual) market via Helio, and the Helio name will be turned in to Virgin Mobile. Read Virgin’s press release here, or Helio’s statement here.

I’d also like to clear up some common misconceptions really quick. Helio will not become prepaid. And the Ocean 2 is still on track for release.

Since there are a lot of numbers and tech talk in the press release, we think it’d be easier to just list it all out in a nice and easy to read list:

In addition to the press release, we are also told that Helio House (the corporate offices of Helio) will remain, albeit slightly slimmed down, but products, services, and other teams will still be there.

Jin Woo So, who is the President of Global Business at SKTelecom commented, “This transaction and our long-term, strategic investment in Virgin Mobile USA continue SKT’s strong momentum in the U.S. market, and will allow Helio and Virgin Mobile USA to realize significant synergies and strategic benefits. Virgin Mobile’s scale, strong brand power and expertise in prepaid with Helio’s leading technology, innovative services and experience in postpaid will together form a powerful new platform that will bring new value and flexibility to customers. We believe the strength of the business model will serve to enhance the value we built at Helio, and we look forward to a long-term partnership.”

Helio has also posted up their own statement, which covers just a few topics.

What does all this mean? Basically, our bill may now come from Virgin Mobile USA, and future handsets may have the Virgin Mobile logo, but I wouldn’t expect anything to go downhill from here. Since Virgin Mobile has so many customers, the discounts they will receive on handsets and airtime will be great. You can say goodbye to the little blue flame if you want, but I think the only thing we will be missing is that, the logo and the name Helio. It’s a sad day for everyone, especially those whose jobs were cut (my condolences, we’ve met a lot of awesome people at Helio!), but here’s to hoping that it’s just going to get better from here on out. If need be, we’ve made a difference before, we can do it again.

(thanks for pointing this out, marco.polo)

Earthlink being in a joint venture with SK Telecom for Helio has its advantages. It gives Helio some swagger, you know? Gets’em some love from device manufacturers, and allows them to start off with a bit more foresight into the industry. Oh, and lots and lots of money.

Today, Earthlink confirmed that an agreement has been reached for SK Telecom to invest up to $270 million dollars into Helio. This should just about clear up any worries people had when speculation hit in June that Helio may be getting cut off.

270 million dollars is one heck of an investment, conveying SKTelecoms devotion to this venture. Feel free to invest 1/270th of that into my exotic-race-cars-and-cake fund, SKT!

We look forward to all the good stuff that will come of it over at the Helio House.

Just spotted a new story over at Gizmodo with some details of a new project by SK Telecom.

For those unfamiliar with the company, SK Telecom is half of the a venture with Earthlink, forming a company you may be familiar with - They’re the other half of Helio. They’re also the developers of NATE (The Helio Browser), JUNE (The Multimedia Player), and other projects such as Cyworld.

Their latest efforts seem to be in the field of RC Robotics - A cell-phone controlled Roomba-esque house cleaner, actually. From the pics in the link above, it appears that it has a built in camera, tripling its functionality. It’s a house cleaner, dog exerciser, and a super sneaky spy machine! If you can speak into the phone and have it output your voice from an on-robot speaker, I foresee a lot of fun being had by younger siblings around the world.

SK Telecom has been looking to purchase Sprint, according to Telecoms Korea. Chairman Cho Jung-nam of Korea’s SK Telecom, parent company of Helio, was quoted, “(The negotiations) are still underway.” This comes a couple of weeks after these reports were previously denied by SK Telecom. What does this mean for Helio users if SK Telecom is successful? Hopefully more details arise within the coming weeks.

In other financial news, CNN Money is reporting that Earthlink and SK Telecom have decided that they will inject $30 million more around July 27th, 2007.