Verizon battles Silicon Valley on two fronts

Today: Verizon Wireless fights Google on addition of Google Wallet on new Samsung phone as Verizon Communications reportedly plans Netflix rival. As well: Hewlett-Packard goes against announced strategy to buy cloud company, EU investigates Apple's e-book pricing for antitrust issues, and Xbox update delayed.

Verizon's two sister companies, Verizon Communications and Verizon Wireless, waded into separate tiffs with Silicon Valley companies Tuesday.

Verizon Wireless asked Google not to disseminate its payment system, Google Wallet, on the before long-to-be-released Android-based Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone, Google confirmed Tuesday.

Verizon Communications, which co-owns Verizon Wireless with British cellphone company Vodafone, is reportedly setting its sights on a different Silicon Valley company -- Netflix.

Reuters reported Tuesday that Verizon Communications -- which provides telephone, broadband Internet and cable-television services -- plans to introduce a streaming-video service to rival the Los Gatos company.

The service

The service would only be offered in markets that Verizon doesn't currently serve with its FiOS cable/broadband subscriptions, which includes the Bay Area. Reuters' anonymous sources said the content offered wouldn't be as broad as Netflix, but, with one source saying it could be just movies or children's programming.

HP announced that it has agreed to acquire Germany's Hiflex, a printing-services company that utilizes cloud computing, nevertheless declined to provide the purchase price. In her previous statements, she put a cap on purchases at $500 million or $1 billion.

Apple faces an antitrust probe from the European Union on its dealings with the major book publishers on setting prices for e-books.

The European Commission is investigating a change in the pricing of e-books that occurred as Cupertino-based Apple prepared to launch the first iPad and the iBookstore in 2010. Apple allowed publishers set prices consumers pay, instead of paying for the merchandise and selling it to consumers at a price the Apple set.

"The Commission has concerns that these practices may breach EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices," the regulator said in a statement.

A class-action lawsuit in the United States claims that Apple colluded with publishers in an illegal fashion to strike a blow at Amazon, which sells the popular Kindle line of e-readers and tablets.

"Apple believed that it needed to neutralize the Kindle when it entered the e-book market with its own e-reader, the iPad," law firm Hagens Berman said in its suit.

The 60-Second Business Break

Check in weekday afternoons for the 60-Second Business Break, a summary of news from Mercury News staff writers, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News and other wire services. Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876; follow him at Twitter.com/mercbizbreak.