From a legal perspective, the announcement appears to me to be an "option contract". That is, it is an agreement to permit the parties to enter into an agreement by a date certain on terms that will be preserved until that date.
Of course, the bashers on this board (and we all know who they are, grandma and stehwhatever) would be ranting and raving even if the proper legal terminology had been used in the press release, since they're not interested in truth.