Tag: ACQUISITION

Facebook has plunked down between $60 and 70 million on mobile app developer Snaptu, which creates Java-based applications for feature phones. Snaptu had been hand-picked by Facebook to develop its non-smartphone app, and the acquisition means Snaptu will now be part of the internal team. Snaptu's reach goes beyond Facebook, of course: the company's mobile app also integrates with Twitter, Picasa, ...

In August of 2010, Intel announced it was purchasing McAfee for a cool $7.7 billion in cash. The deal had been held up by U.S. and EU regulators ever since, but the transaction has finally been given the all-clear. The two companies plan to develop security solutions which more tightly integrate hardware and software, a move both claim is imperative in today's rapidly evolving threat ...

Over on its website, SayNow says it's "reinventing the phone call." With Google doing its best to reinvent the phone carrier, the two certainly seem like a good match -- which is probably why Google decided to purchase the startup. SayNow made a name for itself by offering to connect music fans with their idols, including artists like 50 Cent, Trisha Yearwood, and the Jonas Brothers -- who have ...

Skype has announced it will acquire mobile video service Qik. In a blog post (and accompanying video) Skype CEO Tony Bates said that Qik's technology and team of 60 employees will complement Skype's existing video calling service. Qik is a cross-platform mobile app that can broadcast and save video from a wide variety of mobile devices. It currently has over 5 million users. The two most ...

One of the biggest names in social gaming has decided to make a move into the application space. Zynga -- who brought the immensely popular Farmville to Facebook -- has purchased Flock, one of the first Web browsers to offer an integrated social networking experience. Zynga's massive userbase could certainly give Flock a boost -- especially since it's a foregone conclusion that Zynga users are ...

It's been quite a ride for the crew at Immunet -- from their launch in August 2009 to the release of version 2 of their cloud antivirus software last year. Now, they're going to be joining forces with Sourcefire -- a cybersecurity outfit who has just acquired the upstart Canadian company. Sourcefire develops such products as ClamAV and Snort, a widely-used intrusion prevention and detection app. ...

Google has announced that it's acquired Phonetic Arts, a UK-based company that synthesizes voices for games. Phonetic Arts has software that can convert recordings of a human voice into a pretty accurate automated voice, which has plenty of applications outside the gaming world. Sounds like a good match for Google, which does a lot of voice recognition -- in Google Voice voicemail and YouTube ...

AOL might be poised to acquire Brizzly creator Thing Labs, according to TechCrunch. Brizzly is a popular social client that started out as an alternate Web interface for Twitter, but has since expanded with an iPhone client and a Campfire-esque chatroom called Brizzly Picnics. Rumors were flying over the summer that Foursquare might be buying Brizzly, and Thing Labs' Jason Shellen had fun ...

Reports abound this morning that Microsoft may be taking a look at Symantec. After Intel's unexpected purchase of McAfee recently, prevailing sentiment is that other major players may all make similar moves. The rumors stem from analyst Katherine Eggbert's statement that "without a strategic sale or break-up near-term, a high-level management change may perhaps be the next step demanded by anxious ...

Holy acquisitions, Batman! While most of the IT guys I know aren't fans of McAfee -- especially after that teensy little definition screwup which resulted in thousands of unwanted desktop support hours -- Intel is obviously a fan. In a press release this morning, the IT behemoth has announced that they're swallowing up McAfee for the princely sum of $7.7 billion dollars. Whether guys like ...

Just recently, it seemed like Palm was utterly doomed. Despite releasing the Palm Pre and the actually-kinda-cool WebOS, Palm's stock was valued at zero, with no white knight in sight to buy up the company. Well, here comes HP to the rescue, with a plan to snatch up Palm -- and more importantly, Palm's patents -- for a massive $1.2 billion. That $1.2 billion isn't just a big number, it's ...

Watch out, other Twitter clients! Tweetie, developed by Atebits (aka Loren Brichter) just became the official iPhone client for Twitter. It's changing its name to "Twitter for iPhone" (which seems like a no-brainer) and dropping from $2.99 to free. Brichter will join Twitter and continue to improve the app's features. Apparently an official Twitter app was in high demand, and Twitter chose to ...

Google builds a lot of fantastic web-based tools in-house, but it's been known to buy up some really nice existing services instead of reinventing the wheel. Picnik, a popular web-based photo editor, is Google's latest grab. It makes a lot of sense, because Picnik does a great job of cropping and touching up photos, and it comes with a lot of fun effects. If Google plans to reinvent photo-editing ...

We've covered reMail before, raving about the way version 2.0 fixed security issues and did away with subscription fees. Now, the email search and archiving utility has been acquired by Google. reMail's schtick is downloading your whole email archive, attachments and all, to your iPhone, and then letting your search the full text of your email at speeds 5 times faster than Gmail's mobile ...

Looks like Seesmic is still trying to position itself as the Twitter client that does it all. Loic LeMeur and Co.'s most recent move -buying Ping.fm - will enable Seesmic users to cross-post status updates to 50 different social networks at once. Ping.fm has half a million registered users who post hundreds of thousands of updates a day via the service. Ping.fm will be fully integrated into ...