Exclusive: Apple to Buy Quattro Wireless for $275 Million
Apple is set to announce that it has acquired Quattro Wireless for $275 million, several sources confirmed.
The announcement of the acquisition might come as soon as tomorrow, upping the ante in the mobile advertising business significantly.
Google (GOOG) recently forked over an astonishing $750 million for Silicon Valley’s AdMob, a Quattro competitor, which Apple (AAPL) had also made a bid to acquire.
Both innovative start-ups are aimed squarely at the fast-growing market to advertise on smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices.
In fact, the search giant will unveil the Nexus One tomorrow, a mobile phone powered by its Android operating system software, which Google designed and will sell on a Web site instead of via telecom companies.
Waltham, Mass.-based Quattro has raised close to $30 million from two main venture investors–Highland Capital Partners and Globespan Capital Partners. Founded several years ago, its clients include Ford (F), Disney (DIS) and the National Football League.
Competitors in the space are many still, despite these big acquisitions, and include Millennial Media and Jumptap, both of which are now clearly in play to other players, from telecoms to other device makers to big Internet companies.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment to BoomTown about the deal and email inquiries to Quattro have not yet been returned.
Comments
Great reporting Kara.
MobileMe going to take on Google Apps in the next round of this battle?
Posted by Brij Singh at January 5th, 2010 at 4:29 amlooks like a LOT of Apple-Google battles. And they were such good buds!
Posted by Kara Swisher at January 5th, 2010 at 6:21 amAll of this hoopla so that we can place even more advertising in the user experience- products most likely made in China.
Posted by rearden215 at January 5th, 2010 at 1:00 pmThe more Microsoft becomes technologically irrelevant, the more Apple-Google battles will erupt.
Google & Apple were united while the common enemy was Microsoft. But does anyone consider Windows Mobile a competitive threat? As the mobile space is where most future growth will take place, this is where Apple and Google will fight it out.
Posted by Ted_T at January 5th, 2010 at 1:25 pmAt some point in the future (it's already true to a large degree, but not nearly as much as it will eventually be), most people might wish we'd done something to reign in advertising earlier, just as we now wish we'd reigned in Wall Street, etc. earlier (or kept them reigned in) We may eventually see even far more ads than we see now–ads in everything, in our shoes, far more attempts at persuasion, companies competing even more to sell you things, an even more generally commercialized culture, etc–it may become even more embedded into everything than it is now, and it will be a long slog to break free of it. On the other hand, maybe targeted advertising like Google is doing will keep it to a dull roar, as maybe they've been trying to do for some time, with plain-vanilla text ads on Google search pages–ideally, they may be trying to transform much of advertising into a lower-key thing, by making it more efficient, so that if companies wish to, they can do less intrusive advertising which doesn't wash over everyone, including people who don't want or have no interest in a given product–when an advertiser pays for an expensive TV ad for a car, they're taking a chance that enough of the people watching are interested, for the ad to pay off. But far more people watching are not interested–that's a wasteful spending of ad dollars, and is distracting to viewers who aren't interested, and pushes consumerism in general to all watching. Is Google trying to address some of these problems–is targeted advertising deliberately LESS intrusive, less omnipresent, than the classic advertising-to-everyone approach?
Posted by johnsawyer at January 5th, 2010 at 3:28 pm2009 was Twitter's year. 2010 is Android's year.
Posted by paramendra at January 5th, 2010 at 5:15 pmKara Swisher's video “Obsession . . ” with AT&T service puts the focus right where it's needed. The service to my iPhone at my home office began to fail in June, to the point where it now no longer supports call for longer than a few seconds — if that long.
Posted by johnrollow at January 5th, 2010 at 5:17 pmDozens of calls and letters later, I still do not have service. Only responses in denial.
What can be done? Open the iPhone to Verizon? Sue AT&T?
Something in your iPhone's memory may be scrambled. If you haven't tried it already, back up your iPhone, then do a simple reset of the iPhone (look in the Settings app), then test for at least a couple days, in an area with good ATT coverage, whether you have decent phone service. If you don't, do a restore, without reinstalling your backup, in order to wipe the iPhone so that none of your data remains on it, then test again. If you still don't have decent service in an area with good ATT coverage, jump to the next paragraph. But if you do have decent phone service at this stage, do a full restore from your backup, and test again. If you still have decent service, then you've cleared whatever was in the iPhone's memory that was scrambled; but if you now have bad service again, then something about the contents of your iPhone's backup may be retaining that scrambled stuff. Do another restore/wipe, and start reinstalling apps one at a time, freshly downloaded from the App Store, testing for a few days after reinstalling each app, to see at what point poor ATT service again occurs (if it does).
If you did an original restore but still didn't get decent service in an area with good ATT coverage, ask Apple if they'll replace your iPhone, whether or not it's still under warranty. If your iPhone isn't a 3GS model, try to get that, since many (not all) people find it stays connected to ATT better than prior iPhone models. Lean on them if they balk. If they don't give in, jailbreak your iPhone, then sign up with a different carrier than ATT.
Posted by johnsawyer at January 5th, 2010 at 10:54 pmJohn –
Wow, great reply. Thank you.
However, I have already done those things — down to replacing the sim card at the AT&T store. An AT&T tech guy in Fresno admitted they had deficient coverage in my small area, but was not planning to correct it.
The phone works fine in areas with good coverage. (Actually, there are many areas around Los Angeles that have spots, or whole neighborhoods, of no coverage. That includes a whole high-end development in Irvine where my daughter lives where only Verizon has coverage — no other cell phone.)
The AT&T sales rep who came to my apartment complex to sell U-Verse TV services had a 3Gs iPhone (mine is 2G) and he had marginally good reception.
But my phone is only a year and a half old. And I had moderately good reception before June — when it all began to change. (Since I travel a lot, I can't pinpoint a precise time — but in June or early July is when I found I had no service.)
It's not my phone. It's AT&T. I asked them in my next to last letter to give me a new 3Gs pnone to solve the problem (or at least half price). No response to that.
This is an AT&T issue. Do I have to buy a new iPhone just to get basic phone service at my home/office?
That really sucks. –John
Posted by johnrollow at January 6th, 2010 at 4:45 amThat's a big investment by apple.
Posted by texnogeekz at January 30th, 2010 at 3:14 amah very impressive…
Posted by Motorhomes at March 26th, 2010 at 5:19 pmVery valid points. Competition is very healthy for all of us. As long as everything that can be compatible with the available platforms stays compatible than its for the good of all of us.
-Bella :)
Posted by Electronic Cigarette Girl at April 5th, 2010 at 10:55 pmI think APPL has been ahead of the curve for many years
Posted by investor relations at May 8th, 2010 at 12:31 am(APPL) is marginalizing enemy corporations and as time go's on most companies will not be able to compete in this ever broadening organism called the global market.
Posted by investor relations at May 17th, 2010 at 12:04 am