[UPDATED Jan 5, 2009 @ 1:00pm Mountain Time]
Google and Apple have been becoming increasingly competitive lately. We have seen this is various forms, one of which being the fights over some mobile advertising businesses. Not very long ago, Google and Apple quietly fought over the purchase of AdMob, another mobile advertising company (a direct competitor to Quattro) for $750 Million.
According to sources inside of All Things Digital, Apple has just acquired AdMob’s competitor, Quattro. Sources say that the price is at $275 million and that the acquisition may be announced as early as tomorrow (January 5th, 2010). [Update: It has now been officially announced, the acquisition was indeed for $275 million and was announced today, January 5th, 2009. We are still waiting for more information as to what Apple plans to do with the new acquisition, although the obvious idea is to benefit and/or perfect mobile marketing on the iPhone, iPod touch and the upcoming and highly anticipated Apple Tablet.]
Both of these companies provide advertising to smartphone devices via the web. This is a smart acquisition considering the projected increase in Smartphone sales over the next few years. It is hard not to notice also that if Apple decides to announce the acquisition tomorrow, that it will coincide with the release of Google’s phone, the Nexus One (another ironic example of Google/ Apple competition).
Keep your eyes open tomorrow for this news to go mainstream.
