Brian GarnerApple is set to announce the purchase of mobile advertiser Quattro Wireless for $275 million, according to Kara Swisher at AllThingsDigital. Apple's announcement may come as early as Tuesday.
Quattro's advertising network includes iPhone, Android, and other Smartphone apps as well as thousands of mobile websites. The Waltham, Mass.-based company has a client list containing names such as Disney, Visa, and Ford.
Quattro is a direct competitor to AdMob, a company that Apple had reportedly courted before it was ultimately acquired by Google early in November for $750 million.
The FTC has been actively reviewing the AdMob acquisition due to concerns that Google could effectively monopolize the mobile ad market by leveraging its existing AdSense and DoubleClick programs.
Apple's acquisition of Quattro Wireless can be seen as an attempt to win back some of the market it lost when AdMob was purchased by Google.
The Google/Apple rivalry is poised to heat up even more with the Google's forthcoming announcement of the Android-powered Nexus One, a phone that Google plans on selling directly via the web. Today, it was reported that user interest and satisfaction in the Android OS was approaching that of the iPhone.
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45 Comments
Now do people here understand when I said it was a mistake allowing Eric on the board of Apple?
Can't you see what's going on?Either Steve and Eric got together and decided to carve up the world or Eric was at Apple to be a mole for his own endeavors.
Meh? advertising is potentially lucrative but hardly grounbreaking.
Now do people here understand when I said it was a mistake allowing Eric on the board of Apple?
Can't you see what's going on?Either Steve and Eric got together and decided to carve up the world or Eric was at Apple to be a mole for his own endeavors.
I think the second scenario is more likely.
Eric even looks like a mole man.
Its funny that microsoft did not buy this company. They kinda needed it seeing as they are in the search business and all. Apple does not search and niether does it display any ads anywhere (not even on their Comps, hint hint Made for Windows 7 logos) . Ultimately, unless apple plans to do search, it will be hard for them to match their efforts against Google.
Maybe they'll team up with Bing to create the iBing, but honestly this is more of a defensive move then any challenge to Google. Android on the other hand...
Its funny that microsoft did not buy this company. They kinda needed it seeing as they are in the search business and all. Apple does not search and niether does it display any ads anywhere (not even on their Comps, hint hint Made for Windows 7 logos) . Ultimately, unless apple plans to do search, it will be hard for them to match their efforts against Google.
Maybe they'll team up with Bing to create the iBing, but honestly this is more of a defensive move then any challenge to Google. Android on the other hand...
Apple doesn't show ads, but one of their most valuable assets is their iPhone SDK, and there is a lot of ad-supported software on their platform. Including some sort of ad service in the iPhone SDK for third party apps could both enable more apps and give Apple a cut of all that revenue.