Sybase Snaps Up AvantGo
Source: unstrung.com
Sybase Inc.'s embedded database arm, iAnywhere Solutions Inc., has announced plans to acquire ailing wireless content delivery pioneer AvantGo Inc. for $38 million in cash (see Sybase Buys AvantGo).
The buyout, which is expected to be completed in the first quarter of next year, may look slightly weird on paper. The companies do not seem to have too much in common. iAnywhere is a market leader in the corporate embedded database market (see iAnywhere Owns Databasing). AvantGo is best known for creating a subscription-based mobile portal with many channels of media content rendered so that it could be comfortably viewed on a smartphone or handheld computer -- back in the days when that was going to take over the world. The company has signed up more than 7 million users on its MyAvantGo portal.
However, AvantGo's underlying HTML rendering, application development, and synchronization capabilities will make a tasty addition to iAnywhere's database capabilities, according to analysts. AvantGo also has strong support in the developer community, thanks to a short dalliance in the open-source community, and even -- gasp! -- some enterprise customers, according to the company.
