Motorola may seek to acquire MontaVista and/or Trolltech, hints an article at Computer Business Review (CBR). Motorola recently purchased several companies involved in mobile phone design, but last month was spurned in a $300+ million offer for PalmSource. The number-two global mobile phone vendor uses both MontaVista and Trolltech software in its devices.

Recent Motorola acquisitions include:

• The engineering team, manufacturing plant, and IP (intellectual property) portfolio of British mobile phone maker Sendo, in a fire sale resulting from Sendo's ongoing legal battles with Microsoft and others
• Mitsubishi Electric's European i-mode research and design teams — “I-mode” is a mobile Internet access system used about 10 times per day, on average, by 40 million people in Japan, or about a third of the country, according to EuroTechnology. I-mode currently has about four million users outside Japan, the international trade organization says

CBR notes that Motorola uses software from both MontaVista and Trolltech in its mobile phones, and that Motorola has built its long-term mobile OS strategy around Linux. However, neither Trolltech nor MontaVista can offer what PalmSource could — a community of application developers claimed to number 400,000.

Trolltech last month expanded its board in a move described as “primping for an IPO” by Reuters. Perennial acquisition rumor target MontaVista was recently pursued Sun, according to rumors.

The CBR story can be found here.

 
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