With its acquisition of Quattro Wireless, Apple Inc. (Nasdaq:
AAPL) has opened the door to competition with Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:
YHOO), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:
MSFT), and especially Google Inc. (Nasdaq:
GOOG) in the mobile advertising market.
And Apple's venerable
App Store will play a key role in the company's expansion.
All Things Digital, a tech blog affiliated with
The Wall Street Journal, reported
the deal's value at $275 million, citing several anonymous sources. It is the 24th
acquisition in Apple's 34-year history, and is characteristic of the previous 23: buying a small company that can easily be integrated into its existing projects.
In this case, Apple can use mobile web ads developed by Quattro to generate income from outside advertisers.
