The new deal expands Microsoft's mobile platform to include backup services focused on social networks.
Microsoft
continued to expand its mobile portfolio June 26 with its acquisition
of MobiComp, an open-source cloud computing company that specializes in
storage, backup and restoration of mobile data. Microsoft declined to
reveal the financial terms of the deal.
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Microsoft also didn't provide details on MobiComp's role at
Microsoft although Reuters reported Redmond plans to use the company as
a research and development unit.
Based in Braga, Portugal, MobiComp targets mobile operators and
service providers with products such as MobileKeeper, a suite of backup
services focused on social networking, and Active mTicker, a news feed
service. Through MobileKeeper, users can post comments directly from
their mobile phones to social networking sites such as Facebook.
Mobicomp's services also allow users to back up personal content
stored on a phone, publish updates to online communities and get
entertainment and news content delivered to their phones.
"People expect their phones to deliver the best experiences from PCs
and the Web right to their pockets," Todd Peters, corporate vice
president in the Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft, said in a
statement.
Peters added that the addition of MobiComp would "extend the
capabilities of Windows Mobile and Windows Live to help us provide the
most innovative and seamless way to stay connected."
Carlos Oliveira, co-founder and CEO of MobiComp, said his
eight-year-old company believes in an "open and innovative mobile
platform and deep industry partnerships."
MobileKeeper automatically backs up and restores all types of mobile
data and applications to business files such as Microsoft Word and
Excel. The backup takes place automatically and data can be easily
recovered through a simple Web interface.
Mobicomp's Active mTicker is a "zero-click" application that pushes
personalized information to subscribers through a scrolling ticker that
runs along the bottom of the screen when the device is in idle mode.
MobiComp counts among its customers Vodafone and Portugal's and Saudi Arabia's dominant mobile carriers.
