MobileCrunch |  |
- Calling All Entrepreneurs: Twilio Expands APIs To 6 European Nations
- Oops – Sony Ericsson Swings To A 207 Million Euro Net Loss In Q4 2011
- Brass Monkey Grabs $750K To Turn Your Smartphone Into A Wii Controller For Browser Games
- Foursquare Adds Restaurant Menus, What About Food Check Ins?
- Ness, The Restaurant Discovery App, Adds Crucial Mapping Feature
- AT&T’s Data Plans To Get Pricier Overall But (Slightly) Cheaper Per Megabyte
- Motorola Mobility’s Shaker Investment A Sign Of Mobile Virtual Clubs To Come
- Whited00r Aims To Breathe New Life Into Old iOS Hardware
- Verizon To Light Up Five New LTE Markets Tomorrow
- Should RIM Abandon Ship?
- Direct Deals Mobile Ad Marketplace Chartboost Expands To Asia
- AT&T Eyeing Up Dish Network For Potential Acquisition?
- Among New Smartphone Adopters, iOS Share Rises While Android Declines
- Mobile Payments Company BilltoMobile Launches One-Click Checkout For The Mobile Web
- API Management Service Apigee Acquires Mobile Data Platform Usergrid
| Calling All Entrepreneurs: Twilio Expands APIs To 6 European Nations Posted: 19 Jan 2012 02:00 AM PST  A new wave of European entrepreneurs are about to start revolutionizing how we use our phones. Today, the Twilio voice API becomes available in Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland and Poland. Additionally, Twilio’s SMS API now supports UK phone numbers. These APIs allow developers to build apps that can programatically send and receive calls and texts. Specifically, the voice API allows developers to accept calls from local numbers and trigger changes in their app, as well as call locals numbers and play them recorded messages. The voice API can be used to set up conference calls, build interactive phone menus, launch scalable call centers, issue confirmation calls, and more. In October, Twilio announced plans to conquer 20 European countries in a year starting with the UK. A $17 million Series C round last month gave it the funding to ready it sales and marketing teams for the push. Twilio product manager Thomas Schiavone tells me “There’s pent-up demand. We have over 2,000 thousand developers overseas registered for our private beta. People are telling us ‘we want this for our country, we have ideas!’” Several prominent startups including Hulu and Zendesk are already provisioning local phones in international markets. For example, Airbnb uses Twilio to provide 24/7 phone support for guests and hosts worldwide. Twilio’s CEO and co-founder Jeff Lawson tell me “We’re bringing some of the aspects of Silicon Valley to the markets we’re coming to.” Entrepreneurs will be able to use Twilio’s APIs to start companies and sweep away telecommunication inefficiencies, both locally and abroad. Lawson concludes, “You can write an app once and use it anywhere. It’s an API with global reach.” [Image Credit: Shutterstock - Decks]
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| Oops – Sony Ericsson Swings To A 207 Million Euro Net Loss In Q4 2011 Posted: 19 Jan 2012 12:00 AM PST  Smartphone maker Sony Ericsson this morning posted a pre-tax loss of 247 million euros ($318 million) in the fourth quarter of 2011, after reporting a profit of 31 million euros in Q3 2011. The company, a 50:50 joint-venture between Sony and Ericsson, blames “intense competition”, “price erosion” and effects from the flooding in Thailand as some of the main drivers for the drop. Sales for the quarter were approximately 1.3 billion euros, down 16 percent year-on-year. The fourth quarter of last year ended in a net loss of 207 million euros ($266.5 million), compared to a net income of 8 million euros ($10.3 million) in the same quarter of the previous year. Analysts were actually expecting a modest profit from the company, so this is quite a shock. Sony will soon acquire Ericsson’s 50 percent share of Sony Ericsson in a deal valued at 1.05 billion euros – the transaction is expected to take place “late January to February 2012″. Sony Ericsson’s huge loss in Q4 2011 will impact Ericsson’s operating income with SEK -1.1 b. (125 million euros) in the quarter, the latter company said this morning. Update with more information from Sony Ericsson’s earnings report: Its gross margin for the quarter was 24 percent, a decrease of 6 points year-on-year and 3 percentage points from the previous quarter. The company shipped 9 million units during Q4 2011, a 20 percent decrease year-on-year and a 5 percent decrease compared to Q3. Sony Ericsson has shipped 28 million Xperia (Android) smartphones to date. Even though Sony Ericsson intends to go all-smartphone during 2012, feature phones still make up some 20 percent of its sales volumes. Also read: Sony Ericsson To Rebrand In 2012, Aims For Top Of The Android Pack Sony Ericsson CEO: We Should Have Taken The iPhone More Seriously
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| Brass Monkey Grabs $750K To Turn Your Smartphone Into A Wii Controller For Browser Games Posted: 18 Jan 2012 05:41 PM PST  Six months ago, Brass Monkey had built and released some well-developed software development kits (SDKs) for Android, iOS, and beyond that, simply put, enabled gamers to turn their mobile devices into remote controllers, with support for Flash, Unity3D, and desktop games and apps. The Brass Monkey team, CEO Chris Allen tells us, believed that bringing the functionality of a Wii controller to smart devices was something gamers could get excited about — but, at the time, they were missing one important piece. Support that would allow gamers to play on the browser. So they went about acq-hiring Emotely and its Founder and CEO Francois Laberge, bringing him on as CTO. Laberge, through Emotely, had developed the necessary tech to convert smartphones into controllers and run games on the browser using HTML5 for both interface and communication layer (with HTTP and WebSockets), all of which brought an essential component to Brass Monkey’s existing products. Fast forward to today, and Brass Monkey has a free app for iOS that allows you to run one of seven killer games through your browser. In other words, it really turns Chrome, Safari, and Firefox into video game consoles that work in tandem with the app on your iPhone to turn it into your controller. Really, any screen with a web browser becomes your display. And for developers, Brass Monkey offers SDKs that enable them to create games for the browser that have features similar to Xbox, PS3, Wii, etc. using familiar tools for web games, like HTML5, Unity, and/or Flash. Of course, it may sound a bit complicated — and this is the one problem these guys are going to run up against, the “huh?” factor — but it’s really not. You launch your app, the browser recognizes your phone, and then you get to choose from seven games, like Monkey Golf (move your phone back and forth to putt), Monkey Volleyball, there are racing games, zombie shooters, etc. The app takes you through the setup, and you can be playing in a couple of minutes with a good WiFi connection. I’ve messed around with it a bit, and a few of the games are still pretty glitchy, but granted my graphics card isn’t exactly high caliber. If you’re having problems, close all your tabs and other applications if you have to, and the games should work smoothly. One of the games, Gnop Gnop (a 3-D Pong), even has support for multiplayer. Brass Monkey also recently added a virtual currency model into the app with its latest release, which came out while the team was showing off their wares at CES. This allows users to purchase a whole mess of Brass Coins via in-app purchases, which they can then use to buy games on the site. The startup has also recently begun to ramp up their effort to bring on third-party developers to build games for its web console, and is offering a rev share for all in-app purchases from their games. All in all, this is an extremely appealing concept. I’m not exactly the world’s most avid gamer, but this is something I can get addicted to, especially as I’m usually only feet away from my smartphone and a web-connected apparatus or doohickey of some kind. (I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not the only one.) Yes, it’s still a work in progress, so don’t go in with a rigid frame of mind, but this is awesome stuff. Just ask Joypad, who are onto the same idea, with more of a focus on the iPad. Converting smartphones into controllers for browser games is an idea that has intrigued investors as well, as Brass Monkey is today announcing that it has raised $750K in seed financing from a host of angel investors, including Co-founder of Kima Ventures, Jeremie Berrebi, David Beyer, CEO of Chart.io, Founder and Managing Director of Boston Seed Capital Nicole Stata, and more. (See the full roster on AngelList.) The CEO tells me that the team has already begun raising its series A, too, and is already in talks with some big venture firms. The Boston-based Brass Monkey was also a 2010 finalist in MassChallenge, a competition and networking organization for startups. Allen tells us that an Android app is on its way and should be ready by March. For more, check out Brass Monkey at home here, or watch the video below. Let us know what you think.
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| Foursquare Adds Restaurant Menus, What About Food Check Ins? Posted: 18 Jan 2012 05:04 PM PST  Less than a week after unveiling the Explore section of its website, Foursquare announced a nice addition — restaurant menus. The Foursquare mobile app has included an “Explore” tab for while now, but last week’s announcement marked its expansion into a full-blown city guide, personalized based on your check ins and those of your friends. Foursquare called it a “big leap” toward its vision of “adding an ‘interesting’ layer to your whole world,” while TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis suggested it was a return to CEO Dennis Crowley’s roots as a product manager at mobile city guide Vindigo. Now, Foursquare says it has partnered with startup SinglePlatform to add menus and pricing information for almost 250,000 restaurants in Explore. This seems like a pretty natural addition, and a way to make Explore a viable alternative to a site like Yelp. (It seems only appropriate that Foursquare is becoming more Yelp-like, since Yelp took a page from Foursquare by adding user check ins.) Menus are now live on the Foursquare’s PC and mobile websites, and the company says it will be adding them to the mobile app soon. I’m also curious if Foursquare can do more with this menu data. What about allowing users to include exactly what they plan to eat as part of their check in? After all, the company is already partnering with ESPN, MovieTickets, and Songkick to allow users to check-in to specific sports events, movies, and concerts, and startups like Foodspotting are already exploring the appeal of sharing what you’re eating. On the other hand, the food check in model isn’t quite as natural as checking in to a movie. You might check-in somewhere without knowing what you’re going to order, and you’re probably going to order more than one item from the menu. But it could be a fun feature if done right.
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| Ness, The Restaurant Discovery App, Adds Crucial Mapping Feature Posted: 18 Jan 2012 04:40 PM PST  I made heavy use of Ness‘s restaurant-finding iOS app during a recent trip through the East Coast, because lots of places are still sadly short on Yelp reviews, and I wanted a quick way to find the best local spots to eat. While I got some good results, I would have been all over a new feature that Ness has just pushed out in an update today: maps. Yeah, another restaurant app with a map. You’re not shocked, I know, but you should take a closer look because of the quality of results that Ness offers. It uses machine learning technology, deriving results from a variety of social signals that you provide it from Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter, as well as your behavior and other data, to figure out which places you’ll like the most. The result is often what you’re hoping for — suggestions for great places that you might not have seen on other restaurant discovery apps, or heard about anywhere else for that matter. Anyway, on to the update, which builds on the socially-focused release I covered back in December. Ness already lets you select your cuisine of choice, then few a list of results based on a percentage relevance score drawn from its data analysis. The mapping feature builds on this by showing each suggested place as a pin that’s color-coded to match its percentage ranking. A flat 50% is yellow, orange is 75%, and a full 100% is pink-red. Click on any pin and you’ll see a an overlay with the percentage score, some basic details like whether it’s open or not, and whether any of your friends have reviewed it. “We’re just getting started here — I want to make it even more at-a-glance,” says Ness designer Scott Goodson, who knows a thing or two about this because he was an original member of the iOS team at Apple, and worked on apps including Maps, Stocks, Calculator, Safari, YouTube, and Game Center. ”We chose color-blind safe colors, and a few other subtle but important features…. A lot of people need this type of mapping view to really get a lot out of this type of app. But there’s a lot more to do.” Some of future additions, he says, could include a better way to more easily view pins for restaurants that are close together on the map, as well as include the specific ranking score on the pin for each location within the map view. Also, the company’s larger plan to is to offer its technology for other verticals besides restaurants, and I expect to see the map interface travel along with any such expansions. So, if you’re visiting San Francisco for the first time and trying to choose from the hundreds of brunch places here, or if you’re driving through the eastern seaboard like I was and trying to find some quality soul food, or whatever else, go check the app out. You can download it here.
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| AT&T’s Data Plans To Get Pricier Overall But (Slightly) Cheaper Per Megabyte Posted: 18 Jan 2012 03:09 PM PST  When our friends over at The Verge got wind of a price change coming to AT&T’s data plans, AT&T responded that it was “an error. There are no changes to our data plans.” What they should’ve said was “There are no changes to our data plans… yet.” AT&T has just announced a new set of data plans for smartphones and tablets. As you’d probably guess, they’re a bit pricier than those they replace. On the upside, they’re (ever so slightly) cheaper per megabyte. The Old Plans:
The New Plans:
(Note: Only the latter two in each category are available for tablets. The old $15/250MB plan for tablets will continue to exist in place of this new one.) In the end, each plan gets bumped up $5 for a slightly larger helping of data. Current customers can keep their existing plans, though you’ll almost certainly have to pay for the pricier new option if you’re looking to enable/disable tethering on your account. I’d find some reason to be outraged — but really, when you’re already paying through the nose for data, it’s hard to be surprised when they come back around with bigger coffers. The plans will launch for new customers this Sunday.
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| Motorola Mobility’s Shaker Investment A Sign Of Mobile Virtual Clubs To Come Posted: 18 Jan 2012 03:09 PM PST  Shaker’s certainly been keeping busy ever since they won our Disrupt competition back in September — not only did they win our $50,000 check, the team also closed a $15 million Series A funding round led by Shervin Pishevar of Menlo Ventures not long afterward. Now it looks like Motorola Mobility Ventures is looking to get in on the action as well, as they have recently invested in the Israeli startup. Neither Shaker nor Motorola would comment on the amount of the investment. If you’ve happened to miss our previous coverage of Shaker, think of it as virtual nightclub that lives inside Facebook. The team’s goal was to take a classic social paradigm — meeting people in a physical location — and translate it to work where people spend time building their social networks. Shaker is technically still in beta (and only available in Israel), but it’s already had the chance to show off a bit. Case in point: Shaker was tapped by Dick Clark Productions to power an online social experience for New Years Rockin Eve, and while the company doesn’t have specific numbers to share, DCP was apparently “very pleased” with how the pilot event turned out. While Shaker’s virtual club environment currently only exists on Facebook, news of Motorola Mobility’s investment points at a potential future in the mobile space as well. In a release put out by Motorola, Shaker CEO and co-founder Yonatan Maor tacitly confirms that the team has their eyes set on mobile expansion. "As more people start using social media sites on their smart phones, Motorola Mobility offers us exciting support and expertise to expand on all platforms,” he notes. "Motorola Mobility's support will enable Shaker to offer an amazing experience across all devices.” Sounds pretty convincing to me, and a Shaker spokesperson has confirmed to us that a mobile push is definitely on the company’s roadmap — he said it’s not a question of “if” but a question of “when”. Shaker’s forthcoming move into mobile is sure to be an interesting one, if only because of the problems that they’ll have to solve. Specifically, they’ll need to provide a compelling reason as to why would I want to enter a virtual nightclub on my mobile device when I could just take my mobile device to a real nightclub.
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| Whited00r Aims To Breathe New Life Into Old iOS Hardware Posted: 18 Jan 2012 12:33 PM PST  It’s a story that’s all too common these days — once you purchase and activate a shiny new iPhone (and it seems more people are doing this lately), the old one is unceremoniously shoved in a drawer never to be heard from again. Most of the time though the device is still good, and with a little help from Team Whited00r, it could be even better. Long story short, Whited00r is a custom version of iOS 3.1.3 meant for old-school iDevices: think 2G/3G iPhones and the original iPod Touches. Despite being based on a very old version of iOS, the team beind the project managed to pack in many of iOS 5′s flourishes and features, from app folders and video recording to multitasking and reminders. Whited00r has been kicking around for a while as a beta, but a stable release was recently pushed out for Apple anoraks to play around with. Sounds like a pretty good deal, no? Well, there are a few caveats that old-school iPhone owners will need to put up with, like the exclusion of notifications. Also missing is direct access to Apple’s App Store, although the Whited00r team has whipped up a few workarounds for that. Users can jump into the old jailbreak standby Cydia, although the community also has a curated portal of of apps known to work under Whited00r. Installing Whited00r doesn’t require the iDevice in question to be previously jailbroken as it’ll do all the heavy lifting in that regard, but having previous jailbreak experience makes the process even easier. All it takes to get up and running is to sideload the custom firmware while in iTunes (much easier than it sounds), and that original iPhone of yours will be off to the races.
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| Verizon To Light Up Five New LTE Markets Tomorrow Posted: 18 Jan 2012 10:14 AM PST  While AT&T may be hitting a roadblock on their path to 4G LTE expansion, Verizon LTE seems to be spreading like wildfire. It feels like just yesterday that Verizon rolled out 4G LTE service to its first batch of U.S. markets, and now over a year later 200 million Americans are enjoying higher speeds. In fact, tomorrow Verizon will expand its high-speed network into five new markets, and expand coverage in three existing markets. New cities to receive coverage include Glens Falls, NY; Utica, NY; Lawton, OK; Brownsville, TX; and McAllen, TX. If you live in Atlanta, Houston or Spokane, chances are your 4G LTE service will reach right on into the suburbs come tomorrow, as Verizon is expanding its coverage in those markets. Verizon’s LTE network is great, and the roll-out has been quick and mostly problem-free. However, the network itself seems to have had a few hiccups (that felt more like sweaty, drunk man belches) around the holiday season, but hopefully that’s all in the past. [via MobileBurn]
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| Posted: 18 Jan 2012 09:55 AM PST  Peter Rojas published a thought-provoking piece about RIM and BlackBerry 10. He said, in short, that the Canadian company should wipe out Blackberry OS and run Android or Windows or, barring that, sell out completely and offer a software package running on another OS. While both of those are logical positions, I think RIM will end up in far worse shape than those options allow. RIM is popular for three reasons: the keyboard, BBM, and the back-end software. For most of this decade, IT shops have been able to send out fleets of BlackBerry products without concern simply because there was nothing better for email and messaging. Over the past three years, however, that claim has gone completely out the window. I would reckon that a nice IMAP server install is far easier and cheaper than any BB Enterprise Server ever was and, given this screenshot from the actual BBES “purchase” page, there is a lot of sales pressure involved. What needs to happen (and what probably will happen) is fairly tragic: a major player, probably Microsoft, will buy the company and fold whatever patents and IP RIM has into its own cache. The buyer will pay lip service to the promise of a “bold new BlackBerry” and then, like Danger and the Sidekick, it will flatten the organization after all of the major talent leaves. BlackBerry will end up a footnote, BBES turned into Exchange, and WinPho 7 will make a “best-of-breed” keyboard phone. Given the improvements in batteries and materials, it should be hard to make a clone that runs as long as everyone with a BB expects it to. Plus, you’ve got the might and majesty of Microsoft behind it. So, in the end, the question is not how BlackBerry will survive but when will it die? I’m bearish on the company – have been for years – and as good as those phones have been to millions of users, nothing bodes well for our cellphone neighbors to the North. [Image: Asturianu/Shutterstock]
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| Direct Deals Mobile Ad Marketplace Chartboost Expands To Asia Posted: 18 Jan 2012 09:07 AM PST  A month after its expansion to Android, Chartboost, the newly launched (already profitable) direct deals mobile ad marketplace for game developers is expanding to Asia. Starting today, the company is rolling out localized versions in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Though serving the needs of the mobile app community’s need to monetize via ads, Chartboost’s marketplace isn’t like a traditional mobile ad network. Instead, it allows game publishers to do direct deals with each other, and avoid having to share huge chunks of their revenue with ad networks. It operates under a freemium model: the ad-server technology is free when used for direct deals or internal cross-promotion, but the opt-in ad network offers revenue sharing with publishers. In Asia, the company has already been working with several leading game developers, including Animoca (Hong Kong), Com2US, Nexon Mobile and Devsisters (South Korea). Here in the U.S., it has well-known names like TinyCo, Pocket Gems and Storm8 on board. Created by former Tapulous employees, Maria Alegre, now Chartboost CEO, and Sean Fannan, CTO, Chartboost closed $2 million in Series A funding in October, with Translink Capital, SKTVC and XG Ventures. At the time, it said it would focus on international expansion going into 2012, starting with Asia. Says Algere, the new localized versions will allow Asian game developers to acquire U.S. traffic through the Chartboost marketplace.
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| AT&T Eyeing Up Dish Network For Potential Acquisition? Posted: 18 Jan 2012 08:11 AM PST  Shortly before the AT&T/T-Mobile merger came to its ignominious end, Dish Network CEO Joseph Clayton casually expressed his interest in a partnership with T-Mobile as a means of bringing wireless voice service to Dish customers. Those plans may not pan out if AT&T has anything to do with it. A new report from Bloomberg indicates that AT&T is apparently so hard up for additional spectrum that they’re considering shelling out “the highest premium in more than a decade” to acquire the satellite TV provider and their spectrum holdings. Clayton, ever the opportunist, seemed receptive to the possibility of at acquisition — he noted last week in an interview with Bloomberg West that the company is “open to all possible options.” “We could be acquired, or we could be the acquirer,” he added. Clayton’s original vision was to create a “national wireless network” comprised of video, voice, and data services. To that end, Clayton made it known that he would consider a partnership with companies like T-Mobile or Sprint to make it happen. They would get Dish’s spectrum holdings, and Dish would get their expertise in managing voice networks. It’s questionable whether Dish would ever be able to offer those services if AT&T indeed acquires the company, as it would pose a credible threat to AT&T’s own portfolio of network services. Still, it seems clear that AT&T needs Dish more than Dish needs AT&T at this point. Clayton seemed more than happy to forge partnerships with the smaller carriers in order make his network vision a reality, but without T-Mobile’s network support, AT&T may be facing a bumpy road when it comes to the rollout of their LTE network. It certainly doesn’t help that AT&T has to yield a portion of their spectrum holdings to Deutsche Telekom as a result of their very-public break up. Meanwhile, rival Verizon’s LTE network continues to expand (albeit with a few hiccups), and Sprint is also preparing to light up their own around June of this year. Competition will only get stiffer for AT&T in the coming months, and it will take some bold moves for them to stay ahead of the curve. While not the most likely bedfellows, a Dish acquisition could nevertheless be just what the doctor ordered.
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| Among New Smartphone Adopters, iOS Share Rises While Android Declines Posted: 18 Jan 2012 07:23 AM PST  Nielsen just released its latest numbers with regard to new smartphone owners, and it would seem that the iPhone (particularly the 4S) is quite popular among those migrating over to the smartphone segment. In fact, since the iPhone 4S launched in October, the number of recent smartphone buyers who chose the iPhone has reached 44.5 percent, up from just 25 percent in October. What’s interesting is that new smartphone buyers seem less and less interested in Android, as Android market share among noobs has gone from 61.6 percent in October to 46.9 percent. Of course, Android still leads in total market share with 46.3 percent. General interest in smartphones is also on the rise, with 60 percent of new phone buyers saying they chose a smartphone over a feature phone. Meanwhile, 57 percent of those who bought a new iPhone chose to go with the flagship 4S.
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| Mobile Payments Company BilltoMobile Launches One-Click Checkout For The Mobile Web Posted: 18 Jan 2012 07:09 AM PST  Mobile payments company BilltoMobile, which now has relationships with all four major carriers in the U.S. (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile), is today launching one-click processing for mobile web transactions. Previously, users had to enter in their mobile number manually, sometimes a zip code, then wait for a verification code that was sent to their phone through an SMS text. Now, the company says it’s able to identify a user’s mobile number automatically thanks to deeper integration with the carriers’ networks. The first time a user goes to purchase something via the mobile web using BilltoMobile’s checkout process, they’ll be asked to accept the Carrier’s Terms of Use by way of an opt-in checkbox. They then have to opt in a second time on the same screen to the amount being charged to the phone number BilltoMobile has identified as associated with that device. Merchants who want to transition their customers to this new checkout process don’t have to make any changes on their end – the same RESTful APIs they used before will now be used to enable this speedier transaction flow. As for security, BilltoMobile’s payment gateway is tied directly to those belonging to its carrier partners for billing, authentication and customer care purposes. Purchases made through the system then show up on the customer’s next wireless bill, without additional interest charges or subscriber fees. These direct carrier relationships are important to BilltoMobile, as they allow the company to greatly reduce the typical transaction fees than historically ranged from 30%-40%. The first to use BilltoMobile’s new one-click mobile transaction processing is the social gaming community MocoSpace. Initially, the option will be available on just one, yet to be named carrier partner, but BilltoMobile VP of Sales Paris Leung says the company expects to roll out to the service to the other three top U.S. carriers soon.
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| API Management Service Apigee Acquires Mobile Data Platform Usergrid Posted: 18 Jan 2012 06:38 AM PST  Apigee, a provider of API management products and services, which we’ve referred to in the past as a “Google Analytics for APIs” has acquired the mobile cloud platform Usergrid. For those unfamiliar, Usergrid helps to make mobile app development easier by providing the APIs needed to manage data, users and events. The company provides these kind of core APIs for the backend so mobile developers can speed their time to market. With the acquisition, Apigee says it will enable enterprises and developers a “full universe” of APIs, including enterprise APIs, public APIs, and now, thanks to Usergrid, mobile APIs. According to Apigee CEO Chet Kapoor, Usergrid reduces the cost of developing mobile apps by up to 80%, something which complements his company’s goals. “We’re focused on accelerating growth and innovation in the burgeoning ‘app economy’ with a full range of solutions not only for managing and using APIs, but also with best-in-class APIs such as Usergrid,” he says of the move. As a part of the deal, Usergrid founder and CEO Ed Anuff is joining Apigee’s leadership team, where he will continue to guide the development of Usergrid software. Prior to starting Usergrid, Anuff served as executive vice president and general manager of Six Apart, and before that, co-founder of enterprise software company Epicentric. Usergrid is currently in beta and will be offered as part of Apigee’s enterprise API platform and free API developer tools in the months following the acquisition. Apigee will provide Usergrid as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and it will also be available as a free open source software stack that enterprises and developers can host in their own cloud. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
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