The activities of the bigger California-based tech giants, like Google and Apple, seem far removed from the region, so it’s fun to see when they pick up companies in the region for technology or software acquisitions. Hitting the newswires yesterday was news of Apple’s acquisition of Malmö-based AlgoTrim. The software developer creates compression technology for tasks like images, video, and software for mobile phones, making it clear what Apple’s plans are with the technology.
AlgoTrim got started in 2005 where they created a Code Compression library for the NAND-flash physical storage medium – the type of flash memory found in USB sticks and SSDs. They say on their Company’s history that by the end of 2005 their library had been integrated into “one of the largest mobile phone company’s feature phone platform and launched onto the market.” By 2011 they estimated more than 100 million devices have been launched with their technology.
This isn’t code for just working with Apple all these years, the company has been doing a few things for Android by reporting bugs optimizing the framework to help speed up their codecs.
Öresund region news site Rapidus reports that in February of 2011 all of AlgoTrim’s shares were aquired by an anonymous Delaware-based holding company, and that former CEO Anders Berglund is now employed by Apple in Cupertino.
In response to the news, Apple said in a statement, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
