mchen@heraldsun.com; 419-6636
DURHAM -- PocketGear Inc., a homegrown mobile phone applications company, has acquired its main competitor, Handango, and become the largest cross-platform, open app store in the world, the company announced Monday.
It also may be the third largest app store in the world after Apple and Google, added founder and president Jud Bowman in Dallas, Texas, where he was overseeing the transition for Handango.
Details of the transaction were not disclosed.
PocketGear and Handango were the two largest independent app stores and have generated more than $400 million in revenue from customers living in more than 175 countries and using more than 2,000 unique mobile devices.
The combined company now has a catalog of more than 140,000 apps from customers with Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm, Linux and Java-powered mobile devices.
"We're going to facilitate an open app store, support every platform," Bowman said. "Apple has had tremendous success, but it's a closed system with only two devices, the iPhone and the iPod Touch. We want to provide an app store that supports all devices."
The acquisition doubles PocketGear's workforce, bringing in 18 employees on the Handango staff in Dallas and combining them with 14 in Durham and another nine employees who serve the European market from Germany.
Bowman said the acquisition will not affect staffing here or in Dallas.
Bowman will remain president and CEO of PocketGear. Alex Bloom, current chief executive of Handango, will become PocketGear's chief operating officer.
PocketGear had spun out of Motricity, a smartphone applications maker, when the company laid off most of its workers in Durham moved its headquarters to the Seattle area.
Formerly the chief technology officer at Motricity, Bowman bought the "smartphone" and direct-to-consumer business from the company to form PocketGear and said from the outset that the company's mission is to become an Amazon.com for advanced cell phone applications, selling them directly to consumers.
The company was formed with backing from investors Noro-Moseley Partners of Atlanta and Wakefield Group of Charlotte and Chapel Hill.
Later that year, PocketGear launched AndroidGear.com, a new online store for smartphones powered by Android, Google's open source operating system. In 2009, Samsung also signed on with PocketGear for its new "Widget Store."
Bloom previously worked at Motricity alongside Bowman, which he said made it easier to acquire Handango ... this time. Bowman said Monday that he had tried to purchase the company twice before. Apparently, the third time was the charm.
With the acquisition, PocketGear's mobile app marketplace has been expanded to connect more than 32,000 app creators and developers with 40 storefront and distribution partners, including four of the world's top five handset manufacturers and leading media and ecommerce companies including Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, Research in Motion, Microsoft, T-Mobile, AT T and Verizon Wireless.
Bowman started his first company more than a decade ago when he was a high school student at the N.C. School of Science and Math.
