Lucent is once again buying an Israeli company. The US telecommunications equipment company announced today that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Israeli start-up Mobilitec, a provider of content management software for wireless service providers. Lucent will pay $75 million cash.
Mobilitec was founded in 2000 by Ophir Holder, Yoad Gidron, and Haim Teichholtz. Its headquarter are in California, and it has a development center in Israel. The company has developed a content platform via which mobile telephony operators sell integrated mobile content, including ring tones, games, music and videos. Its mPower platform works on a special global standard developed by Sun Microsystems for mobile handsets, J2ME. The standard enables the transmission of dynamic content to mobile handsets on demand.
Mobilitec's investors are chiefly international companies making strategic investments: AIG Orion, Duchossois Technology Partners, Lucent Venture Partners Inc., and SingTel - Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. Altogether, Mobilitec raised some $29 million.
Since 2003, the company's president and CEO has been Margaret Norton, who replaced Ophir Holder. Before joining Mobilitec, Norton was general manager and senior VP of the Service Provider division at Octel Communications, which was also later sold to Lucent.
"In combination with Lucent's applications, services and global reach, Mobilitec's software and content expertise will give customers new opportunities to create and deliver revenue-producing services to their subscribers. We are delighted to be joining a company where our combined strengths bring significant increased value to the market," Norton said today.
Lucent has made several acquisitions in Israel, the largest of which was of Chromatis, which Lucent bought six years ago in a deal valued at $4.8 billion at the time the agreement was signed. It eventually closed the company down.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on September 12, 2006
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