Apple buying Israeli flash memory company for $400-500 million
Apple is paying $400-500 million for Anonbit, an Israeli maker of flash memory. The reported goal of Apple's acquisition of Anobit is to increase the amount of memory in its portable devices, like the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air, as well as to improve the reliability of solid-state memory.Hmmm.
Apple is now expected to build a development center in Haifa, where Intel, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Qualcomm also have facilities. The Anobit purchase is believed to be the first acquisition for Apple with Tim Cook as CEO.
Rumors of a deal between Apple and Anobit first surfaced a week ago from the same source. Anobit is a 200-employee Israeli fabless semiconductor company that specializes in flash storage, and Apple is said to be particularly interested in the company's proprietary memory signal processing technology.
Anobit has about 100 pending and granted patents, and was first founded in 2006. A $500 million purchase price would be about 7 times the $80 million it has raised in invested capital, as noted by ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall.
Apple's allegedly purchase of Anobit also comes as the company is rumored to be planning to build a semiconductor development center in Israel. That facility would be Apple's first strategic development center located outside of the company's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.
Labels: Israeli high tech
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:45 AM
2 Comments:
$500 mil. price on $80 mil. Nice ROI for the stock owners & investors in Anobit! The logo "Intel inside" is steadily morphing into "Israel inside" on the world's PCs, smartphones, etc. This is another example that a free society's most valuable asset is the educated, creative minds of it's citizens.
Here's another link on this... very exciting! Looks like the R&D center isn't just a rumor... I want to work there!
http://news.investors.com/Article/anobit-apple-israel/594966/201112151854/Apple-RandD-expands-to-Israel.htm
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