The transaction is not expected to have a material impact to Myriad revenue or EBITDA for the full fiscal 2009.
“Xumii was the first software developer to combine social networks and instant messaging into a seamless mobile experience,” said Simon Wilkinson, CEO at Myriad. “We are delighted that this talented team has joined Myriad.”
Over the past year, social networking has emerged as the key application driving consumer adoption of mobile data services. Facebook is leading the way, already reporting 65 million mobile users per month, up from 20 million just eight months ago. Research firm eMarketer forecasts that there will be more than 800 million mobile users of social networks by 2012.
Using a cloud computing architecture, Xumii integrates a mobile user’s phone contacts, social networks and instant messaging services into a single social phonebook. Mobile users can then simultaneously access Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Windows Live and other popular internet services, sending messages, updating status and sharing photos and videos.
The Xumii technology is ideal for massmarket mobile phones, which do not have sufficient processing power, battery life and memory for advanced, always on data services. Xumii overcomes these shortfalls by moving the bulk of the processing and data storage to its servers, the cloud.
“The acquisition of Xumii further strengthens our position as the partner of choice for mobile operators and handset manufacturers seeking to add social networking features to mass market phones,” added Wilkinson.
Myriad already provides software to all of the major phone manufacturers, as well as more than 30 mobile operators across the globe.