The technology giant Apple has bought out the small San Francisco based company Particle, in a move which has seen less than 12 employees of the firm taken under the wing of Apple.
Particle is a creative firm that was set up in early 2008 and has focused on HTLM 5 development for other larger scale technology centres such as Google, Motorola, Sony, Yahoo and also Apple. It has also been involved in setting up an asynchronous video interviewing project called ‘labs.’
According to Particle’s website they believe HTML 5 and Web Kit which currently drive internet and web experiences on Android, iPad and iPhone are becoming a lowest common denominator in next generation browsers such as Google Chrome and Safari. They hope their specialist technology will soon be driving light weight, embedded applications on set top boxes, games consoles and portable media / telephony devices.
It is unusual for Apple to buy out other technology practices, it has been speculated that the move was in a drive to talent spot workers from particle. Particle is financially backed by the musician Justin Timberlake.
Apple made this statement about the takeover:
“Particle brings positive and energetic relationships with Google and the Chrome team specifically, as well as great Apple relationships and execution experience around iAds, iTunes Extras, and Apple.com. We have participated in and piloted much of the technology which will display the next generation of advertising and deliver media content for the next decade.”
The move is thought to put focus on the use of HMTL 5 on Apple webpages such as icloud.com, iAD and its product pages, which are some of the few places Apple has web applications. Employees that previously worked for particle are now working in positions such as ‘user interface engineer’ and ‘creative technologist,’ several of its employees previously worked for Yahoo on user experience.
Particle was bought for an undisclosed sum however; previous takeovers by Apple have cost around $400 million, such as with the takeover of the flash memory maker from Israel Anobit. The takeover will increase the pool of talent Apple has to draw on when increasing its services for customers.
