Apple acquires mapping, note taking firms Catch, Broad Map
24 Dec 2013
Apple is reported to have bought two companies operating in the areas of mapping and note-taking as part of the its 'strategic acquisitions' CEO Tim Cook said.
With the acquisition of Broad Map, the tech giant is revisiting the field of analysing mapping data, where it had had to struggle with in the past.
According to Cnet, the other company, Catch, is a competitor to Evernote that Apple acquired a few months ago.
The reports said, during the company's fourth-quarter earnings conference call, Cook had said that the company had made 15 'strategic acquisitions' this year and BroadMap and Catch appeared to be part of that list.
However, there is an interesting twist to the BroadMap acquisitisition in that the company still claims it exists as a separate compay, not owned by Apple. However, according to some reports, at least seven of BroadMap's staff had moved to Apple, having left around March 2013.
Further, BroadMap denied having been acquire by Apple via its official Twitter account, but that account had been removed and does not exist any more. In a statement that Apple released to AllThingsD, it claimed in response that they ''don't talk about'' the acquisitions that they make.
According to commentators that confirmed that the company bought BroadMap, as Apple usually would not say anything at all in such cases if they really had not purchased a company.
The report added, Geographic Information Systems specialist James Fee acknowledged that BroadMap lost some of their of their IP and executive talent to Apple. However, he added that, according to BroadMap's website, it still functioned as a separate company.
According to commentators, Apple might own the company outright, but in the interest of not jeopardising the current deals BroadMap has with other companies, it has not been forthcoming on the deal.
It could be that Apple wanted to keep BroadMap alive as a means of delivering tech that was now owned by Apple, but licensed back to BroadMap and others.
They point out that while Apple might not have technically acquired BroadMap, it might amount to the same thing in practice.
