Qualcomm acquires iSkoot, gains cloud smartphone services

Qualcomm has acquired iSkoot, a developer of mobile social networking and Skype communications software for mobile phones. The company will now focus on supporting its current customers, integrating its offerings with Qualcomm's products, and developing open source data management contributions for mobile devices.

Founded in 2005, the San Francisco-based iSkoot calls itself a pioneer in providing services at the intersection of mobile and the Internet. The company works with leading device manufacturers and US mobile operators to bring popular social networks and new Internet services to mobile handsets with an emphasis on reducing data bandwidth usage on the network and saving battery life on phones.

iSkoot's Kalaida Platform is designed to move data-intensive tasks through iSkoot-managed proxy servers, which in turn transcode and aggregate the traffic so that the actual frequency and size of tge data transmissions is greatly reduced. In short, Kalaida brings the power of cloud computing to consumer mobile devices, minimizing impact on network and handset performance.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but the acquisition details in themselves are confusing: the acquisition was actually made by Qualcomm Innovation Center, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, and the acquired company was actually iSkoot Technologies, a newly-formed corporation that has recently received substantially all of the assets of iSkoot. It was backed by Charles River Ventures, Jesselson Capital, Khosla Ventures, Vision Opportunity Master Fund, and ZG Ventures.