Appcelerator, maker of an integrated mobile platform for rapidly developing native and mobile Web applications using open Web technologies, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Particle Code.
Particle Code offers a mobile gaming and HTML5 development platform. And this acquisition enables Appcelerator to expand its platform used by over 1.6 million developers to become one that offers an integrated native, hybrid, and HTML5 Web application solution. The HTML5 mobile Web offering will be rolled out in the first half of 2012, the company said.
Appcelerator officials said the move accelerates Appcelerator’s position as a leading cross-platform development framework, now able to offer both Web and native app development from a singular code base to developers in every app category. The Particle Code team has joined Appcelerator’s iOS, Android, and HTML5 core platform group in Mountain View, Calif. The acquisition is the second this year for Appcelerator following its acquisition of Aptana in January.
Moreover, the Particle Code acquisition allows Appcelerator to speed up the build out of its open source flagship platform, Appcelerator Titanium, beyond native iOS and Android mobile applications and into HTML5 mobile Web and gaming, the company said. This provides a path for developers concerned about increasing fragmentation in the market between Adobe’s Flash, native development and a variety of HTML5 frameworks. By enabling both Web and native mobile application development from one singular codebase, Appcelerator allows developers to bridge the divide and create a platform-agnostic mobile strategy that will be optimized on every device and evolve with the ecosystem moving forward, regardless of how the platform wars shake out.
“The Particle Code acquisition is a big win for mobile developers across the board,” said Jeff Haynie, CEO of Appcelerator, in a statement. “As fragmentation among proprietary mobile vendors increases, Appcelerator offers an open source, integrated mobile platform as a better approach for unifying cross-platform native and HTML5 mobile Web development.”
“Game and rich media developers are notoriously picky about performance, demanding that apps deliver a first-class experience on every device,” added Galia Benartzi, Particle Code’s CEO, also in a statement. “We’re excited to bring these technical capabilities to Appcelerator and help Titanium go for the win in this disruptive space,”
Meanwhile, as the race for mobile engineering talent continues heating up in Silicon Valley, the Particle Code acquisition is also notable for adding a dozen high-caliber developers to Appcelerator’s core platform team. The Particle Code team represents over 100 combined engineering years in every mobile, smartphone and desktop platform. Appcelerator now tops 100 employees, a five-fold increase since closing its last funding round a year ago.
Appcelerator is also staking a claim in the cross-platform solutions market. Titanium now powers 30,000 applications including NBC’s iPad app, which reached #1 on the Apple App Store last month, GetGlue, the #2 social networking app, Hotel Tonight, the #1 travel app, and Wunderlist the #1 productivity app. Appcelerator’s other top brand customers include Kellogg’s, Zipcar, ING, Merck, Medtronic, Michael’s Stores, Progressive, and GameStop among 1,000 customers with production applications built on Titanium.
“Appcelerator’s latest acquisition and its tremendous growth over the past year underscore that it is one of the key start-ups to watch given its increasingly central role in the mobile apps space,” said Scott Ellison, an IDC analyst, in a statement.