Motorola acquires Aloqa, will add location-aware content to MOTOBLUR

[Pzyduck]

Motorola confirmed on Thursday that it has acquired Aloqa, a technology firm that specializes in delivering location-aware content to mobile phones. Based in Palo Alto, California and Munich, Germany, Aloqa will join Motorola Mobility, the mobile division of Motorola that will be spun off from the new Motorola Solutions, Inc in early 2011.

Aloqa’s technology and services uses a customer’s location, social network status, and identity to alert them of nearby attractions, local events, neighboring sales, and more. The location technology will be used to enhance MOTOBLUR and will integrate into Motorola’s server-side context delivery architecture.

In layman terms, Motorola will use MOTOBLUR to send location-based information to your Android phone. Restaurants, stores, local deals, and more will be delivered quickly and easily to your handset. Contrary to circulating rumors, MOTOBLUR may be morphing into a services and content delivery platform, but it is not going away.

This acquisition comes hot on the heels of HTC’s recent announcement of its newly revised Sense UI. The new Sense will also include location services, but HTC’s offering focuses more on mapping than context-aware information. Both services, though different, highlight the popularity of location-based applications. Merely a concept a few years ago, location-aware mobile applications are exploding and manufacturers do not want to miss out on this hot trend in mobile computing.



Source: IntoMobile