Motorola Inc has announced its intention to buy Canadian software tools developer Metrowerks Inc for $95m. The offer is an all cash bid and Motorola intends to pay $6.25 per share. Metrowerks produces the C, C++, Java and assembly language CodeWarrior set of software development tools for desktop and embedded systems programming.
First making its name compilers and programming tools for the Motorola 680×0 chip, Metrowerks went on to dominate the Apple Macintosh programming market from the launch of the first PowerPC-based machines. It began broadening its focus out to Intel-based Windows and NT systems in 1996 (CI No 3,040). It also added support for Advanced Micro Devices Inc processors, and tailored its tools to fit the embedded systems market, where the PowerPC is seeing its most significant growth rates. Other architectures supported by its tools are MIPS and the NEC V800 family.
Last year Metrowerks acquired Tracepoint Technology Inc, a start- up which came out of Digital Equipment Corp’s Palo Alto-based Western Research Labs, where it had been working on binary code instrumentation for the Alpha chip (CI No 3,524). Metrowerks later released the technology as part of its CATS Codewarrior Analysis Tools.
Motorola is looking to speed up and improve system and chip development times with the acquisition. Systems and chips are getting very complicated, a Motorola spokesperson said, and we’re much better off having the tool developer as part of the team. Metrowerks was one of the earliest companies to provide tools supporting the multimedia Altivec instructions added to the PowerPC G4. It also has experience producing programming tools for Motorola’s 56800 DSP family of digital signal processors, another major area of growth for Motorola.
Motorola expects to complete the acquisition in 45 days, subject to regulatory approval. Metrowerks chairman and CEO Jean Belanger, and founder, president and CTO Greg Galanos, who each hold around 12% of the stock, have agreed to tender their shares to Motorola. The Motorola spokesperson said that the company intends to retain all of Metrowerks employees and sites. Metrowerks says it’s business as usual, and that it doesn’t intend to make changes to its business strategy.
