HTC buys mobile services revenue maker

TAIWANESE MOBILE PHONE MAKER HTC has written a $13 million cheque to buy a Paris-based company that specialises in software that promotes services offered by mobile phone outfits and handset makers.

According to its website, Abaxia has three core products. The first is Mobile Portal, which is an embedded application that lets carriers add services and information on a phone's idle screen. Then there is Mobile Finder, which brings device and web search to the idle screen. Finally there is the Abaxia Open Platform, which is a server solution that pushes content, search, and advertising to mobile device idle screens.

Word on the street is that all the services will be integrated into HTC's Sense user interface, so carriers will now be able to push content directly to phone idle screens.

The Mobile Finder product gives HTC fast search similar to Palm's WebOS and Spotlight on the Iphone OS. µ