Motorola Announces Plan to Acquire Metrowerks

Motorola has announced that its Semiconductor Products Sector plans to buy all outstanding common shares of Metrowerks for approximately $95 million in cash, pending shareholder and regulatory approval. Metrowerks develops the CodeWarrior product line of programming tools; CodeWarrior is the leading development environment for the Mac OS, but versions are also available for various flavors of Linux, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, Java, Palm devices, game consoles, and more. According to Motorola, Metrowerks products and technology will help form the software backbone of Motorola’s DigitalDNA initiative for embedded systems, ranging from cell phones and digital television to communications and automotive systems. However, Metrowerks will be operated as a standalone subsidiary with its current management, so CodeWarrior products for desktop operating systems (including the Mac OS) will probably continue to be developed and enhanced. Motorola’s move will have complex implications for Apple, since Motorola will both supply the PowerPC CPU chips used in Macintosh products and own the most widely used software development environment for the Macintosh.