Microsoft plans acquisition of MobiComp: Portugese Mobile services company

Microsoft has just announced that it plans to acquire MobiComp.  MobiComp is, according to the press release:

…a company that helped pioneer technologies allowing the backup and restoration of mobile data and mobile posting of social content to Web sites such as Facebook. The acquisition would combine MobiComp's expertise building innovative mobile data protection and sharing services with Microsoft's vision to provide compelling experiences that span work and play across mobile phones, the Web and PCs. Terms of the planned acquisition are not being disclosed.

MobiComp, founded in 2000 in Braga, Portugal offers a number of services, according to their website.  These are from the Products page:

Protect it:
MobileKeeper™ Backup & Restore is the most comprehensive ‘over the air’ mobile backup and restore solution in the marketplace. It can protect any kind of content held on a mobile device from contacts, calendars, text messages, photos, videos, music, bookmarks,
ring tones and applications to business files like Microsoft Word and Excel. The backup takes place automatically, direct to a secure web site, so that data can be easily recovered - and managed - via a simple, secure web interface.

Share it:
MobileKeeper™ Sharing & Communities is the perfect tool for the burgeoning trend of mobile social networking. Users can create, share and download content, while building their personal communities and networks or publish content direct to blogs and social networking sites such as Flickr and Hi5 on the move, with ease.

Discover it:
Mobilekeeper™ Service Discovery includes the latest product in the suite, the Active mTicker™ - a zero-click application that pushes aggregated, personalised information at subscribers via an always-on, scrolling ‘ticker’ that runs along the bottom of the screen when the device is in idle mode. It’s a win-win that provides a direct and powerful channel for:

• Operators to push personalised, high-value content and services (as well as advertising) direct to customers;
• Customers to discover and subscribe to new services and products - from RSS feeds to blogs.

In addition, MobiComp offers Active mTicker, “a mobile, “zero-click” application that pushes personalised information at subscribers via an always-on, scrolling ticker that runs along the bottom of the screen when the device is in idle mode”.

…and also MobileKeeper:

MobileKeeper™ automatically backs up and restores all types of mobile data -from contacts, calendars, text mes­sages, photos, videos, music, bookmarks, ring tones and applications to business files like Microsoft Word and Excel.

• The backup takes place automatically and data can be easily recovered via a simple web interface.
• The data is compressed ‘over the air’ which speeds download time and increases security.
• And it’s all done intelligently, so only new data is backed up each time, and if for any reason a download is interrupted, MobileKeeper remembers what was saved beforehand.