Russia’s search giant Yandex has announced that it has acquired SPB Software, a mobile app developer offering products across many different platforms.
The key to this deal appears to be SPB Shell 3D, a user interface for Android and Symbian, which will be updated to feature easy access to Yandex’s services, such as search. In today’s announcement, the company’s CEO Arkady Volozh says that he sees the interface as “An ideal foundation on which to build up our mobile opportunity.”
Yandex views mobile as a vital part of its growth strategy; Just last week, Yandex announced a deal that will see its search services come as default on Windows Phone 7 devices in Russia. It secured a similar deal with Samsung for its Bada handsets in October.
The acquisition of SPB, which also offers a wide range of utilities and games across Android, Symbian, iOS, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry, WebOS, Maemo, Bada and Windows Mobile, allows Yandex to offer more services under its own name. SPB has offices in Russia, Taiwan and Thailand and employs 75 people.
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