Motorola Buys App Dev Tools Maker For $95 Million

In a move to enhance its desktop and embedded systemsprogramming, semiconductor vendor Motorola yesterday shelled out $95 million for Metrowerks Inc.

Metrowerks' product line, CodeWarrior, is a package of programming tools that use C, C++, Java, and assembly programming languages. Motorola is looking to incorporate the development tools into its open and extensible software development tools to boost the company's DigitalDNA embedded systems products. CodeWarrior is one of the few graphical Linux application development environments that supports Linux from Red Hat Software.

Under the terms of the agreement, Motorola will pay $6.25 per share for 15.2 million shares of Metrowerks. Preliminary quarterly results for Metrowerks for the period ended July 31 show that the company expects to report a loss of about $5 million based on revenue of about $3.3 million.

Following the announcement, Metrowerks closed up 31/32 at 6- 1/32 and Motorola dropped 2-1/16 to 86-5/8.