Amazon got set to announce another acquisition this weekend. The target this time is a company that uses complex algorithms to deal with baby poop. Amazon is looking to buy Quidsi, the company that owns Diapers.com, for $540 million.

I don’t have any children, but I still know that diapers are about as hot a topic among new parents as the impending Call of Duty launch is among fifteen year-old boys. Quidsi is of particular interest to Amazon because of its technical approach to problems like stocking shelves. One of the company’s founders told Inc. last year:

So before we launched, we built proprietary software from scratch. We built software with computational algorithms to determine what the optimal number of boxes to have in the warehouse is and what the sizes of those boxes should be. Should we stock five different kinds of boxes to ship product in? Twenty kinds? Fifty kinds? And what size should those boxes be? Right now, it’s 23 box sizes, given what we sell, in order to minimize the cost of dunnage (those little plastic air-filled bags or peanuts), the cost of corrugated boxes, and the cost of shipping. We rerun the simulation every quarter. Using the right box probably adds close to 1 margin point.

Sound familiar? That’s exactly the kind of thing that helped Bezos make a name for himself. It’s also how Zappos, which Amazon also acquired not so long ago, ran their online shoe store.

The crazy part of the deal, though, is that Amazon paid $200 million over the company’s most recent venture valuation. I’m not sure why, unless they really wanted to be sure they were the ones to get it. Apparently Wal-Mart had also been sniffing around Quidsi.

Source: CNN Fortune

Hardly a day passes when Google isn’t buying some new startup or a service that has just exploded into mainstream popularity. Late yesterday the news broke that the search giant had just purchased yet another company, but this time it was a name I’d never heard: Agnilux.

After the implicit “who the hell is that,” I dug around to see what I could find. It turns out Agnilux is a server hardware development company, some are guessing a chip developer, that’s packed to the gills with former TiVo and Apple employees. Agnilux was also founded by former employees of P.A. Semi, another chip developer that Apple bought in 2008.

It suffices to say Google is getting a lot of talent in this little-known acquisition. The TiVo ties have raised questions about Google TV, but as far as anyone knows it’s just one guy in Agnilux that came from TiVo. Still, when we don’t much, it seems like anything could be reasonable.

Apple dropped $275 million to enter the world of mobile advertising today. The company purchased Quattro Wireless, one of AdMob’s direct competitors.

Though you may have never heard of it, Quattro has done some big business with some big names. The company has worked with CBS, Univision, and the NFL to deliver mobile ads across several platforms. This is a big move for Apple, another in a string of acquisitions that positions it for direct competition with Google. Given Apple’s history of going after the industry giant, it could be an interesting fight.

Here’s the email Apple sent to BGR confirming the deal:

Happy New Year from Quattro Wireless!

We are thrilled to let you know that Apple has acquired Quattro. We want to share with you our excitement about this news and what it means for our customers.

We have built our business by enabling advertisers to reach the right consumers across the mobile web and in applications. We remain focused on delivering more engaging, relevant and useful ads to mobile devices, and improving the measurement and execution of digital campaigns. Together with Apple, we look forward to developing exciting new opportunities in the future that will benefit our customers.

For now, the offerings and services you receive from Quattro Wireless will not change. We will continue to operate the Quattro Wireless network across all devices and platforms. Your client and support teams will remain the same, and you can continue to expect the world-class service we are proud to deliver to our customers.

We look forward to working with you during this exciting time.

Andy Miller
Vice President, Mobile Advertising
Apple

Source: BGR