JAN. 6, 2010 • Apple acquired mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless for $275 million. The company would not disclose whether the acquisition was made to better capitalize on advertising opportunities presented by its extremely popular iPhone.

Impact: It is becoming clear that Google and Apple are increasingly going head-to-head.  Google is steadily getting involved in the mobile hardware space and Google’s specialty is ad sales.  A major way that Google might be able to attract developers to its platforms is by offering the ability to monetize applications by selling advertising.  With the purchase of Quattro, Apple should be able to offer iPhone developers a similar opportunity.  However, for mobile game developers, it is still too early to depend on advertising dollars as a major revenue source.