October 21, 2005 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – In a deal valued at about $30 million, VeriSign Inc. has acquired Moreover Technologies, a Web-based distributor of news and online material such as Web logs. The deal combines Moreover's links to more than 12,000 news sources and a vast Weblog network with VeriSign's information technology. It also brings customers such as MSN, AskJeeves and BBC onto VeriSign’s books.
The deal comes soon after VeriSign's purchase of Weblogs Inc. last week and Merrill Lynch has suggested that the two deals position VeriSign to target mobile phone users. "Although the deals are a new direction for VeriSign, they are consistent with the company's strategy of building out content delivery services, which can ultimately target mobile users," the company said in a message to clients.
VeriSign's infrastructure will enable Moreover's customers to deliver real-time content and make it easier for publishers and bloggers to distribute their content. eBay Inc. announced last week that it would purchase VeriSign's payment processing business and merge it with its PayPal unit in a deal worth $370 million.
