RIM buys out Viigo

Although the timing of the announcement is a bit of a surprise given that RIM’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium kicks off in one month’s time, Mark Ruddock, CEO of popular BlackBerry development firm Viigo, announced Friday afternoon that his firm has been acquired by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. Viigo, whose self-titled application is easily one of the most popular applications for BlackBerry, started out life as an RSS reader but made big waves in 2008 when it began introducing new features to the application such as the ability to track sports scores, weather, movie times, stock performance, flight information and notifications, podcasts and more. Viigo has historically developed for Windows Mobile, although it is unclear whether or not this will continue in the wake of the acquisition. But if Ruddock’s failure in his note to mention any future plans for Windows Mobile is any sign of things to come, then things aren’t looking so rosy for any platform that isn’t in the best interest of BlackBerry.

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