Oracle has purchased the intellectual property assets of mobile application specialist AppForge.

The deal, which had been the subject of growing rumour, was confirmed by an Oracle spokesperson on Wednesday, but no further details were disclosed.

The database giant was believed one of two companies in the running for Georgia-based AppForge, which mysteriously shut down last month.

The deal is expected to broaden Oracle's mobile applications and portal strategy for developers on Microsoft's Visual Studio IDE. It follows Sun Microsystems' purchase of mobile Java specialist SavaJe's intellectual property assets last week.

AppForge, maker of the Crossfire platform for BlackBerry, Palm, Windows PocketPC and Smartphone, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and Motorola devices had raised $24m in funding from a number of venture capital firms since 2001. ®

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