There was this post the other day by M.G. Siegler citing an example of Disney owning both ESPN and Anaheim Mighty Ducks at the same time for a period and that Boston Red Sox is owned by The New York Times Company. This particular situation however, is not exactly comparable. Like the title said, it’s like Tap Tap Tap buying TUAW. Or the Red Sox buying the NYTimes.
Okay, so Willson Cuaca, CEO of Apps Foundry, is a partner at East Ventures which owns Penn Olson which broke the news on the acquisition. He became CEO following an investment by EV. Apps Foundry purchased a majority stake in MakeMac whose founder now sits on the advisory board. Got that yet? You see the train wreck here?
In no situation can I expect this deal to make sense. The reason given? Shared vision of growing and reaching out to the Indonesian Mac and iOS communities. That’s bullshit. Come on. Sure it’s a shared vision, sure both parties would like those communities to grow (clearly for very different reasons) but giving that as a reason for the buyout is purely press talk.
If it was East Ventures buying a large stake of MakeMac and at the same time owning part of App Foundry, there’d be no problems with that. It’d be exactly like Disney owning both ESPN and the Mighty Ducks, or like East Ventures owning Apps Foundry and Penn Olson. Oh wait.
In the original version of this post on my own blog, I stated that the founder gets a position on the parent company. I read that wrongly. He gets to become an advisor to the blog, which sounds more like it’s an exit for him especially since the blog is going to be run by the new owners.
Will the blog survive and maintain its course? I don’t see why not. Will it remain an independent blog? I doubt it, after all, it’d be run by an app company instead of by itself. So congratulations on the pile of cash, commiserations on the acquisition.