With a transformation of its mobile ecosystem underway - TaT, QNX, PlayBook etc - RIM has announced it has acquired Canadian studio tinyHippos for an undisclosed fee.

Announced simultaneously by both firms on their respective blogs, RIM claims it's happy to welcome the developer on board thanks to its "expertise in cross-platform emulation environments to the BlackBerry platform".

App acceleration

"TinyHippos are the makers of a mobile environment emulator called Ripple and have extensive experience in web and mobile widget/web development," said RIM's VP of global alliances and developer relations Tyler Lessard.

"We have been integrating support for web technologies like HTML5 and BlackBerry WebWorks into our developer platform, and working to continually deliver enhanced tools and frameworks to our developer community.

"We look forward to working with the team at tinyHippos to further provide a simplified and streamlined experience to our developers."

The acquisition comes just as RIM is looking to strengthen support for its forthcoming PlayBook tablet.

PlayBook is set to utilise Android's ecosystem, with RIM enabling developers to sell Android 2.3 apps on the platform, running via a downloadable app player, as well as sourcing native games from Unity's Union scheme.

Big buy for tinyHippos

For its part, tinyHippos claims it is looking forward to tapping into RIM's extensive resources.

"This is a great step towards our goal of providing a cross-platform mobile application development and testing tool to developers worldwide," said co-founder and CTO Dan Silivestru.

"Specifically, we will be working to bring BlackBerry support to the Ripple product.

"We also want to reassure all new and existing users that we expect that the Ripple product will continue to be offered for download and the team will continue to develop features, provide support, and help grow the mobile application developer community."

[source: RIM/tinyHippos]