Google has announced a $106.5 million (€73.9 million) stock purchase of On2 Technologies, a company that specialises in the compression of digitised video files, enabling the data packages to move more quickly through the internet.
The On2 client list includes Skype, Sony and Sun Microsystems, but it still lost $51 million in the last year.
The technology can be expected to be integrated into Chrome, Google’s recently launched internet browser. There are also potential synergies with YouTube, Google’s video sharing website that uses the widely distributed Flash, potentially opening up a new front in the battle with Adobe and Microsoft.