OpenWave announced it had agreed to sell its Mediation and Messaging businesses to private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners for an undisclosed sum. Marlin plans to rename the divisions Openwave Mobility and Openwave Messaging. Also on Monday, Myriad Group said it had completed its acquisition of Synchronica, which provides mobile messaging services under carriers' brands, for 23.9 million pounds (about US$38 million).

Built-in messaging software is a bigger business on feature phones than on smartphones, which are backed by app stores, said analyst Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates. There is still demand for such software, especially in developing countries, but the business is consolidating, he said. Smartphones have been seizing a rapidly growing share of the handset market, especially in more affluent countries. A Nielsen Mobile Insights survey in February said and smartphone use had grown 38 percent from a year earlier.

Messaging companies also serve as clearinghouses between carriers, but that is a heavily volume-based business that may soon be dominated by a few bigger providers, such as Sybase 365, he said.

Synchronica, based in the U.K., last June for $25 million. That business provides the software behind email and mobile messaging services that are sold under the brands of more than 100 carriers worldwide, Myriad said. It also provides messaging software built into phones from 25 manufacturers, the company said in a press release.

Nokia sold off that business as it shifted its focus to the Windows Phone platform. Under the Nokia deal, Synchronica also was to continue supplying the messaging software on Nokia's Series 40 feature phones. Most of the price that Nokia and Synchronica agreed on was to be in deferred payments, and in its effort to acquire Synchronica beginning last November, Myriad Group argued that Synchronica would not be able to make those payments on its own.