“NewsGator Buys NetNewsWire from Ranchero, Gets Brent Too”

I first saw a story about this on Jim's Have Browser, Will Travel, and was quite surprised. Ranchero Software (Brent and Sheila Simmons) has sold NetNewsWire to NewsGator (one of the 'big dogs' in the RSS world).

The Q & A at NewsGator's site answers a lot of the questions I saw (or thought of) when I started looking around for more information, but here's the answer to my own question:

Q: Brent, I thought you loved being an independent developer. How could you work for another company?

Brent: I did love being an independent developer, absolutely. But I also love the idea of being able to take NetNewsWire to the next level and work with a bunch of smart folks who share the vision of RSS everywhere.

While there is still so much we — my wife Sheila and I, Ranchero Software — could do as a small independent company, we couldn’t possibly do everything NewsGator is doing. We couldn’t, on our own, deliver syncing across all these devices and platforms, even though our customers were asking for it.

Since us buying NewsGator wasn’t completely realistic, we decided to join NewsGator. ;)

What he doesn't say, of course, is just how many Millions and Millions of Dollars he got from this deal, so I guess we'll just have to speculate. ;-) I hope he did very well, and that his deal's value doesn't depend *entirely* on NewsGator's future stock value. (I think they'll do quite nicely, but that's beside the point.)

Actually, this move doesn't surprise me all that much. I do remember wondering if something like this would happen, back when NewsGator acquired FeedDemon and it's creator, Nick Bradbury (who officially welcomes Brent to NewsGator here).

The Q&A also mentions MarsEdit, which is now looking for a home. I'm surprised about that... NewsGator took on TopStyle, Nick's HTML editor, but not MarsEdit, a weblog editor. Would MarsEdit seem to be at least as 'in sync' with their other product offerings? Strange.