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Nvidia Buys iReady

iReady Corp., a maker of TCP offload engines (TOEs) and iSCSI processors, has been bought by Nvidia Corp., which makes graphical and commmunications processors for PCs and workstations.

Terms of the purchase weren't disclosed, though one industry insider puts the price at a shockingly low $6 million. For that, the source says, Nvidia's getting iReady's intellectual property and most of its hardware engineers. Both companies are headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif.

IReady's sale was expected, and, given its precarious financials, it wouldn't be surprising if its final sale price were low. The company lost millions over the last couple of years, as revealed in SEC documents filed by National Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE: NSM), which owned 16 percent of the company (see iReady to Go).

IReady CEO and founder Ryo Koyama isn't commenting on his company's selling price. He says the sale occurred in the course of looking for new funding. And he acknowledges Nvidia's getting an undisclosed number of patents and patent applications -- one is listed on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Website, for a "multiple network protocol encoder/decoder and data processor."

Koyama says the core team of engineers going to Nvidia is "material." The firm, he tells us, had 52 employees at the end. His own plans include staying on board for another three months or so to help with the integration effort. After that, he's not sure where his next project will take him.

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