The H-S and N&O reported yesterday that a spin-off of Motricity is staying in Durham, and in the American Tobacco Campus to boot -- and appears to be the first tenant to move into the Power House building under renovation in the center of the campus.
PocketGear is a successor to PalmGear, one of the early 1990s PDA software sites, brought into Motricity by its president/CEO Ryan Wuerch. Motricity co-founder and one-time CTO Jud Bowman bought PocketGear out from Motricity this summer, due in part to his lack of interest in moving to Motricity's new Pacific Northwest headquarters, and in part to a desire to build another company from the ground up.
The firm works to develop software applications for popular mobile smartphone and PDA platforms, a potentially lucrative market given the widespread growth of these devices.
The papers note that PocketGear staff are set to move next week into the Power House at American Tobacco, the last building in the original Ambacco set to be renovated; the first floor is set to house Ben Benson's steakhouse and a smaller, lower-priced grill, while PocketGear will be moving into the fourth floor.
Contractors for fire, electrical, plumbing and other trades have been pulling building permits for the Power House generally and Ben Benson's specifically for much of the year, with fourth floor tenant upfit permits being pulled since early October, presumably for PocketGear.
The firm is expected to bring almost 20 employees from Motricity's to-be-vacated space in the north end of American Tobacco to the new digs.
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