Motorola to Buy Software Maker Blue Wave

Motorola

(MOT)

said Wednesday it would buy software maker

Blue Wave Systems

(BWSI)

for up to $165 million in stock in order to boost its telecom services platform.

Schaumburg, Ill.'s, Motorola, the second-largest seller of mobile phones after

Nokia

(NOK) - Get Report

, said it would issue 6.5 million shares of its stock for all shares of Blue Wave, which is a based in Carrollton, Texas.

According to the terms of the deal, each Blue Wave share will be exchanged for 0.3947 shares of Motorola common stock, provided the average closing price for a share of Motorola is no more than $25.38 over 20 trading days before the deal closes. The exchange ratio will be adjusted if the average Motorola share price exceeds that level, the company said. Motorola expects the deal to be completed during the second quarter of 2001, pending regulatory approval,

Shares of Motorola closed at $18.30 on Wednesday activity on the

New York Stock Exchange

, down from its 52-week high of $61.54 but closer to its 52-week low of $15.81. Blue Wave closed at $7.50 but recently gained 38 cents, or 5%, to $7.88 in pre-open

Island

trading.

Blue Wave's ComStruct product line, which targets telecommunications and wireless markets, speeds up digital signal processing, or DSP, application development by as much as five-fold when compared to traditional methods, Motorola said.