Half a billion dollars: why Apple's acquisition of Anobit matters

Apple reportedly acquired the Israeli flash memory design firm Anobit in a deal that cost the company $500 million dollars.

Anobit management told its staff of the acquisition this week, according to Israeli newspaper Calcalist, after Apple's head of R&D visited the company's headquarters last week. Additionally, Apple is supposedly planning to build a research center in Israel as well, conveniently located in a hotbed of silicon design. The acquisition is one of the most expensive for Apple since it acquired NeXT in 1996—15 years ago to the day, in fact—and should cement the company's strategic shift to solid-state flash storage for its products.