Windows Phone Thoughts: Handmark Spins Off Astraware After Only Two Years of Togetherness

"Handmark, the world's leading developer and distributor of mobile applications and services, today announced it has spun off its mobile games studio, Astraware, as the company streamlines its business to focus on other strategic areas of mobile development and support. Astraware returns to the management of Howard Tomlinson and David Oakley, two of the original founders, and will remain a Handmark preferred partner. Handmark will continue to support Astraware on a variety of distribution and promotional opportunities."

Back in January 2008, Handmark acquired prolific mobile device games-maker Astraware. Now, a bit over two years later, Astraware is back to being an independent studio. The press release (which isn't posted online yet) doesn't say why the two are splitting up - two years isn't very long in the world of blending two companies together - but perhaps the acquisition was made in haste...